Athletes experience daily training programs accompanied with various thoughts, emotions and behaviors which are part of their habitual daily patterns. However, some of these patterns (ex. going to practice to “unleash” my feelings of frustration, using social media during training breaks, repeating to myself how badly I perform) have a negative effect on the psychological state & performance of the athlete.
To this end, a sport psychologist emphasizes in 3 steps when working with an athlete:
- Trigger the awareness of the athlete to understand his/her patterns with negative effect.
- Assist the athlete with a specific method to stop the negative patterns first, while making room for the new patterns to emerge.
- Replace the old negative patterns with positive ones.
Taking the 1st Step:
The awareness of patterns with negative effect is of crucial importance and can be noted simply from the athlete in the form of daily journaling.
Find below a free download of the journal with the appropriate filling instructions.
Download Pattern Recognition Daily Journal