A successful athlete does not have to be a professional athlete or an Olympic champion. You also don’t have to have a trophy room, win a state title, or reach the front page of the sports section. An eleven-year-old figure skater who has yet to win a competition, a high school golfer with a zero handicap, a middle-aged runner whose goal is to complete her first marathon, a weight lifter who holds several world records, and an Olympic medalist are among the successful athletes I’ve worked with.

What these athletes have in common is that their sport is important to them, and they are committed to being the best they can be within the constraints of their other life obligations, resources, time, and natural talent. They set high, reasonable objectives for themselves and work hard to achieve them through training and play. They are successful because they are chasing their ambitions while also having fun with their sport. Their engagement in sports enriches their lives, and they believe that what they get back is worth what they put into it.

There are nine distinct mental skills that contribute to athletic achievement. They are all taught skills that may be honed with education and practice. We work with serious athletes of all ages and abilities at the Ohio Center for Sport Psychology to help them learn and sharpen these vital skills.

We believe that our work is important because the same mental abilities that athletes use to succeed in sports can also be used to succeed in other aspects of their lives.

A Summary of the Nine Mental Skills

Athletes Who Have Succeeded:

1. Maintain and choose an optimistic attitude.
2. Keep your level of self-motivation high.
3. Set ambitious yet attainable goals.
4. Deal with people effectively.
5. Make use of positive self-talk.
6. Make use of positive mental imagery.
7. Anxiety can be properly managed.
8. They efficiently manage their emotions.
9. Maintain their focus.

Mental Skills Development

These nine mental abilities are required for good performance in both sports and non-sport contexts. The Ohio Center for Sport Psychology offers the following services:

• We believe that these abilities may be learnt and enhanced through teaching and practice.
• We begin each individual’s training by measuring his present competency in each of the skills.
• We create a plan for teaching and developing the specific skills that the individual needs to improve.
• In order to assess our success, we reevaluate the client’s competency in each of the competencies on a regular basis.

The Pyramid of Performance

Although each of the nine skills is vital, its primary relevance will occur during one of three phases: long-term development, immediate performance preparation, and performance itself.

• Level I – These mental skills provide a solid foundation for achieving long-term goals, learning, and maintaining daily practice. They are required on a daily basis for extended periods of time, typically months and years.
• Level II – These skills are utilized to prepare for performance just before it. They may be utilized soon before the start of a competition or just before a specific performance action, such as a golf shot or a free throw in basketball.
• Level III – These abilities are employed during actual performance behavior.

Descriptions of the Nine Mental Skills in Detail

1. Attitude

Athletes who excel:

• Recognize that your attitude is a choice.
• Choose a predominantly positive attitude.
• Consider their sport to be a chance for them to compete against themselves and learn from their achievements and failures.
• Pursue greatness rather than perfection, and accept that they, their coaches, teammates, officials, and others are not flawless.
• Maintain balance and perspective in their sport and in their life.
• Respect their sport, their teammates, their coaches, their officials, and themselves.

2. Motivation

Athletes who excel:

• Are aware of the rewards and benefits that they can expect from sports participation.
• Are able to persevere through difficult activities and difficult situations, even if the rewards and advantages do not come quickly.
• Recognize that many of the benefits stem from their engagement rather than the outcome.

3. Goals and Commitment

Athletes who excel:

• Set reasonable, quantifiable, and time-bound long-term and short-term goals.
• Are aware of their existing performance levels and can devise specific, detailed plans for achieving their objectives.
• Are devoted to their objectives and the daily demands of their training programs.

4. People Skills

Athletes who excel:

• Recognize that they are a part of a bigger picture that involves their families, friends, teammates, coaches, and others.
• Communicate their thoughts, feelings, and needs to these people when appropriate, and listen to them as well.
• Have developed good techniques for coping with conflict, challenging opponents, and negative or oppositional people.

5. Self-Talk

Athletes who excel:

• Maintaining their self-esteem during stressful circumstances requires realistic, positive self-talk.
• Talk to themselves as they would to their best friend.
• During competition, use self-talk to control your ideas, feelings, and behaviors.

6. Mental Imagery

Athletes who excel:

• Prepare for competitiveness by visualizing themselves succeeding in competition.
• Create and use comprehensive, distinct, and realistic mental images.
• During competition, use imagery to prepare for action and recover from mistakes and poor performance.

7. Dealing Effectively with Anxiety

Athletes who excel:

• Accept that anxiousness is a normal element of the sport.
• Recognize that mild anxiety can help people perform successfully.
• Understand ways to minimize anxiety without losing their intensity when it becomes too powerful.

8. Dealing Effectively with Emotions

Athletes who excel:

• Accept that strong emotions like enthusiasm, anger, and disappointment are normal parts of the sporting experience.
• Are able to employ these emotions to enhance rather than hinder high-level performance.

9. Concentration

Athletes who excel:

• Understand what they must focus on during each game or sport situation.
• Have learnt how to focus and fight distractions, whether from the outside world or from within oneself.
• When concentration is lost during competition, they can regain it.
• Have learnt to play in the “here-and-now,” without concern for previous or expected future events.

Application of the Nine Mental Skills to Situations Other Than Sports Performance

The nine mental qualities linked to athletic achievement are also linked to performance in a wide range of non-sport performance scenarios. Let’s look at a few of these.

A Performance Situation Has the Following Characteristics:

• The situation is frequently planned or predicted in advance.
• Typically, the problem has a beginning and an end.
• The situations are known ahead of time.
• The rules and limits are predetermined.
• The outcomes are evaluated using predefined standards (or natural consequences).
• The outcome is unknown and may involve psychological risk and/or danger.
• The outcomes are crucial to the performance.
• The performer’s actions are directed toward a specific purpose.
• The skilled behavior of the performance influences the outcomes.

Performance Situations Examples

• A crucial employment interview
• Solo performance with a symphony orchestra
• Trying out for a role in a theatre production
• Making a presentation in class
• Taking the driver’s test
• Giving a presentation to the PTA
• Giving testimony in court
• Examining for the state medical board
• carrying out brain surgery
• Airplane landing
• A firefighter enters a burning structure
• Taking part in a military or police attack
• An astronaut lands a vehicle on the moon’s surface.
• Climbing on a Rock (Wall climbing, mountain climbing, or rock climbing)