mental toughness in sports

1. TIPS FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS

2. MENTAL TOUGHNESS
Mental toughness is the ability to
consistently generate and maintain
focus in stressful situations and
environments. And here’s how you do
it.

3. 1. Envision Being Strong
 The first tip for mental toughness is to envision yourself
being strong.
 When you have a strong image, you subconsciously get
your body to live up to that image. The body is in the
habit of fulfilling whatever images you have in your head –
that is the power of the subconscious.
 If you see yourself as a weak player – you will be. If you
see yourself as a strong player – you will be.

4. 2. Keep Your Eyes Within

5. Keep Your Eyes Within the Court
 The human mind has the tendency to latch onto
points of interest, be they a bystander waving a flag
in the crowd, or the glow from a smartphone sitting
on the table.
 Whenever this happens, we end up using a small
percentage of our mental energy and attention to
process what we see – and this can often distract us
from focusing on what we’re currently working on.
 The way to overcome this is to keep our eyes on the
court – and not be waylaid by outside distractions.

6. 3. Don’t Overthink
 By overthinking, we tend to generate errors and
mistakes in what we do.
 The simple preventative measure for this is to
think about something simple.
 This can be to simply look at the ball – and stay
focused on it, so that other random thoughts stay
out. In a game like tennis, it’s all about
minimizing errors – because he/she who makes
the most mistakes, loses.

7. 4. Don’t Be Swayed by the Opponent or Crowd
 In every situation, there’s you – and then there’s the
crowd. In sports, there is also your opponent.
 If you let them, the crowd or your opponent will sway you
towards what they want. The crowd will have comments
about what you’re doing. Your opponent will want you to
play a certain way – so that they have the advantage.
 If you let yourself be swayed by the opponent or the
crowd, you end up playing a reactive game, rather than a
proactive one. You essentially end up playing their
game, rather than your own. And the net result of this is
a decrease in focus and an increase in the number of
mistakes that you can potentially make.

8. 5. Focus on the Positive

9. Focus on the Positive
 In tennis, if you make a bad shot, instead of
focusing on that or trying to analyze it, you should
go into your next shot clean and positive. You can
save the analysis for later.
 In productivity, you want to take any negativity
that comes up, and walk away with a lesson from
it… then reframe it into a positive as quickly as
you can. This is how we learn – and how we can
train our brains to automatically reframe
negatives into positives in the future.

10. 6. Breathe

11. Breathe
 Breathing is a universal technique that applies to
almost everything we do. In tennis, players run
around a lot and this makes them short on breath
and in particular, short on oxygen. And we need
oxygen to make good, calm, composed decisions.
 So breathing slowly between points helps players
regain composure, helps them relax, and this in
turn improves their technique and power.

12. 7. Be in a Supportive Environment

13. Be in a Supportive Environment
 While a lot of these tips have focused on our own
solo, mental game, it is worth remembering that
it takes at least 2 people to play a match. And
let’s not forget about coaches, mentors, and the
other players in our general environment.
 In tennis, we want to pick our opponents, coaches
and supporting cast well, because we want to
surround ourselves with mentally strong players
who provide a challenge, and help us grow
through trials. We also want to avoid picking up
bad mental habits from negative players.

14. 8. Have Fun
 If we learn to have fun when we play, not only
will the entire experience be more pleasant… but
we’ll also become better players because of it.

15. Anxiety
“ When an athlete’s performance suffers in
an important event, it is often because of
too much worry about the outcome……being
solely concerned with winning causes an
increase in anxiety.”

16. Techniques for controlling anxiety
 Imagery – by method of relaxing by creating mental
images to escape the immediate effects of stress. The
principle is to recreate an environment that is very
relaxing.
 Visualisation – the process of creating a mental image of
what you want to happen or feel, locking into the ‘perfect
performance’. This diverts attention away from the cause
of anxiety.

17. Techniques for controlling anxiety
 Attention control – maintaining concentration on
appropriate cues. This aims to improve the performer’s
ability to focus on appropriate cues then the number of
errors caused by other distractions is reduced.
 Self-talk – developing positive thoughts about one’s
actions. Is vital that self talk remains positive and focus
on self-instructing motivational content.

18. Techniques for controlling anxiety
 Breathing control – using diaphragmatic breathing
(breathing deeply) as a means of focusing on relaxation.
Encourages full oxygen exchange, reduces the heart rate
and lowers/stabilises blood pressure.
 Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) – learning to be
aware of the tension present in muscles and removing it
by relaxing. This is done by alternating extreme tension
that is held for a few seconds the releasing the tension to
relax.

19. THANKS