Mental skills training in sport

The objective of mental training is to assist sport participants in the development of mental skills to achieve performance success and personal well-being. A model of mental skills for athletes and coaches includes four basic types of mental skills in sport (Vealey, 1988):

• Foundations skills are individual resources that are the basic foundation mental skills necessary to achieve success in sport: achievement drive, self-awareness, productive thinking, self-confidence;
• Performance skills are pstchological abilities critical to the execution of athletic skills during sport performance: perceptual-cognitive skill, attentional focus, energy management;
• Personal development skills are maturational features of personal development which allow for high-level psychological functioning through clarity of self-concept, feelings of well-being, and a sense of relatedness to others:  identity achievement, interpersonal competence;
• Team skills are shared qualities of the team that are instrumental to an effective team environment and overall team success: leadership, communication, cohesion, team confidence.

Foundation skills

Achievement drive is the desire to apply effort and persistence to overcome obstacles to accomplish something of worth or importance.

Self-awareness is the ability to engage in introspection and retrospection to understand one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Productive thinking is the ability to manage thoughts to effectively prepare for and respond to life events in a way that facilitates personal well-being. Successful athletes think more productively than less successful athletes. Successful athletes focus more on task-relevant thoughts and are less likely to be distracted. Successful athletes have also been shown to be optimistic, hopeful, and adaptively perfectionistic in setting high personal standards, but not being overly concerned with making mistakes (Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffett,  2002).

Self-confidence is the belief that one has the internal resources, particularly abilities, to achieve success. Elite athletes reveal resilient and robust self-confidence, an unshakable belief in one’s ability to achieve, as the most critical mental skill defining mental toughness (Thelwell, Weston, & Greenlees, 2005).

Performance Skills

Perceptual-cognitive skill represent the cognitive knowledge structure that enables optimal strategic processing of task-relevant information. Elite athletes show expertise in tactical /strategic knowledge and perceptual and decision-making skill, including superior recall and recognition of patterns of play, faster detection and recognition, more efficient and appropriate visual search behaviors, and better anticipation of likely events in their sports (Tenenbaum, 2002).

Attentional focus is the ability to selectively direct and maintain a focus of attention required for the execution of a specific activity.

Energy management is the ability to effectively manage various feelings (arousal, anxiety, anger, excitement, fear) to achieve personally optimal physical and mental energy levels for performance. The ability to cope with and manage negative feeling states, such as anxiety and pressure, is a key mental skill possessed by elite athletes.

Personal Development Skills

Identity achievement is the establishment of a clear sense of identity, or “who I am,” that allows the individual to experience psychological well-being and feelings of self-worth, usually after exploration and introspection about life experiences.

Interpersonal competence is the ability to interact effectively with others by demonstrating adaptive communication skills. This type of competence was identified as an important mental skill for elite athletes in terms of providing and using social support (Holt & Dunn, 2004).

Team Skills

Team confidence is the belief that the team has the shared resources and abilities to

achieve team success which is a better predictor of team success than the aggregate of individual levels of confidence for all team members (Feltz & Lirgg, 1998).

Cohesion is the team’s ability to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its goals.

Communication is the process of  interaction within the team that facilitates team success and athletes’ well-being.

Leadership is the ability of coaches and athletes to influence others on the team to think and act in ways that facilitate team success and the quality of the team’s psychological environment.

References:

Gould, D., Dieffenbach, K., & Moffett, A. (2002). Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 172–204.

Holt, N. L., & Dunn, J. G. (2004). Toward a grounded theory of the psychosocial competencies and environmental conditions associated with soccer success. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 16, 199–219.

Tenenbaum, G. (2002). Expert athletes: An integrated approach to decision-making. In J. L. Starkes & K. A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert performance in sports: Advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 191–218). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Thelwell, R. C., Weston, N., & Greenlees, I. (2005). Defining and understanding mental toughness within soccer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 326–332.

Vealey, R. S. (1988). Future directions in psychological skills training. Sport Psychologist, 2, 318–336.