With our goal to reach 1 million athletes and coaches with mental training, an important step in reaching that goal is answering the rudimentary (yet VITAL) question: What is mental training? 

If you’re reading this blog you likely fit into one of these categories: 

• An athlete who is researching various ways to improve your performance and break through mental barriers.  
• A parent who is looking for ways to help your struggling athlete.
• A coach (or aspiring coach) who is new to mental training and wants to explore how it can help your team. 
• A coach who is practicing mental training and wants a resource to help you explain it to athletes, parents, coaches, and athletic departments.

Whatever your path, we’re stoked that you’re here and hope that we can help you find clarity about what mental training is and how it can make a massive impact. 

(For the sake of clarity, we’ll be speaking to coaches in this blog, but...

You’re midway through the season and you’re going up against a team with a far worse record. Last time you played this team, you OUTplayed them. Your team is going into the game confident (maybe even a little cocky) and all-but certain they’ll get that W. From every angle, this game should be a shut out. 

But as the game progresses, you notice:

• Your athletes are making careless mistakes
• You’re team is getting intercepted/rebounded/fouled out
• Tempers are running high
• Your team is inconsistent - timid one moment, overly aggressive the next

As the game continues, tensions rise high and frustration, disbelief, even a little panic bubbles to the surface. 

At the end of the game, you’ve lost… or maybe you’ve won. The score isn’t really the point. The point is that you played poorly.

You played down to your opponent. 

When we asked our Mental Training for Coaches Facebook group, “What do you do when your team...