Many athletes and coaches are confused about the role of sports psychology in improving athletic performance. Sports psychology is part of the larger field of sport science and studies human behavior in the sport environment and the benefits of mental training on enhancing sports performance. The goal of sports psychology is to help athletes and teams perform their best by improving the necessary mental skills to excel in a sporting endeavor. Sports Psychology is not about working with problem athletes or abnormal behavior.

Mental training or mental game coaching is the segment of sports psychology that concentrates specifically on coaching athletes on how to break through the mental barriers that keep them from performing up to their peak potential and by teaching mental skills for success. By focusing on the mental strategies needed to be successful in any competition, mental game coaching seeks to achieve the overall goal of performance improvement and enhancing consistency in performance.

I prefer to use the tile "mental game coach" because I think athletes can relate to this title better than "sports psychologist," as mental game coaching is another facet of performance enhancement. I make sure my students understand that I am not trained in traditional "psychopathology" nor have a license to practice psychology. My professional background is in education, physical education, sports, and sports psychology. My experience also comes from the sports world as a former athlete, coach, and for the last 15 years, as a mental game coach to athletes.

Unfortunately, for mental coaches, the field of "psychology" still carries a negative stigma because many people perceive sports psychology as dealing with abnormal individuals or problem athletes. However, this is not what I do in sports psychology. My role is to help athletes develop mental skills for success in sports only. I work with normal people who are under additional perceived pressures to perform in their sport. My goals are to teach athletes how to be more confident, focus better, stay composed under pressure, practice more efficiently, and develop more effective pregame routines. I become an extension of the athlete's support team.

There are several indicators that sports psychology or mental coaching can help you rise above mental challenges and get more out of your talent. Below is a partial list of the common signals that a mental barrier is holding you back from peak performance.

You perform much better in practice than during competition. Your practice game is flawless, but in competition, your performance is below par. You feel confident and loose in practice and then are plagued with doubt or indecision in the competitive arena. Something changes between practice and competition, but you just cannot put your finger on what it is. Usually fear of failure or tension holds you back.

You have too many perfectionistic qualities. Many athletes think that when they are successful, perfectionism is the reason why. Yes, there are some advantages to perfectionism such as high motivation and being goal-oriented. However, many perfectionistic characteristics hold athletes back from success, such as holding onto high, unrealistic expectations, being overly critical of self, trying too hard, and getting easily frustrated.

You don't perform well when others are watching you. When others who you care about, (such as parents, fans, coaches) watch you perform, you become too self-conscious of their presence and lose your focus on the task. Often you may even worry about letting others down or failing in front of others, similar to stage fright or fear of embarrassment. Most likely you are afraid to embarrass yourself in front of others who are watching you perform because you fear how your performance might reflect on you as an athlete or a person.

You maintain doubt about your sport before or during games. You perform with a lot of confidence in practice and gain confidence from practice, but when you play your sport for real, you start to entertain doubts about your ability to get the job done. I call this "competitive self-confidence" as opposed to "practice self-confidence." You start to think, "Can I really beat this person across the net?" "Do I have what it takes to strike out this batter?" Doubts can be disguised subtly in the form of a simple question. When you question your ability to perform, it is really doubt in disguise. In the absence of confidence, you have doubt. When you have doubts, confidence suffers.

You feel anxious or scared when you perform in competition. You perform freely and loose in practice and do not have many worries, but in games, you are paralyzed by fear and anxiety. Most often, athletes with a fear of failure get tight and anxious in games because they want to win so badly or have are afraid of embarrassment. Fear of failure causes you to try too hard and worry too much about outcomes.

You limit your performance with strict expectations. With large amounts of practice and success in competition, comes both confidence and higher expectations. Confidence is what you want to let ride, but maintaining strict expectations equates to pressure, judgments, and demands you place on yourself. I spend a lot of time with my students helping them identify limiting expectations and parking them in the locker room or parking lot prior to performance. I'll talk more about this later in this booklet.

You attach your self-worth to your ability to perform. Some athletes are driven to compete because of the rewards that come from being successful: fame, accolades, and respect. You have a desire to get your name in the paper, get praise from others, or rewards from your parents. These motivators, although help you feel better about yourself as a person, are not the best type of motivators. When you are doing well in sports, it's easy for you to feel good about yourself, but when not performing well, it's harder to feel good about yourself, as you attach your level of success to self-worth.

You lose focus during crunch-time. When up to bat with the bases loaded, two outs and the game tied, you have trouble thinking clearly because of the pressure to produce for your coach, teammates, or fans. You forget the count or don't pay attention to the sign from the coach. You commit simple mental errors that you wouldn't normally do in other less threatening situations because you are unable to clear your mind and focus on the task.

After an injury, you are physically 100% recovered, but you can't perform the way you did pre-injury. Many athletes who have sustained a major sports injury have trouble regaining their confidence post-injury. Even after the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, your mental scars have not healed. You may be afraid of re-injury and this causes you to play tentatively. Alternatively, you may have lost your confidence and wonder if you can return to previous performance levels pre-injury.