“You got a choice – you either come in & let your circumstances control your attitude – or you let your attitude control your circumstances.” Attitude is critical to overcoming adversity.
Archive for the 'Tiro a volo' Category
Made a mistake does not mean I am a failure as an athletes. Making a mistake is a specific behavior or event. Telling that I am a loser is a global self-assessment. Telling, I lost this competition is an objective evaluation and open the door to do better the next one.
Too often the athletes say themselves:
I made several mistakes → I failed the race.→ I am a loser.
A right assessment could be:
I made several mistakes during this race → I lost it → I need to talk to the coach (or mental coach) and make a plan to avoid these mistakes.
Do this exercise: Think back to a time wen you lose a competition. Please, rewrite the story so that you don’t condemn yourself as an athletes? Be aware how changing the narrative you tell yourself can improve your confidence.
As psychologists and coaches we will teach to develop in our athletes an open attitude towards mistakes if we are willing to accept that we may even fail in this task.
Are we willing to take this risk by getting 100% involved in this challenge?
Or do we just teach sports or psychological techniques convinced that they are enough to become good athletes and save ourselves from the professional failure?
Teaching young people who want to become expert athletes is a very challenging experience and different from working with adult athletes, who have already reached a high international level. They are young teenagers, boys and girls, who have chosen to devote their lives to the task of discovering if they have the qualities to emerge in sport and to turn their passion into a high-level sports career.
In individual sports, by high level we mean an athlete able to be competitive at the international level. In team sports, we refer to playing, at least, at the level of the two highest level national championships.
We know that once these goals have been set, they must be set aside because the athletes must focus on what they need to do to improve and lead their daily life. We also know that it is not easy to acquire this mentality because of the mistakes that are constantly made. They test the confidence that must support the athletes in reacting immediately to a single error as well as to an unsatisfying performance.
Teaching young people to acquire this open-mindedness to mistakes, interpreting them as the only opportunity, must be the goal of every coach.
Arrigo Sacchi stressed another aspect of this concept, stating that to win you don’t have the problem of winning, otherwise you will never be an innovator.
The objective is therefore “to do things well”, to have a work culture. We all know that “only those who do not do, do not make mistakes”.
If we are aware of this simple truth: we will train our athletes, transferring the idea that making mistakes is a part of the physiology of the race and not something that you can avoid. Let’s train them with this idea and they will become better and more satisfied.
“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.” William James
Next 6 December at the Olympic Center Papendal (Netherlands), a wonderful session on “Performance Behavior in Elite Sports” will be organised by Team Netherlands in collaboration with TOPSport Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The program is addressed to psychologists and other experts working in elite sport, coaches, athletes, technical directors and sport managers and students. Check the link for registration and details: https://lnkd.in/dcMUct4
With: Paul Wylleman, Maurits G. Hendriks, Chris Harwood, Alberto Cei, Suzan Blijlevens, Jolan Kegelaers, Eveline Folkerts, Hardy Menkehorst, Takeshi KUKIDOME, Thierry SOLER, Urban Johnson, Marc Hendriks, Maria Psychountaki, Petra Huybrechtse, Pieta Van Dishoeck, Nynke Klopstra, Hafrún Kristjánsdóttir, PhD, Anaëlle Malherbe, Tanja Kajtna, Sidonio Serpa, Sylvia Hoppenbrouwers, Eefje Raedts
“We are what we communicate.” Let’s tell all club presidents, coaches, fans, parents and sons: words and behaviors tell who we are and what we believe in and everyone takes responsibility for their actions.
Psychological preparation with athletes and coaches usually takes place with people who speak the same mother tongue, because sharing the same cultural climate promotes relationship and change.
When I was involved in this consultancy activity in non-English speaking countries such as Cyprus, India, Malta, United Arab Emirates and Iran, I have been aware that English, even as a second language, still allowed for a constructive and equally effective dialogue with athletes.
I recently spent two weeks in China, in Beijing, working with the Chinese national shooting team. In this country, I hav had to cope in a different environment, having to work with an interpreter who, although an expert, limited the relationship with athletes and coaches and consequently I run the risk to reduce the effectiveness of the psychological preparation. As a result, the work done was essentially focused on practical experiences to be carried out collectively in the gym and individually on the shooting range.
In this way, the athletes were able to immediately apply in training psychological strategies and techniques to improve: (a) their ability to be focused in conditions of competitive stress and (b) how to refocus themselves after a mistake or unexpected events.
This experience has further confirmed to me that, even with our Italian athletes, we often spend too much time describing what they should do/think/feel rather than more pragmatically allow them to make experiences of change and optimization of their psychological resources through a specific training consisting of exercises. On the other hand, the athletes know these systems very well, since the physical preparation and technical training are based on the practice repeated over time with the desired intensity.
… ancora una volta lo sport UK mostra che assumere uno psicologo in una squadra olimpica è una cosa seria, richiede competenze specifiche, che solo uno psicologo dello sport ha sviluppato. Sono contro i ciarlatani dello sport, persone non qualificate che spesso lavorano nello sport con il nome di “motivatore” o “mental coach” ma anche contro il lavoro affidato per clientele personali o familistiche così diffuse nel nostro paese.
Sport Psychologist/Senior Sport Psychologist
Location: flexible
Salary: £26,266 – £36,988 p.a pro-rata
Contract Type: Permanent
Position Type: Part Time
Interview Date: Tuesday, 10 December 2019
Closing Date: Wednesday 20 November 2019
Questo ruolo guiderà e realizzerà il programma di Psicologia e la strategia di salute mentale per la Boccia UK, fornendo un supporto efficace e mirato alla performance agli atleti e ai loro allenatori. Il supporto massimizzerà l’opportunità di successo ai Giochi Paralimpici, sostenendo gli atleti senior a sviluppare le capacità mentali per vincere a Tokyo. Lo psicologo favorirà lo sviluppo di un ambiente di allenamento e competizione ad alte prestazioni e promuoverà una salute mentale positiva, lavorando a stretto contatto con il Performance Director, Head of Performance Support and Performance Coaches.
COMPITI E ATTIVITÀ PRINCIPALI
- Lavorare con il responsabile del supporto alla performance, lo psicologo capo e il personale della federazione per migliorare le prestazioni attraverso lo sviluppo, l’implementazione e la valutazione dei servizi di psicologia.
- Fornire in modo proattivo agli atleti servizi psicologici focalizzati sulle prestazioni, che sviluppino e consolidino comportamenti coerenti in termini di prestazioni attraverso l’uso efficace del supporto psicologico.
- Fornire servizi psicologici agli atleti per promuovere la salute mentale positiva, migliorare il benessere psicologico e sostenere il benessere degli atleti.
- Sostenere gli allenatori allineando i servizi psicologici con i programmi di allenamento di questi atleti.
- Utilizzare l’esperienza nel campo della psicologia per consigliare il Boccia UK Senior Leadership Team sullo sviluppo culturale di Boccia UK WCP.
- Utilizzare l’esperienza nel campo della psicologia per consigliare il Performance Team sulla costruzione di relazioni di lavoro efficaci con atleti e allenatori.
- Contribuire con competenze psicologiche a progetti di squadra multidisciplinari e sostenere il lavoro con gli allenatori, lo staff di supporto e gli atleti.
- Garantire che l’erogazione del servizio di psicologia soddisfi efficacemente i suoi impegni nei confronti di atleti, allenatori e organi direttivi nazionali, compresi gli obiettivi di allenamento appropriati.
- Mantenere un database completo e indicizzato del lavoro svolto con atleti e allenatori.
- Partecipare, contribuire e fornire relazioni periodiche alle riunioni appropriate associate al programma e alle principali parti interessate, compresi altri colleghi dell’EIS e il personale dell’NGB.
- Contribuire allo sviluppo delle conoscenze, all’aggregazione e alla condivisione all’interno dell’organizzazione per sostenere lo sviluppo di servizi psicologici di livello mondiale e del sistema di alta prestazione #CollectiveBrilliance.
Questa descrizione del lavoro non è da considerarsi esclusiva o esaustiva. E’ da intendersi come un’indicazione di massima delle aree di attività e sarà modificata alla luce delle mutevoli esigenze dell’organizzazione.
