Four Sports Psychology Principles to Enhance Athletic Performance

Believe in your infinite potential.

Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.

- Roy T. Bennet

Introduction

How does sports psychology enhance athletic performance? This is a question that has been asked multiple times in the last decades. The goal of sports psychology is to maximize athletic potential, regardless of whether it does this through counseling, mental skills training, coaching optimization, or sports environment improvement. Just like psychology was born out of the desire to understand and improve human beings, the sports sub-discipline was designed to help athletes get better at their sports. There are many ideas born within the discipline of sports psychology that enhance athletic performance both on and off the field. In this article, we are going to look at three key principles from sports psychology that any athlete can apply to become better in their sports.

Resilience

Being resilient means going through adverse times without breaking down. This manifests in the ability to recover, adapt, and grow from stress. Young athletes can turn stress into growth by focusing on empowering coping strategies that make them more resilient. Research studies show that resilience is a protective factor that shields athletes from the negative effects of stressful events. Resilience also allows them to adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances, maintain their psychological well-being, and find solutions instead of dwelling on problems. Naturally, the next question is how do student-athletes develop this trait within themselves? How do they make sense of the adverse circumstances in their careers so that they come out stronger, wiser, and more resilient?

 In their paper, “Bouncing back from adversity — Athlete’s experiences of resilience”, researchers Nick Galli and Robin Vealey describe that resilience is the consequence of exposure to stressors with the help of sociocultural influences and personal resources.

 In other words, resilience doesn’t simply happen by going through adversity. It develops when athletes reflect on it and draw insights and new perspectives from what happened to them. But it also goes beyond the athlete’s traits: it involves their environment, their support systems, and the resources they have to adapt to the stressor. In this sense, resilience becomes the result of integrating difficult moments and personal resources. By stretching themselves, adapting, and relying on their support systems, athletes become mentally stronger in the face of stress. In other words, here is what you need to do to increase your resilience:

  1. Reflect on a recent difficult moment
  2. Think of some insights you can draw from it
  3. Think about how it made you a stronger person

Goal setting

Setting clear and achievable goals is a foundational element in sports psychology. Athletes learn how to define their objectives, break them down into smaller milestones, and create action plans to achieve them. Goal setting provides direction and motivation, driving athletes to push their limits.

Some athletes set the wrong goals because a) they don’t know themselves very well or b) they hold themselves to a standard they see in their environment. With the help of sports psychology techniques, you can start setting relevant goals for yourself and take actionable steps in that direction. This will not only help you make progress but will also help you feel better about yourself. As you know, in sports psychology, building self-confidence is crucial to meeting your goals — they will always work together.

Smart goals in sports psychology

SMART, an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, provides athletes with a structured approach to goal-setting that makes it easier for them to set and achieve their goals. When it comes to setting smart goals, one essential aspect is that they are neither too difficult. This is where the importance of sports psychology becomes clearer. Sports psychology advises that setting goals that are unrealistic or intimidating has a higher chance of failure. When the brain perceives that the goal is unreachable, it becomes terrified and wants to abandon it altogether.

Self-talk

Talking to yourself in the right way is essential for self-confidence. After all, the way you perceive yourself is the result of your self-talk. The link between sports psychology and performance is mediated by many things, one of which is the athlete’s internal self-talk. This refers to the things the athlete says to themselves during competitions, and training sessions, but also in their usual life. 

Positive self-talk can boost the athlete’s confidence and self-belief, leading them to perform better and recover quicker from stressful moments. Studies even showed that athletes who dream about their success and talk to themselves as if they already achieved it perform better on the court, field, or whatever skill they are involved in. Through self-talk, a timid athlete can turn into a confident one by convincing themselves that they are capable of everything they set their minds to.

To develop a more positive self-talk, athletes can follow some tips such as:

  1. Choose a strong, empowering phrase. This should be related to an aspect you want to improve in yourself. It can be as simple as “I got this” or “I can relax now because I know I got everything it takes”.
  2. Turn that phrase into a more specific one. Once you’ve got a general idea of what you’d want to say to yourself, go a level deeper and use it more specifically. For example, if you are a basketball player, you can say things such as “I’ve made this shot before and I can do it again”. Or, for a runner, something like “I can keep running and finish strong” would be a great idea.

Self-talk is one of the sports psychology methods you can use to program your brain to think the thoughts you want to think. If you repeatedly say something to yourself for a long time, you will begin to believe in them at some point. The power of the mind is underrated. Most people are not using their minds to their absolute potential, and miss out on the chance to shape their brains in whatever form they like. But using self-talk is a way to do that.

Emotional regulation

Emotional regulation is a topic where sports psychology and mental health intersect. This concept refers to the ability to observe, manage, and soothe your emotions during difficult times. If you’ve ever been upset and picked yourself up quickly because you had an important event to attend, you already practiced a form of emotional regulation. However, you probably had moments when your emotions got full control over you. Perhaps you were angry, frustrated, or so enraged that you lashed out at your colleagues or sent a text message you later regretted. This is where you could have used some better emotional regulation skills. They are important in any area of life, but in sports, they make an even bigger difference. For example, in sports psychology, performance anxiety is a very common issue that many athletes struggle with.

Think of an athlete who cannot regulate their anger during a football match and as a result, lash out at a team member from the adversary team. As a result, they get a penalty and the team suffers. If only they knew what to do with that anger during that critical moment! This could have changed the entire outcome of the match.

Can you see why emotional regulation is so important in sports psychology? Regardless of how talented an athlete is, they can miss out on great opportunities if they don’t have the right emotional management skills.

Regulating an emotion entails observing it until its intensity reduces. Sometimes, some specific actions are also necessary (such as talking to someone, writing it down, soothing oneself, etc).

Here are some essential steps in emotional regulation:

  1. Become aware of the emotional reaction. At this stage, you merely need to observe yourself feeling whatever you are feeling. This creates some distance between you and the emotion.
  2. Express your emotions. If possible, find a way to express whatever you are feeling, such as talking to someone or engaging in creative outlets.
  3. Practice a form of self-soothing, such as breathing exercises, moving, shaking, stretching, or hugging yourself. Doing one of these things allows your body to relax so you can think more clearly about your emotional response.
  4. Choose an alternative way to respond to the situation. Once the intensity of the emotion has reduced, think about a better way to respond to the trigger. What would you do if the same thing happened again?

Final Thoughts

When it comes to sports psychology, many aspects can be discussed: sports psychology and stress, sports psychology relaxation methods, and sports psychology techniques for performance enhancement. In this article, we discussed 4 key principles that are foundational in sports psychology: resilience, goal setting, self-talk, and emotional regulation. When practiced day in and day out, they can help an athlete master their mental game and overcome their internal blocks. The importance of mental mastery cannot be stated enough in sports: it is the other equally important aspect of athletic performance besides skills training. 

Therefore, to advance in your athletic career, don’t limit your growth to training sessions: train your mind as well. Use these principles from sports psychology to harness your mind’s endless potential.