WHAT IS MENTAL SKILLS COACHING?

Some Definitions:

Technical Skills - similar to the "Motor Skill Competence" -are the particular execution skills required to be successful in a sport.

Physical Skills - this set of skills are the raw athletic skills that are needed to perform the technical skills eg; speed, agility, strength

Mental Skills are tools for the mind and fall under the umbrella of Personal and Professional Development. They can also be viewed as internal capabilities that help a person control their minds efficiently and consistently as they execute performance-related goals. Mental skills coaching provides an advanced toolkit (the methods and techniques) to not only develop skills, but to also generate positive, goal-producing behaviors. Many of these 'mind skills' are in tune with the human brain-mind-body union that affect performance.

Mental Skills also incorporate:
a) Psychological Skills (often used to describe mental skills). Psychological skills training refers to consistent practice of mental skills.
b) Tactical Skills - like "decision-making ability" -these are the "in-game" abilities to choose the right thing to do in different scenarios.

A mental skill enables you to regulate thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions/results.

The nature of the relationship between a performer’s state of mind and his or her performance depends on three prime factors:
1. the strength of mind / mental skills and character / personality of the individual performer,
2. the specific task at hand, and
3. the wider task environment.

Just as physical skills are addressed on a daily basis, mental skills coaching needs to be integrated into the training schedule and practiced on a regular basis.

Research has confirmed that increased use of advanced, neuro-behavioral mental skill techniques / exercises are associated with enhanced performance. Survey based research has also indicated that increased use of advanced, next-generation, mental skills is associated with successful competitive performances in either higher or lower competitive levels of sport (e.g., international vs. regional).

	The need to learn, easy-to-use, personalized (according to User Need / Performance Goals), practical, self-empowering, neuropsychological exercises (to practice once a day for 15 mins) that change and redirect associated neural patterns to activate targeted innate brain-mind-body mechanisms. Latest studies report, after just a few minutes of regular use, decreased impulsivity and anxiety, better mental clarity, more restful sleep, improved mood, and a host of other side benefits. Applying neuroscience, neuropsychology and working with the brain-mind-body continuum legitimizes the work of mental skills development.

Who is a Mental Skills Coaching Course for:

1. Coaches (existing, new or aspiring), trainers, psychologists, exercise / fitness specialists, sports parents, youth sport directors, sports teachers, e-sports/gamers and other professionals involved in team or individual sport. Also for:
- high-risk, physically and mentally demanding, non-sport occupations, such as: military, fire-fighters, police, emergency services, medical;
- high-level, money-making professionals who require elite mental skills (stock traders, gamblers, entrepreneurs etc);
- performers (dancers, actors, musicians etc) and,
- sports parents..

2. Athletes and others looking to self-coach their own mental skills development.

3. Career Opportunities: For the great majority of athletes and others alike, getting regular access to a sports psychologist is a difficult and expensive process. For younger athletes and those without the resources working with a sports mental skills development expert is viewed as an impossible dream.

Sports Mental Skills training is generally seen as something only successful athletes or the rich can afford. The end result is that many people source outdated information or questionable, 'magical' solutions for mental skills development from Self-Help books or the internet.

The "professionalization" sport.
Physical conditioning and technique have performance ceilings, so it is natural before those limits are reached to leverage all that mental skills coaching can provide. Today, mental skills coaching stands as equal partners with physical conditioning and technical training as people strive to take advantage of every opportunity to achieve their goals. It follows, there is a huge, ever growing, global marketplace of school athletes, social athletes, professional athletes and other professional groups in great need of boosting their mental skills to provide that edge to enter the winner's circle. Another key factor in the popularization of mental skills coaching is that the skills learnt can also be successfully applied to other areas of a person's (professional or private) life.

The specialist field of Mental Skills Coaching is a user-friendly service delivery model that presents a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ career opportunity to establish a highly rewarding, part-time or full-time career in people development (with teams or in private practice -in-person or/and via telecoaching).

Read More > Performance Coaching Tools and Techniques

For over 25 years, the Behavioral Coaching Institute has been providing select students with world-best skills, knowledge and scientifically proven tools to position themselves at the top of the coaching field.

Neuroscience provide us a clear map to fast-tracked, sustainable individual and team development.

The exciting new field of Neuroscience provides an understanding of the underlying mechanisms of mental skills coaching and important insights how to fast-track development.

These important insights provide sports coaches a blue-print for scientific coaching processes that are incredibly easy to use and generate exceptional, sustainable results.

The Institute's course reviews critical findings and latest studies that provides students the neural differences between the modern approach to sports coaching and yesterday’s sports coaching model.

Neuro-Behavioral Coaching activates networks and regions of the brain that are associated with big-picture thinking, engagement, motivation, stress regulation, and parasympathetic modulation. Whereas the brain areas responsible for analytic thinking, used in the traditional coaching approach, exist in tension with the brain regions essential for emotionally connecting with self, others and being open to challenge and development.

SEE: High Performance Coaching Reports