Mindset: the missing link for children and teenagers who play sport
Coaching junior athletes on sports mindset skills
I started using sports mindset work in my coaching practice around 10 years ago with junior basketball players as young as 11, when I realised the profound impact that combining mindset coaching into on-court skills sessions had on their development.
After just 6 weeks of training this way, not only were there noticeable improvements in their game, but also in the way players felt – they reported more confidence, motivation, and were better able to handle the ebbs and flows of the game.
It became obvious to me that rather than spending 10 minutes of my one-hour session teaching players the technique for shooting a basketball, I was better off spending half that time asking them questions and getting them to understand what they were thinking when they shot the ball. Basically – what was going on in their mind.
More training isn’t always the answer to improving your game
Through a process of questioning and self-reflection, these young players could easily identify some of their ‘blocks’ or reasons why their shots were consistently missing. These would vary from a fear of missing shots; fear of being judged by team-mates if they took too many shots; fear of letting the team down; fear of never being able to shoot well… etc.
So as well as tweaking their shot technique and getting more ‘game tempo’ reps up, (which is what us coaches traditionally focus on to improve a skill such a shooting), I coached the players on how to strengthen their sports mindset.
I also had several players who could nail 80-90% of open shots in a training session but who struggled to convert them in a game. These players trained at game tempo and practiced ‘pressured’ shots at training (a lack of these 2 training elements can be the reason why players don’t convert shots in a game). There was a disconnect somewhere, and it was mindset. Most commonly, the core of the issue was a lack of confidence. Practicing another 200 shots with perfect technique wasn’t going to make any difference if the players didn’t have an underlying belief the ball could go in. A game-tempo practiced, good shot technique might account for some of the shots they made, but put junior players into a game situation with several external variables that can be summed up in a word – pressure – and practice and technique alone won’t equal consistent shooting. Mindset was the missing link, and after several weeks working on this, the conversion into games inevitably came.
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Learning mindset skills as a junior athlete in high performance programs…
I have always understood the power of mindset for sport. As a very young athlete, I couldn’t really put words to it, but I knew that the way I felt mentally before and during a game, impacted the way I played.
Then as I progressed as an elite junior athlete in high performance programs such as the Australian Institute of Sport, and the Australian junior national team, I was fortunate to learn the finer details of honing these skills. This helped prepare me for my professional career as an athlete whereby mindset was an even bigger focus and our team worked with sports psychologists, which is common in most professional team environments. I also had a natural curiosity for understanding human behaviour and how our brain works which is why I pursued the study of psychology.
So when I transitioned to junior coaching after retiring from playing, I had seen and experienced first-hand the impact of mindset work myself, and it was second-nature to me. But when I realised that so many junior players lacked mindset skills, and were so capable of learning them, I knew from that point on, mindset would shape the way I coached because I believed it was, and still is, the missing link in how we develop juniors.
My experience as both a player and junior coach, along with the strong scientific evidence that confirms the effectiveness of mental skills training for athletes, consistently reinforces to me that mental skills training plays a vital role in both the performance and wellbeing of junior athletes.
It’s the reason why I recommend that mindset skills training should be part of any junior athlete’s training program. Not as a ‘nice-to-have’ add-on that fits in around physical skill development, but as an essential element of training that will not only help them in sport, but equip young athletes with skills that will benefit them immeasurably well beyond the sports field and throughout their lives.
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