Monday, June 1, 2015

Consistency: Mentally Tough or Mentally Moronic?

Weathering the highs and lows of sports is a serious challenge, even for the most experienced athletes.  Unfortunately, some athletes never seem capable of escaping the roller coaster of mental performance -- playing like champions one day and mental morons the next!
mental toughness
 Ndamukong Suh stomps on the body of Evan Dietrich-Smith

Here is a simple team-building activity designed to facilitate discussion with an individual athlete or your whole team that is working toward improving their mental toughness.

Directions:
Have athletes think of moments in their sport when they were frustrated, mad, discouraged or disappointed.  Then have them come up with a mentally moronic response to each moment.  Finally, have athletes develop a mentally tough response for each moment.  Athletes should record all their responses in a worksheet they can save for future reference.