It’s time to confess…I suck at this whole soccer thing… at least some parts of it. It seems harsh but cmon we’ve all at one point thought “I suck at this sport.” And yeah you’re probably right. We are all trash at some things. One big thing that many of us are terrible at is the mental side of the game. I’m no exception. I’m sick of stepping on the field and hoping I play well, it’s time to take back control and that starts with my mentality.
I know I came on a little strong, so I’ll take a different approach. Most athletes are completely replaceable. If university taught me anything, it’s that there are countless individuals out there with a similar talent and ability level to you. As we progress, the playing field evens; many will have similar physical abilities. Of course, every player is slightly unique, but maintaining that individuality becomes difficult as competition level increases. This is why at the elite level we see greater reliance on mental skills. Our mentality provides us another avenue to get ahead of our opponents. I am no exception. Since becoming a professional soccer player, it has been made even clearer that I can’t rely on my athleticism and soccer ability alone. I’m competing with a world full of women who would love to take my position; it’s important that I do everything possible to make myself better. Believe it or not, right now, one of my biggest weaknesses is my mentality. So, I’m creating my own mental skills intervention to address this.
So back to what I was saying before. Some of us are truly trash at this whole mental side of the game thing. But thats ok. This isn’t really a new concept. There’s a reason performance consultants have been providing mental skills trainings for years. These professionals craft mental skills interventions tailored to their clients’ goals. In the same way that coaches dissect their teams’ strengths and weaknesses, consider new strategies, and design trainings to help players acquire new physical skills. Consultants and other professionals create programs to assist their clients mentally. The world of sport psychology is vast. The techniques that can be used to assist athletes are equally extensive. To make everything a bit simpler, there are a series of steps that practitioners follow to create sport psychology interventions. As athletes, we can also use these steps as building blocks to better our own mentality, which is exactly what I will attempt to do.
1. Philosophy & Needs Assessment
Before going into specifics of a mental skills program, it’s important to establish intervention type and goals based on the client’s needs. I didn’t even realize there were different types of interventions. The Handbook for Sports Psychology lays out the main mental training philosophies in the field: educational vs clinical, program centered vs athlete centered, and performance enhancement vs developmental approaches. Without going into too much detail I’ll describe these different categories.
The educational approach assumes that athletes are already aware of certain mental skills needed for sport, but may require assistance honing them and efficiently using them in competition settings. The clinical approach centers around treating psychopathology. Professionals attempting these types of interventions often need to have the required credentials.
Program centered interventions often have a set curriculum; whereas, an athlete-centered approach relies on the client’s needs to lead the intervention.
Performance enhancement approaches are those that are more focused on helping athletes in competition settings. Developmental approaches aim to assist athletes mentally on and off the field. This type of intervention may aim to help athletes in multiple dimensions, such as their transition out of sport. It’s important to note there tends to be a lot of crossover between these two distinctions.
Obviously, given that this is an intervention by me for me, it kinda has to be athlete-centered. My main focus is performance enhancement but there will be hints of the developmental approach as well.
Now, here’s where the really fun part begins… the needs assessment. This consists of highlighting the critical issues the intervention needs to solve. So super fun for me, I got to sit and point out all my flaws in a very thorough and specific way! In trying to figure out the best way to nitpick my imperfections, I came across the book Psychology in Sports Coaching. One of the chapters is a coaches’ interview guide to figuring out what issues athletes are having. I finally got to put the multiple personalities inside of me to good use, and I conducted an interview on myself. I could see how the questions would be very useful when actually talking with an athlete, but for individual use it was a little repetitive. Regardless, the whole process was helpful. Questions addressed the type, severity, specificity, frequency, and duration of the issue. There were also questions addressing athletes’ emotions and mentality surrounding their issue and any adjustments they had already tried to make.
As a surprise to literally no one, my needs assessment revealed problems with anxiety, self-efficacy, extrinsic motivation, and emotional/arousal regulation issues. I believe my biggest issue, low self-efficacy, gives rise to the rest. So, it will be the main focus of the intervention. However the other variables will remain important.
2. Model Model
2. Model
Interventions are said to be more effective when they have some sort of theoretical standing. This makes sense. Existing models explain some sort of mental processes effecting performance. To me, its common sense to use one of these theories as a framework instead of trying to re-invent the wheel. It makes it easier to predict what may happen and form hypotheses. Additionally, using an existing model/theory helps the practitioner narrow down a pretty immense catalog of strategies and mental skills that can be used to help an athlete.
So, despite this being a pretty laid-back intervention, I want it to have at least some sort of theoretical foundation. Given that one of my main problems is with self-efficacy, I want to use self-efficacy theory as a sort of framework. I’ve gone into detail about self-efficacy in previous posts. Basically, this theory proposes that there are four main sources informing efficacy beliefs: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. I think that all the issues that I face can be connected to each of these sources. By appealing to each source of efficacy I plan to alleviate my issues with anxiety and motivation while bolstering my overall efficacy.
3. Program Design
The next part of creating an intervention is actually figuring out which skills and strategies to implement to achieve the desired outcomes. There are so many to choose from; it’s important to rely on the theoretical framework you have chosen to guide your decision and overall program design.
I have designed this program to address each of the sources of self-efficacy. I will do this by using a combination of goal setting, imagery, and self-talk.
Goal Setting: Goal setting is associated with increased self-efficacy. The idea is that by setting and achieving realistic, measurable goals you can increase self-efficacy by bolstering mastery experiences. The trick is to start small, start building momentum, then slowly increase the difficulty of goals. Recording progress and being able to look back at proof of past successes will further bolster mastery experiences.
Imagery: Imagery can act as a source of vicarious experiences which boosts self-efficacy. There are different types of imagery, but it’s often most effective when the athlete can “recreate” the total environment surrounding their performance, including their thoughts and emotions, in addition to the physical aspect of competing. Imagery can act as a sort of mental practice.
Self-Talk: For this intervention, I plan on using self-talk as a “reset.” I find that my anxiety tends to build after a mistake that I can’t let go of. I want to use this technique as a kind of thought stopper, allowing myself to regulate my emotions before they get out of control. This type of self-talk appeals to both the verbal persuasion and physiological state sources of efficacy.
4. Implementation
The next part of creating an intervention involves explicitly laying out the plan to incorporate the techniques and strategies from the design phase. I think the most important part of any intervention is feasibility. Practitioners must consider an athlete’s burden. You can have the most elaborate and beautifully created plan out there but if your client can’t complete it, it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
There are instances, especially in research settings, where practitioners have a “test run;” they practice their intervention and determine whether or not it’s feasible before they bring it to a bigger group. I kind of did something similar last half of the season. I tested out a similar intervention to the one I bring before you now. I found that it was a little too tedious. I was trying to do 20-30 minutes of imagery training each day, and recording my thoughts about imagery before and after in addition to the other strategies I mentioned before. It worked for about a week before it became a little too much. I don’t consider this a failure though, it’s just about figuring out what exactly works for me.
So, below is a weekly breakdown of my intervention, which is still time demanding, but works better for my schedule.
5. Evaluation
What’s the point of creating any type of mental skills training if you can’t figure out if it works? Sure, we could rely on athletes’ feelings, and this is super important, but there should be a more objective way of determining whether or not an intervention is successful. Additionally, there needs to be a way of concluding the degree to which an intervention is successful. A program that barely produces the desired results might not be worth the effort put in.
For my intervention, I have decided at the end of each week to complete self-efficacy, sport-anxiety, and imagery questionnaires. Self-efficacy is the main issue I am trying to resolve, so naturally it is the most important variable. Anxiety is another one of my important issues. Imagery is such a large portion of this intervention so I thought I might as well track the degree to which imagery capabilities improve. For the self-efficacy questionnaire I have chosen the Athlete Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. For anxiety, I will be using the Sport Anxiety Scale. To measure imagery ability I will use the Sport Imagery Questionnaire.
The questionnaires will be completed every Sunday, or the day following the match. Additionally, baseline questionnaires will be completed prior to the first week of the intervention.
Mental skills programming is an important avenue by which athletes can gain psychological advantages over opponents. Whether it is an athlete designing a program for themselves or a practitioner creating a plan for a team, there are certain steps to follow to streamline the process. Now I know the everyday athlete isn’t going to totally nerd out like me and start “Google-Scholar-ing” different sports psych models, conduct a formal needs assessment, or even create a structured regimen to address their shortcomings. But I think anyone can be made a better athlete by being in tune with some of their mental weaknesses and making plans to combat them. We would do the same for any other type of skill we lacked in our sport. So, if you’re sick of “sucking” at your sport maybe it’s time to explore other avenues of training, after all not all our shortcomings are physical…
And I’ll keep you all updated on my progress as I begin this journey to not suck at soccer anymore…
to be continued…