Mental Skills Training Isn’t Always What You’d Expect

You and every other athlete - even those who play a different sport - will share some difficult experiences. Everyone will lose, make mistakes, transition to new teams, miss social or familial engagements, face an injury (minor or major), and retire. Some difficulties you will create for yourself. You might worry about things that haven’t happened yet or beat yourself up for game situations that weren’t preventable. Working mindfulness into your mental game makes difficult experiences more manageable, but it doesn’t happen in the way most people think.

Mindfulness and all the mental skills training in the world won’t keep you from having hard days. What it will do is help you handle hard times and teach you not to make them harder for yourself. A mindful perspective encourages you to view events objectively and with some self-compassion. For example: