In plain language, sports psychologists are coaches who consult and train athletes on improving their mental game.
This new type of coaching only began in the 1970’s and has quickly bloomed into a huge part of the sports world. Professional sports teams often employ sports psychologists to help even the highest level athletes reach their potential.
Some coaches are very aware that they are not trained and do not have the skills to be able to work with a player’s mental game. Most coaches simply do not have the time to deal with it. You may get excellent advice from a coach that will help your mental game, for sure, however, if you are looking for that competitive edge, increasing your confidence and playing fearlessly are just some of the benefits sports psychologists offer.
If you are not on a team that has easy access to one, you can hire them on your own to work with in person or via telephone or Skype.
Top 3 Questions To Ask When Interviewing Sports Psychologists To Work With
What’s your current and past positions working with athletes?
You might be surprised to learn that most sport psychologists do not work full time with athletes. Many of them have a day job counseling people with issues such as marital and family problems. These are very honorable careers to work with such issues, however, you know from your own career that, by far, the best teacher you could ever have… is EXPERIENCE.
It is actually quite difficult to get a full time job working with athletes. You either need to learn how to do effective marketing and reach the athletes, coaches and parents directly as I have, or you get a recommendation from someone within a sports organization to work with your college or professional team.
Secondly, there are over 100 college sports psychology programs in the U.S. alone. There are not nearly enough jobs for them and most of those jobs that are available are part time. It’s true, everybody needs to start somewhere. Nobody begins a career at the top. Just know that there are countless sports psychologists out there with a degree from an accredited university who haven’t hardly worked with anyone. Buyer beware. Get someone with experience and ask them a lot of questions. Your game and dreams deserve that much.
Do you have a structure for how you work with athletes and how will you be able to apply it to my issues?
All mental coaches and trainers have a basic philosophy that they operate under. You want to ask about that and understand it. You want to check with yourself to see if it’s a good fit. There are some sports psychologists who do nothing more than the standard stuff they were taught in college that you can pretty much read in many sports mental game books that you can find at the library. There are others who have zero structure and basically just wing it. Either of those may work for you, however, after having worked personally with over 1,000 athletes and thousands more over the internet, I have come to the inescapable conclusions that my clients have taught me….and that is a framework approach where the athlete understands the workings of it…AND the process is tailored to the athlete’s particular personality, beliefs and values.
My structure is based on inner belief-change work at the unconscious level, coupled with thinking skills learned and practiced at the conscious level of the mind. Ask your mental game trainer about how he/she will help you at the unconscious level, this is what separates the masters from the average.
How long do I need to work with you in order to see results?
When you ask this question, you will get a wide variety of answers. The truth of the matter is that it should not take more than a couple months of weekly sessions, TOPS.
In my work, my tailored, structured process is completed in 4 sessions by about 90% of all the athletes I work with. Most of those do a weekly session and finish in a month. In my opinion, the reason that some professionals take longer is because there is more “talking without getting anywhere” than there needs to be.
This is why I call myself a Trainer and not a “Coach” or “Therapist.” I don’t operate like most sports psychologists, instead, I train mental skills and assist my athletes to quickly clear the underlying fears and conflicts that hold them back…and we do it at deeper levels of the mind than just “talking” normally reaches.
Get informed. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and follow up questions. Just because somebody has a sheepskin or few letters after their name doesn’t mean they are any good. Ask for references from other athletes. Look for testimonials and check them out!
You or your athlete are worth it!