What is Mental Skills Training?

Also called Psychological Skills Training (PST), or Mental Performance Training, Mental Skills Training is a systematic and intentional process aimed at developing and enhancing the psychological aspects of performance in sports.

Mental Skills Training involves teaching athletes a range of psychological strategies and techniques to optimize their mindset, focus, confidence, emotional regulation, and overall mental resilience, contributing to improved athletic performance, enjoyment, and well-being. It encompasses practices such as goal setting, mental imagery, self-talk, mindfulness, and stress management, tailored to individual athletes' needs and the demands of their specific sports.

The goal of Mental Skills Training is to empower athletes to effectively navigate challenges, enhance their self-regulation skills, and achieve peak performance.

Pictured above is another way to describe PST - the Mental Management of Physical Resources - (try saying "MMPR" five times fast). Ideally, many internal and external elements of the elite performer are considered in order to increase his or her "psychomotor efficiency," a fancy word that represents optimizing the connection between your mind and body; the integration of cognitive processes and motor skills to execute tasks effectively, whether it's precision, speed, coordination, or decision-making. Just like we can train to make the muscles more refined and efficient, we can also train the brain.  Genetic factors combine with internal factors such as personality, trait anxiety, self-efficacy, and motivational orientation, which also combine with external factors such as the ability to regulate the nervous system, use of mindfulness, leadership environment, and of course, practice. As athletes engage in mental and physical practice, they slowly increase their ability to be more AUTOMATIC in their performance and reach "psychomotor efficiency" more consistently in their sport. 

Unfortunately, athletes traditionally spend little time training the mental side of the game, even though they believe that psychological factors primarily account for day-to-day fluctuations in performance...

SO, what percentage of your sport performance is mental vs. physical? AND are you engaging in Mental Skills Training to reflect that?