The Psychology of Working with Elite Athletes

[Music]

good afternoon everybody thank you for

coming

joel fish is my name sports psychologist

licensed psychologist

run the center for sports psychology in

philadelphia and i’ve worked for over 25

years with athletes of all ages and

skill levels from little kids

through the olympic and professional

ranks and my goals here today

is i talk about the psychology of

working with elite and professional

athletes is a to bring you up to date on

what sports psychology and what sports

performance has to say about

working with professional and elite

athletes

b did i give you some idea about what

plan i use

with elite athletes that i hope gives

you a better understanding of how to

work with elite athletes and

professional athletes but also that

you’re able to apply to yourself

or to other recreational athletes or for

those of you that are weekend athletes

and see my other goal is that hopefully

you learn about more about yourself

and somebody else in this room because

if we’re going to talk about mental

preparation

confidence composure concentration what

we call mental skills

i’m hoping that you take what we talk

about today and apply it to yourself

learn something about somebody else in

this room and think about someone who

you may be working with

recreational athlete weekend athlete or

in a leader pro

athlete develop what we call in sports

psychology a mental skills game plan

to help and what i’d like to quickly

walk you through and this is based on my

experience

with working with elite athletes the

professional basketball players on the

left i’m on the right there in case you

need to see that

so all the experience i’m drawing from

with you revolves related to a team

revolves related to work i’ve been doing

with over 25 years

with different professional elite and

olympic athletes

and again i’m drawing on that experience

to help you come up with what we call a

mental game plan and that mental game

plan

is going to be the following the game

plan is i’m always

in terms of my program with athletes

step one helping them to understand what

their own attitudes are

about winning losing success failure

competition

step two identifying certain stressors

and challenges

maybe it’s after the athlete misses a

shot maybe it’s letting go of a bad play

maybe it’s having something somebody say

something to them from the audience

specifically let’s boil in let’s hone in

on specific situations that are

challenging

for you mentally so see we can come up

with a mental skills game plan

strategies techniques that you can apply

towards that challenging situation

and then step four is always to evaluate

tweak the formula if we need be

so i’m going to be going through quickly

this mental skills game plan with you

and again my goal is that it reinforces

certain things you already know

about working with highly talented

people

and that you can apply towards yourself

or be maybe through our conversation

together

gives you some new ways to approach

working with a talented person an elite

professional athlete

to help them with their mental part of

the game so step one

if i’m working with you or anybody else

but certainly when i’m working with

professional lead athletes

i’ll ask you a question that i’ve asked

hundreds maybe thousands

of elite athletes and that question is

what percentage of performance do you

think is mental

and we’re defining mental is confidence

composure concentration

communication teamwork is it ten percent

twenty percent thirty percent fifty

percent eighty percent

because if i’m going to spend time with

you elite athlete olympic athlete

professional athlete i need that buy-in

from you

i need to make sure that you think this

is important

and i can guarantee you just one thing

and one thing only in this talk i’m

giving you today if you ask that

question to an elite athlete

to a recreational athlete to a weekend

out there what percentage of performance

is mental

they’re going to say 30 50 80 percent

mental

so my comeback to that if the game is

largely mental if performance is largely

mental

let’s spend 10 15 minutes a week

10 15 minutes a week if not more talking

about the mental part of the game

thinking about the mental part of the

game strategizing for the mental part of

the game

because i’ll ask you to trust me if we

can improve the mental game three or

five percent

three or five percent i can show you

documentation up to the ceiling that’s

what we call the mental edge

three or five percent for an elite

athlete a pro

athlete any athlete there’s a difference

between going to the fat line

and the game’s on the line with

confidence or with your knee shake

three or five percent in an academic

setting a performance situation giving a

public talk like this is the difference

between standing up in a crowd

and feeling confident again or with your

knees shaking

three or five percent when we’re in a

crowd of people

maybe people we don’t know is the

difference between feeling comfortable

enough that when you’re with a crowd of

people you’re able to look them in the

eye and say hi joel fish nice to meet

you

or you’re with a group of people and you

don’t feel very confident so you spend

half your time looking at the ceiling

you’re looking at the floor

three or five percent is the mental edge

and so i will get the athlete what

percentage is mental it’s largely mental

let’s go to step two which is let’s

identify some specific situations

that are challenging to you mentally

welcome to the club you’re not machines

you’re not robots this is all part of

your player development this is all part

of your personal development

let’s normalize it if you will so

as i said earlier maybe that challenging

situation is letting go of a mistake

maybe it’s after missing a few shots

moving on to the next play

i was working with a field hockey player

very talented national level field

hockey player

the time she had most anxiety if you

will she would tend to overthink

was right before the game so what did we

practice that mental skill

of the sport part of sports psychology

which is mental skills training

we practice what we call positive

self-talk the messages that we give to

ourselves

do influence how we feel how we perform

so her words not mind she came up with a

key word key phrase that was going to

represent her positive self-talk

and before the national anthem and

during the national anthem she’d be

lined up there with all her teammates

take a deep breath and while that

national anthem was playing she would

say to herself

her key word here key phrase her

positive self-talk

just give me the courage to do the best

i can do give me the courage to do the

best i can do and then in a key moment

in a game

she wouldn’t shout it out loud but

sometimes when she’d be running up and

down the field

particularly after a mistake she’d say

to herself the word courage

carriage i can’t believe i carriage

official how could you make courage

sometimes

positive self-talk when we have a

keyword key phrase

that we can direct our thoughts to it

gives us an

anchor for our thoughts and a lot of

elite athletes a lot of professional

athletes olympic athletes

are playing under a big microscope i

would never say to you i’d never say to

any athlete

don’t feel anxiety don’t feel stressed

don’t feel anything but if you do

let’s talk about a plan help you manage

that emotion just a little bit better

be in control that emotion rather than

emotion be in control of you positive

self-talk

give me the courage to do the best i can

do other mantras that we help athletes

come up with is something that we

practice with them so in a key moment of

a game

when they’re in that challenging mental

situation they can redirect their

thoughts

back to that anchor gain perspective

stay in the moment other sports

strategies i work with elite athletes

and the sport part of sports psychology

the mental skills training

it’s just maybe relax

and how to take that deep breath

and slow down like i’m doing with you

right now

because when you slow down heartbeat

slows down blood pressure slow

blood rate slows down but a lot of us

especially competitors

competitor within us when things aren’t

going our way we don’t slow down because

we have these messages

i gotta bear down i gotta try hard try

harder sometimes we do but my work with

elite athletes

pro athletes talented people

nine out of 10 times it’s not about

trying harder

it’s about slowing down

regaining composure be in control of

those emotions rather

those emotions being in control of the

purse

maybe we’ll practice focus techniques

concentration techniques

okay how to improve that

because i really really believe that

there are strategies techniques

ways that we can teach our elite

athletes

to improve their concentration their

focus

and rather than me just talking about it

let me demonstrate with you what i do

sometimes with some elite athletes with

the goal

of improving focus concentration

so i’m going to give all of you five or

six different commands i’m going to ask

you to see something hear something feel

something

i’m going to ask you to shift your

attention and i want to see how well

you’re able to follow my commands and

direct your thoughts

direct your attention direct your focus

towards where i ask you to do it

okay choose to look me in the eye

choose to be aware of the sounds coming

from outside this room

choose to be aware of the feeling in

your right foot wherever it rests

wherever it lies

choose to shift your attention to your

left foot and be aware of your left foot

wherever it rests wherever it lies

choose to listen to the sound of the

ventilation system

choose to be aware of your right foot

choose to look me in the eye

at ease were you able to hang in there

with me

what word did i use more than any other

word choose to

because when you’re choosing to look me

in the eye you’re not aware of the

sounds coming from outside

when you’re choosing to be aware of your

right foot you know to wear the feelings

in your left foot we have tremendous

power

i believe a focused concentration when

we’re coming from a place of choice

choose to bear down choose to lighten up

choose to move on to the next play

choose to have an attitude of learning

and improving i would never say to any

athlete

and we talk about this a lot in the

psychology of working with the lead and

professional athletes

block this out block this out don’t

think that don’t think that because you

know what happens if i say to you block

that out don’t think about it don’t

think about it

all of a sudden you’re thinking about it

it’s like me telling you don’t think

about your belly button don’t think all

of a sudden you’re thinking about it but

when you’re choosing to be in the moment

choosing to move on to the next play

choosing to calm down that gives us

power us control

a really important concentration

technique that i think

we can teach recreational athletes

weekend athletes but that i do with

professional athletes with

olympic athletes with elite performers

the other parts of sport from the sports

psychology it might be mental

preparation what do you like to do the

night before a game an hour before your

game 10 minutes before the game

individual differences let’s try to

learn from our experience to be able to

identify and then apply those ideas

visualization where you watch yourself

the night before a game

and you just imagine three scenarios

that might come up in that game that

next day or that performance

imagine a good scenario okay scenario

and not okay scenario how do you want to

look how do you want to feel

the idea behind visualization is when

you watch yourself perform in a certain

way when you’re in that situation you

feel like you’ve been there before

and if you feel like you’ve been there

before you’re going to be more in

control you feel more in control you’re

going to feel more self-confident

you feel more self-confident your

natural talent is going to flow

the athlete’s the one that’s told me

performance is 30

50 80 percent mental okay so we’re going

to spend 15 minutes a week or hopefully

more

talking about it thinking about it

developing strategies for it

because if we can improve that three or

five percent that’s the mental edge

that’s a sport part of sport performance

in psychology

the psychology part that i work with

with elite athletes has to do with

anything in their personal life

that can be impacting on their

performance so i’ve talked with elite

and professional athletes for 25 years

anxiety stress relationships real world

stuff

welcome to the club you’re not a robot

you’re not a machine

so for example i had an elite golfer a

pro golf or pga golfer just two weeks

ago said to me joel i’m in a slump

what’s your slump be more specific with

the stressor

let’s put together a mental game plan

for it he goes i’m leading these

tournaments in the 16th 17th and 18th

round i can’t close it out

well in five minutes i said tell me

about yourself in five minutes he’s

talking about his mother father his

family and to make a long story short he

left college

early in order to pursue a professional

golf career

and whenever against the wishes of his

parents against the wishes of

who became now his wife and whenever he

was in a position to close out a

tournament

prove to them i made the right decision

i made the right decision he would

tighten his

grip wasn’t able to pot

we ended up spending a lot of time

talking about his parents

about proving himself about his wife

that’s a psychology case

all normal stuff that we can’t just turn

it off on and off when we’re on the

playing field sometimes

there’s a sport part the mental skills

training part and sometimes it’s a

psychology part because if there’s some

underlying

issue that’s kind of there we need to

really address that understand it

help you with that so that your natural

talent can flow

there’s no magic to any of this stuff

but since that time he’s really really

improved

his finishing tournaments his putting

he’s the one that said to me i feel

freer inside

because in psychology we always say it’s

better to get things out rather than to

keep it in

so my work with elite and professional

athletes with people in general

it’s about sometimes trying to find out

what the root of their feelings are

that’s the psychology part

we can improve the mental game we can

improve

that three or five percent that’s what

the psychology of working with

athletes is all about think of it this

way if we improve one percentage point a

week

in the middle part of the game we can be

here two weeks later we’re here four

weeks later here

two months later we’re here we can

improve that three or five percent

we can train the mind i believe that we

can change

now an example just last march that

really

you know brought that to my own

attention i used to be very shy very shy

painfully shy sometimes it’s hard for me

to believe i can get up in front of a

group like this and do this and i went

to my 40th college reunion

and sure enough probably 10 people came

up to me at that point said something

like joel you’re still shy

you know speak up joel can’t hear you

we can change we can change you and i

can change

but it takes practice it takes work

it takes developing a mental game plan

it takes buy-in

step one what percentage is mental step

two let’s hone in on some specific

situations

so this step three we can develop a

mental skills game plan to address that

situation

okay improvement is gradual if we’re

working on positive self-talk

if one time out of ten this week you’re

getting down on yourself frustrated but

you click in and say something like

give me the courage to do the best i can

do and you know it helps

me to be in a moment let go of that play

good it helped you one out of 10 times

this week maybe it’ll help you two out

of 10 times next week

that’s the way mental skills training

works it’s little by little by little

but when we have that game plan and we

practice it and we’re committed to it

and we’re open to talking about the

sport performance part but the

psychology part this is what i feel this

is what i think

we can improve that three or five

percent to gain what we call the mental

edge

my wish to all of you watching this is

good luck in creating those positive

sports memories for yourself

good luck in creating all those positive

memories for all those people that you

work with

good luck moving forward and good luck

in gaining the mental edge thank you

very much

everybody really appreciate it thank you