Positive mental preparation leading up to competitions
Does mental prep make a difference? To know if mental preparation and planning for competition might be useful to you, ask yourself the following questions:
- What percent of performing your routines successfully in competition is related to your mindset?
- On a scale of 0 – 10, what would you rate the importance of your mental state to your performance in competition? Your answer to this question will give you a good idea as to whether mental prep might help you.
Confidence and trust are all-important in the time leading up to and during competition. These are skills that you can develop! It’s not a matter of you either are a confident gymnast or you’re not – confidence is a skill that can be developed, just like physical skills. The same is true for all psychological skills. Therefore, in the time leading up to competition, taking part in psychological skills training can be a valuable investment of time. Through training confidence, and all psychological skills, you’ll develop a mindset that is stronger, more able to cope with challenges, and to have trust in your performance.
Some of the areas from a psychological perspective that are useful in the time leading up to competition include: confidence and positive mind set, relaxation skills, mental imagery, event focusing, and refocusing plans. All help you to have a positive mindset and to be psychologically ready for competition.
If you want to learn more about how to develop these psych skills for competition, Sue is available for face-to-face psych coaching sessions in Brisbane, as well as for online consultations. You can contact Sue here!
