Recently gave a colleague a copy of Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding. It's a novel, but with a lot of clear sport psychology themes/lessons. Some sample quotes:

“He already knew he could coach. All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself? And then you told the guy that story.”

3. There are three stages. Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being.

33. Do not confuse the first and third stages. Thoughtless being is attained by everyone, the return to thoughtless being by a very few.

Feeling a pull to read more fiction these days. Wondering if there are other good to excellent novels I should check out with clear lessons not just about sport in general but a strong sport psychology focus.

Hi! I am a student and am currently conducting a research project. I found out about the book ‘Sports Fans: the Psychology and Social Impact if Fandom,’ and think it would be a HUGEEEE tool for my project. Unfortunately my institution doesn’t have access to any of the platforms that it is available, and it’s a bit expensive to buy, so I was wondering if anyone here had a pdf of it that they could share with me? I am particularly in need of chapters 3, 6, 8, and 9. The other chapters are much less relevant m.

Hi! So I'm currently writing to seek some advice. I had always imagined pursuing a career either in the sport or psychology field. With having to choose classes for the IB program, I finally narrowed it down to a future major in sport psychology as it determined the classes I have to currently take. I just wanted to know about how realistic this goal would be, I have also been looking at the possible majors in sports marketing or kinesiology. After reading a few reddit comments I have started to think about if there would a possibility to get a job after university and the salary that comes with it. I've always been set on pursuing sport psychology, but now I'm extremely pessimistic about my future. I'm just confused in general of the path I would have to take after undergrad, if I get a master or a pHd. Additionally, the possibility if I decided to double major. I'm an extremely goal-oriented, strong headed, and hard working person, I would do anything to achieve my dream, but how realistic is it. I would love any insight or opinions.

I was reading about Noah Lyles recently, and something really caught my attention. It's that he spends a lot of time working on his mental game, not just physical training.

Got me wondering, how much do you all focus on the mental side of things?

What kind of mental training or strategies do you use to stay sharp and motivated, especially when you’re facing challenges or setbacks?

Would love to hear what works for you!

My partner and I live in a mountain community. We chose to move here together to be closer to the activities that the mountains provide, primarily skiing and mountain biking. My partner is a solid rider in both sports. She looks solid, good body position, etc. All to say she is skilled, and has good technique. However she is excessively cautious. This is an opinion she has of herself as well, this is not just a case of asshole husband being mad wife isn't better.
As a result she often gets frustrated or embarrassed, which tends to strip the enjoyment out of an activity. While she doesn't take it out on me, I can always tell the moment she has soured on it and it's always a little discouraging when your partner is clearly not enjoying themselves. She also has a tendency to isolate herself from our friends while on the mountain due to her embarrassment, and as a result often misses out on the social aspect of resort riding. Her job has her working directly with people post injury, so she's exposed to the worst outcomes of these sports constantly. She's told me that while she is riding, her internal monologue is usually intrusive thoughts about the types of injuries she regularly sees. These are followed by her logical self trying to push the thoughts out and essentially getting into arguments with herself (all while riding). She knows she can be her own worse enemy, however counselling is so far down the list of priorities for her, that I don't know that she would ever spend the money to do it. When I give gifts, I like to give the person something they would never buy for themselves, and that's why I even considered paying for her counselling in the first place. I am confident that if she could get over the mental barriers she would gain so much enjoyment and confidence from these activities. Am I out to lunch here? We communicate well, so I believe that I could effectively communicate why I felt this was a thoughtful gift. But I also see how it could come off as patronizing, or at worst passive aggressive. Considering her self-consciousness surrounding the situation, this is a real concern of mine, the last thing I want is to hurt her in the process. Is there anything that I'm not considering? Is there a thoughtful way to do this that I haven't considered? Or is this just a straight up bad idea?

i overthink too much and whenever i realize and try to stop thinking, i just think about it more. i keep thinking before i play, during, and after and constantly criticize myself over every mistake i make. instead of learning from my mistakes, i just beat myself up for them and don’t progress at all. how can i just learn, accept, and move on from my doubtful and hateful thoughts?

(i’m writing this because i had 5 open 3’s in today’s game, AND MISSED ALL OF THEM.)

good TrainingBeta podcast on zen, performance, anxiety, and others.

https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/francis-sanzaro/?portfolioCats=72

I love all of my psychology courses and I am obsessed with athletics (Currently a competitive amateur athlete, though not associated with university), I really want to go into sports psychology and hopefully get a masters.

The problem is that I've heard sports psychology is very competitive and I am kind of struggling in school. I am technically in my fourth year at school but I have only completed 52 of my 120 credits in order to graduate. I had been struggling with high anxiety, stress and undiagnosed ADHD but I finally got it under control about halfway through this semester. I currently have a 2.90 GPA (which should slightly increase after this semester) and due to bad grades in specific courses I won't be able to do honours. I also attend a university in canada that is not highly ranked. The only good thing is that I have done mostly well in my psychology courses (3.48 Program GPA), and I also have 4.00's in 3 Physical education courses one of them being a undergraduate sports psych course.

I'd love to get any advice on and hear about:

• If aiming for a SP masters is realistic?
• Are there any schools I should look at? ideally in canada since it wouldn't be as expensive?
• I know my GPA needs to be higher, but are there any specific goals I should aim for?
• Anything extra curricular I can do to help myself?
• Will me being in school for another 1-2 years affect my applications?
• Any other advice or career suggestions you might give me?

Thanks

Hi Everyone,

I’ve built an app to help people improve their confidence and performance through visualisation practice. It creates personalised audio sessions tailored to specific scenarios. My initial thoughts are to target people to use it in the workplace for situations like presentations or meetings. But it can be used across domains - work, social or sports.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, and I’m offering free access for anyone willing to give it a try and share feedback. If you’re interested, feel free to DM me, and I’ll provide details.

Thanks for your time!

UM

https://preview.redd.it/uayd97wscv4e1.png?width=5324&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc426d6ee97e19e6d5419ae83bb8a85e5a835b65

will having a better mindset increase my chances of performing well in physical activity? is this actually true? and why?

why do i falter when overthinking a physical movement i’ve done a million times?

just some unanswered questions i have…

Do you use a mental performance assessment to help your clients? If so, which one?

Title.

Hello everyone, I was looking at the various instruments/questionnaires used in the Sport Psychology field, and I would like to hear your thoughts about those. What instruments have you used the most and have you found the most effective to produce a change in the team/athlete? Let me know your opinion, so we can discuss about it.

Every time I have a match I always wnat to end the match asap, and that is a really big problem for me due to I can't calm down to consider what is next step to win it.

It’s not performance anxiety—I prefer working with crowds and enjoy playing the actual games (volleyball) even if I occasionally mess up.

I want to go to the Olympics, I’m dead set on it. My coach coaches a ton of teams, and she works with a lot of other coaches. She puts coaches notes where they are publicly accessible (I don’t think she realises this), and she has a list of players that are ‘coaching targets’. It’s mostly comprised of players that I can recognise are good, among the best on the team. Problem: I’m not on it.

I’m not mad at her, I know it’s up to me to show her that I am that great or put it out of my mind, but it’s frustrating that players who, at risk of sounding arrogant, are worse than I am, are on the list and I am not.

I promise this is relevant: I had a cold this morning, along with cramping and chest pain. My grandfather died from pneumonia and I had a bronchitis problem as a kid, so I’m super paranoid about it. I had volleyball training today and an important event in a few days, so I had to get better, which likely meant not attending volleyball.

So that whole thing leads on to me panicking about missing training (I never do!) and potentially having bronchitis or pneumonia and then almost having an anxiety attack for the first (and hopefully last) time.

To summarise: I had a cold, which would mean no volleyball, which caused anxiety, which caused symptoms that I then linked (falsely) to bronchitis or pneumonia.

All this roots back to the list of ‘coaching targets’.

How do I stop getting in my own head about that kind of thing?

Hello everyone,

I'm not a sport psychology specialist nor a pro sportsman; I just like to play my sport (not sure if we can call it like that). The sport is "Sporting clays" - one of shooting sports, target fly different direction different speeds and a shooter is supposed to hit them all.

The nature of sport requires participant to walk up into a station (safety and everything), watch 3-4 targets, their flights, and then break those targets in multiple different combinations (up to 7-8 combinations, both single and 2 targets flying). There is a timer of course, can't stand and think for 3 mins, it's 12-15 seconds between calls/shots (depends on a discipline) (sportsman calls for a target).

Many avid shooters call this sport "mental" ("mental 80%, physical 20%"). Which is probably not true, it's more like 99.9% mental.

The question: what would be a correct approach? How to program all that? 7-8 inner images of the movement is a lot, I noticed some "plans" are falling off (can't remember them when it's time to execute).

I am a little bit lost (when there 3-4 combinations it's not a problem, but 7-8 things start falling apart). Also preperformance routine.... Don't understand clearly what is what and what for.

Can someone help to navigate through this?

I'm a tennis player, every time I have a match I will be so nervous and anxiety. I have try a lot ways to make me feel better, but I can't calm me down before the match. Also, this problem has affected my performance in the match.

I recently read an article about how it's important to take your passion for sports seriously, but not yourself. The key takeaway is that the journey and the love of the sport should come first, rather than obsessing over performance or outcomes. I found this perspective refreshing, especially in a world where winning is often prioritized. How do you balance your passion for sports with the pressures of performance? Do you think it’s important to keep a lighthearted approach to sports?

I have been playing volleyball for the past 3 months and I attend the 3 classes a week religiously and never miss any unless I really have to. I now know and am getting alot better at all the basics like setting and passing and serving and I practice alot either alone with a wall or with my brother or my friends. I have semi average reaction time and I do really well with my pepper partner. The problem is that whenever I play games I get so nervous, even if they’re practice matches. I’d be standing, not moving yet sweat is still dripping from my forehead. A girl from my team glares at anyone who makes a mistake and sometimes call their name out which made me so nervous to the point where my brain literally lags and I forget how to move. I’m always so scared to let my coach down but this fear is whats making me let her down. Does anyone know any tips to help calm down or something? Cuz this is really getting out of hand

Hi All,

Can anyone recommend a great online certification program in mental performance coaching? I have a degree in Psychology and am looking to build additional skills to work with performance related topics. Any suggestions for reputable programs would be much appreciated!

(I have already posted on the PhD channel, but others with a sports psychology background might have good insights and recommendations!)

Hi everyone,

I’m excited to share that I’ve recently been accepted into the Educational Psychology PhD program at the University of New Mexico. My background is in educational research and program evaluation, but I also have a long-standing passion for competitive sports, including tennis, cycling, running, and hiking. I initially came to the U.S. to play on a D1 NCAA tennis team and have since completed multiple long-distance MTB and gravel races.

My goal in pursuing a PhD is to deepen my expertise in research design and implementation on a larger scale. But I’d also love to find ways to bridge my professional background with my interest in sports psychology, specifically around topics like the psychological effects of competitive sports on middle and high school students. I’m particularly interested in areas like cognitive psychology, self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-efficacy—though I’m open to other ideas I may not have explored yet.

I’d appreciate any guidance or suggestions on how best to integrate a sports component into my PhD and my career path afterward. I’ve considered options like adding a minor, though exercise science (the most relevant department) doesn’t currently offer one. I’ve also looked into attending sports psychology conferences as a way to connect with others in the field.

Thanks in advance for any advice or recommendations!

Google and AI seemed to think the answer was yes, and I think so too.

However, is there anyone in the world working on that? I'd imagine that if some of the best sports psychologists got together and workshopped everything that makes sports fun to watch, they could eventually come up with a brand new sport, theoretically more fun to watch than any other sport, right?

I thought this was interesting. I love sports and would love to be a fan of a new one. What do you guys think?

I’m in college studying sports psychology. I also have a minor in health science. One of the class I have to take is not being taught this semester but I was allowed to instead do a training program of my choice only requirements is it has to be related to physical training in some way. Any suggestions?

Hey, I'm a 17 year old triathlete (ex swim and track). Last year, I injured my left knee due to overuse and a lack of strength. I only recently (about a month ago) was able to start running again for a variety of reasons (the first physio I saw wasn't too good, I moved to a new country and couldn't do any physio stuff for a while, etc). That injury was supposed to take 6-8 weeks to recover from. Since then I've become super paranoid about injuries in my training. Recently I developed a little (VERY VERY MILD) Olecranon bursitis in my left elbow, and freaked out about it. My parents took me to a sports orthopaedic, who recommended that I do some reading about sports/injury psychology. Anyone got any good books? Preferably related to swim/bike/run.

As a trainee sport psychology practitioner, I was wondering if there are any useful workbooks for improving how to implement mental training techniques (e.g. imagery, self-talk, self-confidence, etc.) with athletes. Thank you for your suggestions!

I put countless hours into playing basketball, practicing my shot, layups, handling, and sometimes I play pretty well, and sometimes I freeze up like an icicle, particularly when I’m on a fast break, lots of eyes on me etc.

It’s absolutely miserable and ruins my experience doing something I otherwise love. I feel like it would also affect my ability to play in more organized settings like tournaments, because the more pressure there is, the worse I play.

Are there any resources I can turn to before engaging a professional for therapy? I’m speaking with my regular therapist about these issues as well.