Mental Game Articles
What Does it Mean to Have a Winning Mindset?
For too many athletes, a win is not just a goal they are pushing for; it is required to prove that they are enough and valuable as a person. The default thinking has shifted to a ‘win-at-all-cost’ mentality, leading to a lack of confidence, motivation, and burnout for the most talented athletes across every sport. In this post, I will challenge you to trade the expectation to win for a winning mindset that you can choose to step into daily.
The Sports Parent’s Guide to Surviving Competition Season
Competition season for many parents is filled with stress and anxiety, but it doesn't have to feel so hard. After reading this post, you will feel relieved and encouraged because you learned strategies for a stress-free competition season that allows you fully support your child while enjoying the experience of watching them perform in the sport they love.
5 Tips To Turn Competition Nerves into Excitement
Competition is not a time for fear and dread. It is a celebration of your hard work and a time when you can relax and enjoy showing off. If this is not your experience, I am glad you are here with me. In this post, I share tips I teach the athletes and parents in my program to help them trade pre-performance anxiety for excitement. You will walk away with strategies you can apply today to show up at your next competition with confidence, trust, and joy! Bonus freebie inside.
DEAR ATHLETE, YOU ARE NOT BROKEN (A Letter About Mental Blocks)
Mental blocks cause athletes to adopt untrue beliefs about who they are and why they are stuck. In this post, I am sharing a unique perspective on mental blocks developed from my experience over the past two decades as a competitive athlete, skills coach, and Mental Performance Coach who specializes in overcoming blocks. By reading this post, you will gain a better understanding of mental blocks and how they affect you, plus plenty of encouragement to push you forward confidently.
The Perfectly Imperfect Routine
In this guest post by an MPC athlete, Ansley tells her story of a cheerleading competition that was almost ruined by ... a shoe. "At an early age, I was taught to strive for perfection. It was only when I was at the biggest competition of my career that I learned that it was okay not to be perfect." This essay will inspire you to reassess how you measure success either by perfection and scorecards or self-confidence and focus on your best.
How to Approach Transitions and Finish the Season Strong
In life, we are constantly experiencing change and it is important to understand how to transition well. Whether you are approaching the end of a sports season, school, relationship, job, etc. there are mental shifts that need to happen so that you can stay engaged, grow, and experience success instead of checking out. In this post, I will be sharing 5 Mindset Shifts required to transition well and finish this season strong so that you can stay fully committed to your current situation and still feel motivated and like you are doing great things instead of feeling trapped or pulled in different directions.
How to Finish Competition and Games Strong
Why do individuals and teams start off so strong but then lose control and end up in defeat?! I have been there as an athlete and a coach, and am here to talk you through it. By reading this post, you will gain insights on how you are getting in your own way and sabotaging your success as well as tips for pushing through adversity so you can finish strong and unlock your full potential. Let's do this!
HOW TO FINISH THE YEAR STRONG
How do we stay motivated towards the end of the year when all we want to do is kick back and wait for the fresh start the New Year brings? I have developed a process that I teach my athletes so they finish the year strong with just a few simple steps and today, I am sharing those with you. Get ready to reignite your motivation and feel empowered as you finish the year strong!
4 VALUES OF A CONFIDENT ATHLETE
Success for an athlete is more than a win-loss record but rather how they use their athletic journey as a learning ground for becoming the person they know they are capable of becoming. In this post, I will be highlighting 4 values of confident athletes along with their adversaries and asking you to consider how these are modeled in your life or the life of your athlete.
HOW TO BUILD TRUST IN YOURSELF
How amazing would it be if you could trade your self-doubt for trust so that at practice you can be excited, walk in confident, know what to focus to improve in your skills, and you leave feeling accomplished everyday. These 4 strategies for improving trust in your skills will help you do just that!
HOW TO TURN “I CAN’T!” INTO “I’VE GOT THIS!”
In this post, I will help you get clear on what it looks like to trust or doubt yourself so you can identify unhelpful patterns keeping you stuck and move towards more effective ways of thinking.
10 Productivity Tips For Success
Learning how to be truly productive and manage my time with efficiency has been a process that I am continuing to refine daily. Today, I am excited to share with you my tips and tricks so you can get back to doing what you do best!
How To Trade Overwhelm And Busy For More Focus And Productivity
I have researched ENDLESSLY for solutions to the to-dos, goals, and dreams in my head that lead to overwhelm and get in the way of the level of performance I desire. The process of becoming mentally organized is a journey and having the right tools is essential! Today, I am excited to share with you my tips and tricks so you can get back to doing what you do best!
How To Focus During Workouts
If you are a parent who has tried to prioritize your health and fitness only to give up after a few sessions or an athlete who is tired of dreading conditioning, this is for you. In this post, I will share 3 mindset shifts about working out that will help you feel energized and focused on the process so you can commit to the healthy lifestyle you desire.
Mental Blocks Are A Gift
Mental blocks are a gift and there are good things that can come from them! In this post, I will be sharing with you a few truths that I tell my mental block athletes to help them see the light in a dark place. These mindset shifts help them feel lighter because they learn a more helpful way of thinking about mental blocks which allows them to move from hurt and frustration to encouraged and hopeful.
REDEFINING SUCCESS: A Letter To My Son
Have you ever had a moment where you questioned if you are living the life you truly desire or just going through the motions? In 2019, on a plane ride home at the end of a long day of meetings my heart was so burdened that I got out a notebook and poured my heart out on the page. This was the first experience of my life where I began redefining success in my own way. In this post, I am letting you into my heart and sharing an excerpt of that journal entry.
5 Steps For Competing Like You Practice
In this post, I will provide context and tips for athletes who want to take their practice game to competition consistently. After reading this post, you will feel confident and excited because you will learn how to create a plan for competition which will allow you to enter performance-day mentally ready for success. At the end, I will provide you with a resource that will help you step into every competition energized and ready to mentally win!
How To Build Unshakable Confidence
Why do the most talented athletes feel like they never perform good enough, worry about letting others down, and allow fear to steal their confidence in games? In this post, I cover what confidence is and how it contributes to success as an athlete, how to overcome the pressure of expectations from others and create self-confidence, as well as ways to assess performance so energy and motivation remain high.
The Mental Block Cure
For an athlete to be successful, there are four main areas of training they need to develop: strength, technique, strategy, and you guessed it, mental game. The mental game is arguably the most important because it controls how well you can access your other areas of training. When athletes lack confidence in themselves and struggle to focus, their hard work in the gym is sabotaged. In this blog, I will talk about who mental coaching is for, how it works (and if it works!), and how to get started.
How To Help Your Child Balance Team Expectations In Competition
Mentally preparing for competition is tough, especially when trying to combat the perfectionist ideals and expectations of teams and coaches. The secret to trading pre-competition anxiety with excitement and confidence is turning those expectations into helpful goals your child can use to perform their best. In this post, I will share 3 tips to prepare you for helping your child balance their team’s need to win with goals that will allow them to go into competition with less stress, excited to perform their best without fear of rejection.
How to Overcome Mental Blocks for Cheerleading & Gymnastics
Overcoming a mental block requires a plan. Instead of showing up to practice unsure what it will take to move past your mental block and hoping to be able to "just throw it", you need a proven method to reduce anxiety and fears and increase confidence. Learn the secrets I teach my athletes in this article on My Mind Over Mental Block Method.
How To Break Your Athlete From The Negative Thought Spiral Keeping Them Stuck In Their Skills
There are 5 primary thinking patterns fueling your athletes self-doubt and mental blocks. In this post, I uncover the negative thought patterns that have been stealing your child’s motivation and keeping them stuck in their skills AND give you a free tool to empower your athlete.
THREE STRATEGIES OF THE MENTAL GAME PLAN FOR SUCCESS
At the core of my teachings is the: THE MENTAL GAME PLAN FOR SUCCESS which includes 3 strategies, CONFIDENCE, FOCUS, & FUN. For each strategy, I share current challenges that hold athletes back, what they can do instead, and how parents can support them.
THE SECRET TO ENCOURAGING YOUR CHILD IN SPORTS
Learn the secret to encouraging your child in sports without putting pressure on them, while also helping them learn awareness, motivation, and responsibility.
4 THINKING ERRORS THAT STEAL YOUR EXCITEMENT FOR TRYOUTS
It’s that time of year again… tryouts are right around the corner and the pressure is on! This can be especially true for athletes dealing with a mental block or who are so close to throwing a new skill by themselves. The truth… There are some common ways of thinking that tend to cause so much unnecessary pressure for tryouts.
3 Tips to Turn Tryout Anxiety into Excitement
Tryout anxiety is real and is largely due to common thinking errors athletes hold to be true. In this post, I share 3 Tips for Turning Tryout Anxiety into Excitement
5 BELIEFS OF A CONFIDENT PERFECTIONIST
Perfectionist beliefs get in the way of you reaching your 'full potential'. They cause you to feel like you are never enough and always falling short. In this post, I uncover 5 beliefs confident perfectionists hold that allows them to unleash their potential and use their natural awesomeness to their advantage.
HOW TO HELP YOUR ATHLETE SET GOALS IN THE NEW YEAR
Athletes know what they want and where they want to be, but not necessarily how to get there. Each new year offers the incredible opportunity for you to support your child's performance by helping them get clear on what it is that they truly want and create a path to achieve it.
Cody's Story: From Frustrated to Focused
One of my superstar athlete client's is sharing his story of how mental coaching helped him go from frustrated and being way too hard on himself after games to joyful confidence and freedom.
5 WAYS TO ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILD IN THE NEW YEAR
As parents we want our children to thrive in their sport and life. The challenge is knowing if we are encouraging them or putting more pressure on them. In this article, we share 5 ways to encourage your child in the New Year.
How to Get Mentally Prepared to Compete
After months of preparation which seemed to last forever, the countdown is on for the first competition of the season and fears may be starting to take over. What if it is possible to show up to your competition or game with confidence and excitement? If this sounds too good to be true, keep reading!
Journaling to Improve Your Mental Game and Ease Anxiety
Learning to journal every day is a way to begin to understand how to feel and process emotions, increase mental strength, and reduce anxiety.
Overcoming Social Approval for Teen Athletes
Is your athlete distracted by comments from others on gameday? In this blog, I share 3 tips for overcoming this HUGE mental game challenge.
What Is A Mental Block?
Cheer & Gymnastics Edition
Mental blocks in cheerleading, gymnastics, and tumbling are common and often misunderstood. Understand what a mental block is and how they happen. Special edition specific for cheerleaders and gymnasts.