Psychology of Sports

What psychological qualities do you need to become an elite player?

“Well I think I would definitely say resilience, and the way I interpret resilience in a sport context, is you need to have emotional understanding of yourself and the people around you. You need to be able to persevere, have optimism, a good support network whether that's from a team in game situation but off the team from coaches and other support stars. You definitely need to gain some perspective, so understand what happens and how can you learn from it and that kind of idea from learning mistakes without getting sucked into that perfectionist, thinking about I'm not good enough, I'm a failure. So I think it's about getting a kind of neutral perspective on things."

Should coaches give players more freedom to make their own decisions?

“Absolutely, that's another key feature of well being, if you want to develop a mastery climate, you have to allow people to take ownership of things, you can't expect people just to do it in a game situation. Actually allow them to develop those skills, so that approach where the kids are always told to do this and that, and their is no ownership of anything they have to do. I think that's the problem in the future."

How can a coach create the right environment for their players?

“I think their is a few things. One is they have to be mindful, that they create the context and culture. I think that it's about creating environments where athletes can flourish, and I think flourishing is enhancing the possibilities where people can grow, and develop. It's about creating the environment where players become resilient, where they have emotional stability, and emotional awareness. Coach must have a duty of care for individuals and critical part of developing the right culture, and it's not always about fixing the problems, it's the opposite where it's developing the players to being the best they possibly can be."

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