I thought I’d share a short story example of a client that had a lot of success in my program. We will call this client Nancy. Nancy played soccer and was in her spring semester of junior year of high school. Nancy reported a lot of anxiety before playing in games, which she said impaired her performance. She described negative thoughts, rapid breathing, tight chest, and difficulty making decisions.
First, Nancy learned various patterned breathing exercises and practiced them every night before bed, which actually helped her fall asleep. She became more aware of her breathing and overall more mindful.
Nancy identified her big goal of being recruited by a Top 10 school to play soccer, as well as, performing well at Nationals, various camps, and games where scouts would be present. Nancy worked with me in identifying progressive goals occurring daily, weekly, and monthly, to reach these milestone goals. Nancy was working very hard and we met for weekly sessions as she reported she liked the accountability and it helped her focus.
Nancy learned how her breathing controlled her body and her mind, giving her the ability to slow down her rapid negative thinking. She then was able to see her irrational and distorted thoughts in which she had no evidence for, and corrected the thoughts with more positive, rational, and believable sentences. Some became affirmations she mentally rehearsed at various times for different reasons. We also came up with cue words and actions to help her think and act quickly to get back on track and be effective in performance. Nancy remembered past experiences of physical hard work, early mornings, not hanging out late with friends to train early, and when she scored or performed well to give her rational beliefs proof.
One of Nancy’s cue words was “reset”, which was cue to not dwell on what just happened, but to learn from it and move forward. This is also growth mindset and the key to resiliency. When she would be hard on herself, she learned how to use emotional intelligence to take a step back, be her best friend, see the situation more objectively, step back into the situation, and act more rationally towards herself to move forward and not dwell.
Lastly, Nancy and I practiced visualization in session so that she could practice each night before bed on her own, encompassing all of the other skills. We targeted anxiety-provoking situations such as scouts watching, new stadiums, and playing in bigger, more pressure-filled games. Nancy learned the different ways to visualize and the important keys to their success.
We took all of the various skills and put them together creating ‘mental game plans’ tailored to each game, camp, and situation that came up. Nancy’s golden response to the daily mental practice over 3 months was, “I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be.” She talked about calming her friends/team members and helping them correct their irrational thoughts. She talked about her ability to mindfully focus on what she was doing on the field instead of thinking about a scout watching her and the domino effect of anxiety-provoking and stressful thoughts from there. She pleasantly surprised herself in her ability to notice her increasing heart rate with anxiety or stress, activate her breathing patterns, and how quickly she was able to get her mind and body back under her control.
Nancy is a great example of a client experiencing consistent peak performance using PsychEdge. Nancy was recruited soon after by a Top 10 school of her choosing and will also greatly benefit from having all of these skills and mindsets going into Division I college soccer.
If you can identify with any of these concerns or know anyone that can benefit from knowing these psychological skills and mindsets and how to apply them, email me at sarah@psych-edge.com.
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