Sports Psychology Myths: Are Athletes Weak If They Resort To Mental Training?
Are you or your players afraid other athletes will see you as weak if you have to do mental training or work with a sports psychologist? Still today, athletes buy into myths about sports psychology, which prevent them from embracing the benefits of mental training. I recently received an email from a young hockey player getting ready for try outs. This hockey player states: “I have friends who perform better than me and they don’t read any mental training books. Every time I open my mental training book I feel no motivation to read because better athletes don’t do anything to mentally prepare themselves. I feel that I’m weak by being probably the only guy going to try-outs that reads mental training books. I have only heard of a very few great athletes that do mental preparation.” When I receive these emails from athletes, I’m surprised that people still view mental training or sports psychology as a weakness and thus think they are inferior because they need to do mental training. Unf
