How To Deal With The Highs And Lows Of Sport
By working with David Charlton, you and your organisation will be better equipped to rise to modern day challenges and better informed to thrive on and off the pitch, course or court. Where he inspires individuals and teams to:
- Cope with pressure and challenges more effectively
- Maintain positive mental health
- Compete with confidence more often
- Manage your emotions better
- Improve your commitments levels
David is a Mental Toughness Practitioner, as well as a Health Care and Professions Council (HCPC) Registered Sport and Exercise Psychologist. He has successfully supported athletes, teams and organisations for over 10 years in order to ensure that they perform at their maximum more often.
He has a comprehensive knowledge around the development of Mental Toughness, a plastic personality trait, which determines or limits people to deal effectively with change, challenges and stressors. In today’s climate, during the Coronavirus pandemic this quality is becoming more and more valuable to individuals, teams and organisations.
Emma Raducanu is a great example of someone whose career was on an upward trajectory, after winning the US Open tennis championship in 2021, aged 18 years old. Since then, her career has been dogged with setbacks and challenges. At Wimbledon this year it was nice to see her perform near to her potential reaching the last 16. Without knowing the detail of what has happened in Emma’s world since her big breakthrough I discuss as a Sport Psychologist the types things we may look at to help athletes such as Emma to rekindle their love for the sport and navigate the challenges that inevitably occur. You’ll note in the episode people are complex and supporting athletes in this way can be multifaceted with their unique experiences, personality, environmental preferences, support network and culture of the sport shaping our support.
Key Learning Points:
- When success arrives an athlete’s personal identity can shift a great deal.
- High and rigid expectations can cause athletes challenges as they come to terms with success.
- Self-esteem and mental health challenges can occur for some athletes when they don’t perform to the standards that they expect of themselves.
- Sports psychologist often use counselling style approaches to help athletes process difficult experiences and emotions associated with them.
- Clean language is a helpful too for practitioners to use during this process.
- Shifting expectations and talk of outcomes to small process goals can be beneficial for athletes to stay grounded and remain present.
- Visualisation can be a useful tool in rekindling thoughts and feelings associated with being in love with your sport.
Connect with David Charlton
Join David @ The Sports Psychology Hub
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Related resources to help you navigate the challenges that sport provides.
Podcast Ep042: Mark Bennett MBE – Characteristics of High Performance Athletes
Podcast Ep140: Chris Cook – How to Improve Your Mental Strength: Secrets from an Olympian
Blog: Are you Motivated or Committed
Click the button below to join The Sports Psychology Hub a Facebook group that David hosts to help ambitious athletes, serious sport coaches, sporting parents, sports psychologists and mental game coaches to support each other.
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Best Wishes
David Charlton
Global Sports Psychologist who is located near Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK and willing to travel Internationally. David also uses online video conferencing software (Zoom, Facetime, WhatsApp) on a regular basis and has clients who he has supported in USA, Canada, South America, UAE, Australian and New Zealand.
Managing Director – Inspiring Sporting Excellence and Founder of The Sports Psychology Hub. With over 10 years experience supporting athletes, coaches, parents and teams to achieve their goals, quickly.
T: +44 7734 697769
