Do you feel like you go to sleep or zone-out during competition? Athletes who have experienced this don’t vividly remember all the choices they made during the game because their mind is traveling elsewhere. Going to sleep happens when you don't feel challenged or don't have a clear game plan for
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Relaxation and Mental Calmness
My philosophy about training for relaxation and mental calmness is that you must learn strategies that go beyond physical relaxation techniques. You can learn all of the popular relaxation exercises you want, but these are just a band aid approach to the symptoms of anxiety and worry about
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Supporting Your Child’s Performance
Parents sometimes have their own agenda about their kids' athletic experience. Kids need to play for their own reasons. Parents' agendas can sometimes feel to kids like unstated expectations. Remember that the primary goal for your athlete is to have fun in sports.
Young athletes use sports as a
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Social Approval and Making Comparisons
Athletes who seek social approval (or worry about what others think) tend to compare themselves to other players or let what others say and do affect their confidence. It is important for you to focus on your game and not worry about others.
Focus on what you are doing well and not what others
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Well-practiced Routines
The primary responsibility of the coach to help his or her team to prepare to play at a consistently high level. A lack of a consistent pre-game routine may be one challenge that leads to inconsistency. Pre-game routines are the key to consistency.
Regardless of who you are playing, make sure
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Help Your Kids Attain Their Goals
In addition to establishing goals for competition, your child can also establish and monitor goals for practices. This will help them stay committed on track. Obviously, the type of goals your child aims for will depend on his age.
A 5 or 6-year-old's goal may simply be to have fun, make friends
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Prepare Your Mind for Adversity
To be physically relaxed and mentally prepared, you want to be ready to cope with any adversity you encounter in sports. Your mental toughness will be challenged by things that are beyond your control such as weather and officiating, for example. In sports psychology, we use the phrase “anticipate
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Proactive and Reactive Confidence
Many athletes don't take full responsibility for their own confidence prior to competition. Instead, they react to what happens at the start of the game. These athletes must first obtain positive results before they feel confident. You don't want your athletes to take a backseat approach to
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