This past week the PGA Tour made its annual trip to the Monterey Peninsula for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. This unique tournament offers the opportunity for amateur golfers to play alongside the PGA Tour professionals. These amateur golfers included the likes of Tony Romo, George Lopez, Ray Romano, and Bill Murray. As fun as this tournament is year after year, it requires the PGA players to focus and concentrate even more because of the increased distractions. This was how Phil Mickelson, one of the most skilled at concentration, was able to pull out a tournament win.

There are three main components to concentration – attention, sustained attention, and sizing up of the situation.

Attention is selectively focusing on relevant environmental cues. There are many distractions during this tournament, but by focusing one’s attention to the meaningful surroundings, one’s concentration improves.

The second component, sustained attention, is all about maintaining this attentional focus. The reason Phil is so mentally strong is because he is able to maintain a high level of focus over the course of a five-hour round of golf. Try to increase your focus little by little and see if your performance improves.

Sizing up the situation is the final component to concentration. Athletes must understand the situation. For example, a basketball player at the end of the game must ignore the distractions of the fans, trash talk, and referees, but must still be aware of the score, the time remaining, the number of timeouts, and so on. Understanding the situation is what Phil Mickelson does on the golf course every day. Coming down the stretch on Sunday, he knew exactly what to do to execute his shots for an impressive win.

Concentrating is not an easy thing to do and it takes practice, but if you can try to hone in on these three components, your concentration will improve!

Sports Psychology/Mental Training from Mental Apex

Trade speculation surrounded Los Angeles Lakers’ forward Pau Gasol during the off-season and has continued into regular season play. Despite all the rumors going around, Gasol remains focused solely on his performance, while ignoring the things that are out of his control, like a trade. Gasol’s approach has allowed him to remain successful on the court even though he is unsure of which team he will eventually play for.
Even though most amateur athletes do not face front office threats that could result in them switching teams without consent, many athletes do face similar problems.
A more relatable problem is when a coach fails to give a player the playing time he or she is expecting. Even though they may strongly disagree with the coach’s decision, it’s something that is out of their control and must ultimately deal with. Giving up, quitting, and complaining are easy, but counterproductive solutions. A better solution is to do what Pau Gasol does – show determination, bring high energy in practice, and excel when the playing opportunities come.
Make it impossible for your coach to not play you. Prove to your coach that you deserve a bigger role on your team. Do the little things that you can control like Gasol does in order to prove to the Lakers front offices that he deserves to be a mainstay on the Lakers roster.

Sports Psychology/Mental Training from Mental Apex

“He can’t pass. He’s lucky. He shouldn’t be a starting NFL quarterback. He’s not any good!” These descriptions have been used to explain the Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback, Tim Tebow. Despite all the negative criticism surrounding his skills and talents, Tebow continues to deliver on the field and lead his team to victory. Why is this guy winning?

Since taking over as starting quarterback, Tebow has a 7-1 record and has led the Broncos to sole possession of first place in the AFC West. Although his statistics aren’t the most impressive, it’s his mental toughness and self-confidence that allow him to make the right decisions at the right times. Tebow embodies what sport psychologists call a “positive self-fulfilling prophecy”, which means that he expects to be successful, therefore, he often is.

The idea of self-fulfilling prophecy is important to all athletes. If the closer of a baseball team expects to be successful (holds a positive self-fulfilling prophecy; e.g. Mariano Rivera), the probability of him having success increases tremendously. If a baseball player holds expectations of failure (a negative self-fulfilling prophecy), there’s a really good chance that he will end up under-performing.

In case you suffer from a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, there are ways to increase self-confidence, and ultimately, conquer these negative feelings. By using positive imagery, the mind will see the body accomplishing positive athletic tasks. By thinking, acting confidently and having positive self-talk, the mind and body will assume that good things will happen. Finally, by successfully performing, self-confidence will skyrocket.

Tebow stated in an interview after yet another comeback victory, this time against the Chicago Bears, “If you believe, then unbelievable things can sometimes be possible.” He is convinced that he will be successful, regardless of what critics, opponents, or fans say. This positive self-fulfilling prophecy overpowers the abundant negative outcry against Tebow. Therefore, he is able to continually exude self-confidence and stay focused to do whatever it takes to win football games. Whether it’s at the high school, collegiate, or professional level, he believes he has what it takes to be a winner. Any athlete who can truly believe in himself or herself as much as Tebow does, has what it takes to win at any level, despite what anybody says.

Sports Psychology/Mental Training from Mental Apex

Motivation is an important component to an athletes success. Depending on the athlete, motivation can be achieved in many different ways.

Imagine you play in the MLB and just came off one of the best seasons that any player in your franchise has ever had. Imagine that you led the National League in home runs (39), runs batted in (126), and runs scored (115), and stole 40 bases on top of it all. Imagine your defense at the center field position was so superb that you were rewarded the Golden Glove award, which is given to the top defensive player for each position. Imagine that nearly everybody felt you deserved to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award because of your extraordinary value. Imagine that all this happened, but the MVP award was given to somebody else.

This is exactly what happened to Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers this week. Kemp had a memorable and historic 2011 campaign, but was robbed of the MVP award. Instead, the award was given to Ryan Braun from the Milwaukee Brewers. Although Braun did have a tremendous year, he lacked the overall value that Kemp added to his team. Although there has been a mild uproar since this news came out, what’s done is done. Braun won. Kemp did not.

The disappointment of finishing second in the MVP voting has not deflated Kemp’s spirits. In fact, it has quickly turned into a direct form of motivation. Kemp’s immediate response to the MVP let down displays how an athlete can take personal misfortune and turn it into fuel to outperform every opponent in sight. Kemp stated, “I’m going to go 50-50 next year. I’m telling you, y’all created a monster.” 50-50 means hitting 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases – something that’s never been done before.

At a time when Kemp could have sulked or got upset, he used the news as motivation to get even better next year. Instead of blaming other people, he blamed himself for not making it an easy decision for the voters.

Every competitive athlete should learn from how Kemp coped with the situation. He used the 2nd place MVP finish as motivation. Now, he’s more determined than ever to work on his game and prove that he’s the best player in baseball. It shows Kemp’s self-confidence. It shows that Matt Kemp has motivation to be the most successful baseball player next year. While other players have motivation to not fail, so that they remain in the big leagues or sign contract extensions, Kemp is motivated to be the most successful. That is one of the biggest mental differences between Kemp and the rest of the league.

In order to be successful in any sport, one must be truly motivated to achieve success. Each athlete must find what motivates him/her. Take a look at different aspects of your life to see what motivates you. It can be a positive or negative experience. It can be on or off the field/court of play. It can be a future goal you are looking to achieve. Look at your sport and situation and see what motivates you as you strive for success.

Sports Psychology/Mental Training from Mental Apex