Sports Psychology

The exceptional rewards of professional athletes require exceptional commitment. While your goals may be much less than exceptional, the commitment is still there. No goal can be achieved without difficult work and difficult decisions. However, no matter the goal, the more effort put into training, preparation, or fundamentals, the better the results, and the sooner the results. Sports psychologists help players to work not just harder but also smarter: how to change a routine, how to modify a mindset, and how to get through times of struggle. The finish line may seem far away, but it only gets closer when you run toward it at full speed. Concentration Building We live in an era when technology has significantly reduced attention spans. The average time of a shot length in a film (the time between when the camera changes to a new perspective) has dropped from 12 seconds in 1930 to just 2.5 seconds today. Twitter posts and TikTok videos are capped at just 280 characters and 15 seconds in length, respectively. With a new distraction always available at our fingertips, it can be hard to concentrate on a task, especially for a person with a condition like attention-deficit disorder. Concentration isn’t just difficult, it’s exhausting: the famous guards who stand watch at Buckingham Palace are known to pass out due to spending many hours standing in one place without moving. However, concentration is a skill just like running fast or kicking hard, meaning that athletes as well as ordinary persons can train themselves to improve their ability to focus. Sports psychologists help athletes to develop focus: tuning out distractions, committing to just one idea or goal, and paying attention to the most important fundamentals of their sport. That aspect of psychology has many benefits for the wider world—as you know, since reading this book requires you to concentrate on the words! Concentration matters

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Sports Psychology