Few are teaching them tangibly, how to emotionally prepare for competition. Here is why emotional preparedness is critically important:
“We talk about GPP & SPP in the realm of sports training, daily.
Nobody likes to talk about emotional preparedness, though.
Emotional preparedness for competition & expectation management are critical components of athletic development.
Spend (a lot of) time between the ears.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Emotional preparedness, also known as psychological readiness, is exactly what you think it is, it’s an athlete’s mental and emotional preparation for competition.
Everybody knows that if you can’t tie the mental to the physical, you place self-imposed sanctions on the ability to regularly showcase your physical capabilities.
Yet, parents will still shove their kids into limitless sport specific lessons and pay lip service to their mental health.
Nobody is teaching kids how to navigate this crazy world and their “emotional regulation” is managed by the doctors who are incentivized to shove zombifying pills down your kids throat.
“I don’t trust Big Pharma!”
“Shut up and swallow this artificial tablet ‘regulated’ by the government and big pharma.”
‘Merica.
Maybe if we spent less time majoring in the minors, our kids would have less mental struggle and more physical performance without having to drive 3 counties’ over to learn how to hit a baseball?
Maybe they could use their “elite” coach that is right down the road, since everybody is elite in 2024?
But what the hell do I know?
4 key elements of emotional preparedness are visualization, stress management, positive self-talk, & self-awareness.
· Visualization is essentially the idea of creating a mental image of what you want to happen or feel. Once you do this, you can then guide your mind through specific images of a desired performance, experience, or outcome. It doesn’t guarantee success, but increases one’s chances of it, significantly.
· Stress management is what it says it is. Stress is a real thing, it’s not going anywhere. The key is to understand how stress affects you and leveraging it to your advantage.
· Positive self-talk. Practice it. Everyday. Literally look into the mirror and say nice things to yourself. Eventually you’ll start to believe them. Positive self-talk fuels performance.
· Self-awareness. Learn from prior experiences. How has what you’ve done from a stress management perspective worked for you in the past? Did it in/decrease your performance anxiety? If there was a positive outcome, double down on what you’ve done. Negative outcome? Evolve your strategies.
There is no one size fits all model for emotional preparedness.
Therefore, it is critical for mentors to work intimately with individuals on finding the best ways to prepare specifically.
