Session 1

Mental warm up and warm down

For most athletes a physical warm up and cool down is already an essential part of training and competition, but how can you mentally prepare for optimal performance? Do you have a process to make sure that you are mentally recovering after every training session or competition so that you are in the best place to start the next one?

This workshop will look at the how and why of mental warm ups and cool downs, supporting you to develop your own strategies to enhance readiness and optimise learning pre and post performance.

Session aims include:

• Understand the benefits of a mental warm up and cool down
• Explore the components and structure of a mental warm up and cool down
• Understand how and when to put a mental warm up and cool down into practice

Session 2

How do you deal with setbacks?  

Even the most successful athletes will experience setbacks some point, so it is important to accept this reality and develop helpful and constructive ways to respond and bounce back. This workshop will look at how you respond to setbacks and how you can develop a more constructive and resilient response to give you a better chance of success.

Session aims include: 

• Explore how the mind typically reacts to setbacks
• Gain insight into why this happens
• Understand how you want to deal with setbacks and learn skills to support you to execute this

Session 3

How to manage and deal with underperformance

Our mind can be a powerful ally in attaining optimal performance but, if it is not well understood or managed, can hijack even the most committed athlete into unhelpful thinking and behaviours.

Why does an athlete sometimes struggle to commit to training and lifestyle requirements? Why does conflict arise between an athlete and their coach or team members and what can be done about it? How can we use the mind to gain confidence in the pursuit of our goals? This workshop will consider how to create successful processes to help optimise your sporting performance, looking at commitment, conflict and confidence.

Session aims include: 

• To better understand the difference between commitment and motivation and how this impacts your reactions, emotions and behaviours
• To learn how to better manage your emotions around conflict and disputes
• To explore the consequences of confidence and how to achieve it

Session 4

Managing fear of failure

Is fear of failure holding you back from achieving your goals? In this session, we’re going to further your understanding of how the mind works, looking at where fear of failure comes from and how to manage your mind to enable you to work from a position where fear of failure does not exist.

Session aims include: 

• Recognise fear of failure and develop strategies to manage this
• Examine your current criteria for defining success and failure
• Explore the unhelpful beliefs that may lead to fear of failure and consider more helpful alternatives