“Volleyball is a game of mistakes” is a common phrase in volleyball. In fact, Karch Kiraly, the former U.S. women’s national team volleyball coach, has been quoted many times saying that he loves watching his athletes struggle and make mistakes because it is the path to learning and improving.
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Balancing Your Athletic Identity
Did you know that your athletic identity and mental health are interconnected? Athletes and coaches make a ton of sacrifices both on and off the field. We dedicate so much time to conditioning and training, scouting opponents and watching video, mentally preparing, traveling to compete, and recovering in the training room. Throughout our athletic careers, we are conditioned to make great physical, emotional, and social sacrifices to compete at the expense of our mental and physical health. At Headstrong Mindset, we believe balance is the key to longevity in sports. In this article I’m going to talk about what athletes and coaches give up to accomplish their dreams and how to find a healthy balance.
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What is Sport & Performance Psychology?
Sport & performance psychology combines evidence-based research with applied strategies to help athletes, coaches, and performing artists learn how to perform at their optimal level consistently, increase enjoyment and improve overall mental wellness.
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Using Imagery to Reduce Stress, Overcome Injury and Achieve Your Optimal Performance Level
At some point in your career, you will experience an athletic injury. Every runner does eventually. Athletic injuries that disrupt your training routines and prevent you from running regularly are unavoidable. What many runners fail to realize is that an athlete’s mental outlook and stress response during the physical rehabilitation process significantly impacts both the recovery process and the risk of reinjury. Using sport psychology techniques to supplement your physical therapy process will result in more motivation, improved communication with your physical therapist, a better understanding of your injury, increased control over your recovery process, and ultimately a reduction in injury susceptibility.
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Breaking Down Team Cohesion
In sports team cohesion is the tendency for a group of athletes to remain united in pursuit of team goals in the face of adversity.
Carron & Hausenblas (1998) offer a conceptual framework for team cohesion that includes the environment (i.e., group size), leadership (both peer and coaching behavior), team (i.e., roles), and personal factors (i.e., satisfaction). This framework is based upon Carron’s (1985) two principles of group integration and the individual’s attractive to the group (Burke et al., 2014). The principle of group integration is the concept that each athlete has a unique perspective about the closeness or bondedness of the team (Burke et al., 2014). The concept of an individual’s attractive to the group reflects the athlete’s personal benefits of being on the team or how each athlete’s individual needs are being met by other team members throughout the course of a season (Burke et al., 2014).
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What does it mean to take an Internal Family Systems (IFS) Approach?
Internal Family Systems (IFS), also known as “parts work”, is a mindfulness-based approach to self-acceptance and somatic awareness. IFS helps people navigate competition and life with the 8 Cs: confidence, calm, compassion, courage, creativity, clarity, curiosity, and connection. IFS has proven to be highly effective for quieting the inner-critic, resolving inner conflicts, and slowing emotional reactivity.
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