How would you like to know what’s going on inside the mind of your son or daughter? Would you like to know exactly what you should do to best help them succeed in their sport and be happy in their life? […]
Do you lack of confidence in your sport? Learn from our guest Mental coach expert, Gene Zanetti, "The Ways Athletes Improve Confidence". Coaches always tell you to just be confident and to just believe in yourself, but they never tell you actually how to do it. A lot of it is because they were not formally trained in how to do it themselves. The first thing is to realize it is not something you have to have it or you don’t. You can learn it. Most people don’t realize that, yes, you can build confidence with the right exercises. [...]
In our first article, we defined athletic confidence, and discussed many forms of interference when building confidence in sports, including excessive praise, lack of competence, fear of failure and poor adult mentorship. One additional hidden factor, coined “The Outlier Effect” by author Malcolm Gladwell, can be one of the most devastating confidence crushers, through no fault of your athletes at all. One of our biggest problems in youth sports, and early education for that matter, is that we have institutionalized and streamlined our registration protocols into yearlong time blocks. We organize children chronologically instead of developmentally. While this certainly makes it [...]
If you have a child in youth sports, then you know that kids sometimes get into a slump. The question is how to motivate your child out of that slump. The following is an excerpt from The Football Momʼs Survival Guide, but the truths are for every parent of a young athlete who struggles with lack of motivation. Itʼs not fun to watch your son struggle, fail, and suffer discouragement. If youʼre like me, you want to figure out how to make it better right away. Like putting a Band-Aid on a scrape, we want to find an emotional Band-Aid [...]
We, at the Mental Toughness Academy, want to support girls in sports and those girls owning their power! Today, we have a guest post from Dr. Andrea Corn, a sports psychologist and Ethan Skolnick, a sports columnist to give us some insights into the minds of female athletes they have worked with. As a child growing up outside of Pittsburgh in the 1980s and 1990s, Swin Cash wasn't that different from the boys of that time: She idolized Michael Jordan. Not only did she idolized him, she imitated him. "I remember him having these fierce, competitive eyes," she said recently. "I [...]
Taking risks is essential for a youth athlete's development and success at his or her chosen sport! Doing so will open up new opportunities to greatness! In every sport, there are times when you have to show up and perform under pressure or do something you don't normally do. This is the time to find your courage. It's there and you don't need any special superhero abilities to access it. Discover How Taking Risks Makes You A Better Youth Sports Athlete by watching the video below. In this video, Peter Vidmar, the highest scoring American gymnast in Olympic History, will [...]
Youth athletes need to build trust in themselves and their coaches to move up to the next level in their sport! Without trust, development is impossible! Just ask Olympic Gold Medalist Peter Vidmar. In this video, Peter shares how trusting his coach fully to teach him how to acquire new difficult moves and skills helped him gain self-esteem and confidence. We'd love to hear your thoughts about How To Build Self Esteem By Trusting Your Coach, please do leave a comment below! Early on I started to realize that Makoto Sakamoto, my coach, would never ask me to [...]
Yes, your youth sports athlete knows how to prepare for competition, but can you say that they are mentally-equipped to face the monotony of everyday training? In this video, Peter Vidmar, the highest scoring American gymnast in Olympic history, shares his experience on how goal setting has helped him be a more effective gymnast both in training and in competition. Read on to know more about How Goal Setting In Sports Training Makes You A Better Athlete. The best mental preparation is physical preparation. If I prepare physically and do everything I am supposed to do, I earn [...]
Proper sports preparation is crucial to success. It gives youth athletes confidence that they need to overcome challenges and realize their full potential! In the video below Peter Vidmar, writer of the amazing book "Risk, Originality and Virtuosity", wants you to Learn How Sports Preparation Leads To Confidence In Competition. Read on and discover how being prepared will help youth athletes build confidence in a competitive setting. We'd love to hear your thoughts and comments, please do leave a comment below! I think my best performances usually came after a culmination of really good physical performances beforehand, so [...]
Let's talk about the Psychology of Competition in Sports. How do you create a winning mindset so you are prepared and ready when it comes to competition time? Today we are sharing insights on The Psychology of Competition from Olympic Gold Medalist Peter Vidmar. This is Part One from Wendy Lynne, Director of Mental Toughness Academy's interview with Peter. I had a motto and many of us in the gym have this motto at UCLA. And the motto is this, "Practice as if its competition, but compete as if its practice." Meaning everyday matters. It is easy in [...]
