Psychological skills training

Psychological skills training is a branch of psychology that deals with sports and performance. The area is educational and improves athletic performance. It is a specialized field of study that incorporates several psychological talents such as imagery, goal planning, self-talk, and so on. A psychological skills training plan is a step-by-step process for dealing with an individual's psychological condition in sports.

The construction of a psychological skills training plan is established and addressed in detail in this work. The term paper starts by identifying who is creating the plan. Various facts about the plan creator are included in identification. The introduction helps in the development of the personal context for the plan. The details provided about the person include the student status, the activities he does outside the school, interest, personal characteristics and ambitions. Information about the current and historical involvement of the person with sport, exercise and other performance activities is also given.

The next subject discussed in the paper is the central issue compromising the process, performance and satisfaction of the person the plan is under development. In this section, a tabulated performance profile is given and the performance qualities tabulated given in detail. The performance quality addresses in the plan among the tabulated conditions are confidence.

The paper ends with a developed comprehensive psychological skills training plan that addresses confidence as the problem. Various methods such as imagery, self-confidence and goal setting are used to precisely develop the plan.

Psychological Skills Training Plan

The person

I have majored in sport and performance psychology as an undergraduate, and I would now like to concentrate on psychological skills and training plan.

I have been studying psychology since the beginning of my undergraduate program. However, I have also been exploring other areas of interest such as math, sciences, and sociology. These areas are also important because they help me in other areas of life. Also inclusive to my curriculum is general subjects. General subjects have equipped me with life skills that give me a hand in several aspects of life. My personal projects in psychology have involved some combination of these subjects. Sociology, for instance, has helped to learn about the different cultures of people and how they behave. The subject has been of great importance in shedding light to me on how people of different ages behave especially when in a social gathering, and for this case, a setting for doing physical exercises.

I do many activities especially when I am out of school. These include sport, music, charity work and visiting places. Some of these activities make up my hobbies. I love doing many these activities and related activities of the same category, especially during my free time. Hobbies and other outside school activities keep me busy and help me manage my time properly. Personally, I don’t like to be Idle. Being active and involved makes part of my characteristics. Perhaps that is why the am involved in quite some activities. I am also an outgoing person. I interact with people and love making friends. Being social has helped to connect with people who will help me advance my career in the future. I want to specialize in psychology and want to see myself being a professor in psychology, in one of the major fields of psychology.

My relationship with sports has ever been good since I was a young kid. Through my elementary school, lower grades classes, high school to college I have always participated in many sporting activities, exercises and performance activities. I have taken part in a number of sport including football, baseball, athletics and much more. During my years in lower grade school and high school, I studied physical education. My performance was excellent. In study of physical education, I learned some physical exercise activities, which I use even up to now. Currently, I am a third year in college, and my involvement in sport and exercise has been notable.

In my studies towards masters and doctoral, I would like to examine more closely the relationship between psychology and sport. My junior year and private studies in psychology and sport have caused me to consider more closely the broad field of sports, exercises, other physical activities and the development of a psychological skills training plan.

The problem

Performance profile

Characteristic/Performance quality

Athlete’s assessed performance level(Y)

Athlete’s self-assessment(X)

Discrepancy

(10-X) x Y

Confidence

Concentration

Control

Commitment

Refocusing after errors

Enjoyment

Stress

Performance rate

Rest and relaxation time

Adaptation

The ten performance qualities to be addressed while developing the plan are as tabulated above. The objectives of profiling performance classes include; help in the identification of the appropriate intervention, maximize the motivation of the participants in the athletics or the exercise, and to carefully observe changes over time. Confidence addresses the athlete’s degree of believing in himself or herself and feel that the exercise or activity will achieve positive results. It can be closely linked to self-esteem. It shows how the athlete feels about successful completion of the task. Concentration is paying attention. It involves the ability to direct attention on the exercise at hand and avoiding any distractions from the external environment. It also includes selective attention, which means concentrating entirely on a particular activity. Control which is also perceived control in the field of psychology is an individual’s belief that he or she is in a position of obtaining the desired results, avoiding the unwanted results and achieving the goals of any given task, activity or exercise. Control is associated with health, relationships, and adjustment. Another performance quality is control which means a dedication to a particular job or a person. This performance criterion in sport and performance psychology can be described as obligatory exercises and activities which a person must perform. Focusing is a psychotherapeutic process applicable in many areas of therapeutic situations, including peer-to-peer sessions. Refocusing on errors is, therefore, a psychotherapeutic process which is kind of open, non-judging attention to an internal knowing that can be used in sports and performance psychology field to assess an athlete on his/her errors. Enjoyment means involvement in a challenging experience that will either result or include a positive affective state. It cannot be exclusively be said to be the same as pleasure. These could mean two different things in the field of psychology. This performance quality shows how positive an athlete or participant in sport will positively accept that activity or exercise. Stress is the psychological pressure and strain that is brought about by a particular situation or circumstance. The benefits of stress depend on the amount an individual has. Small amounts of stress can be beneficial and healthy. In sport, active stress helps the sports person perform better. Stress is also a key factor in motivating a person, helping him or her adapt and react to the environment easily. Performance rate is a work measurement step in which the observer and analyst will monitor the performance of the one doing an exercise or the athlete and records a value representing the performance of the analyst’s scale of rating. Standard methods for measuring performance rate are speed and pace. Rest are the emotional states of an individual of low tension, in which there are no external factors that might bring arousals such as anxiety, fear, or anger. After say an exercise, rest help someone to cope with stress. The last performance quality addressed in the psychological skills training plan is adaptation. Adaptation is the ability of somebody to react positively and adjust to changes and new encounters of situations in life, and accept the changes. Adjustment helps an individual grow mentally and continually develop. Participants in sporting activities may be exposed to different sports. The way they cope up with a new experience determines on how fast they adapt to that sport, exercise, or activity.

The performance quality to be addressed via the plan is confidence, widely known as self-confidence. As stated earlier, this is a trait in a person to believe in himself or herself and feel that he or she is bound to be successful in the activity he/she performs. Self-esteem, as said before, mainly contributes to the level of self-confidence in a person. Confidence shows how the performer of an activity or exercise feels about successful completion of the task.

The confidence in someone may result in various consequences in the activities and exercises he/she performs. A superb performance can be gained if an individual has enough self-self-confidence. However, when the confidence level of an athlete, sportsman or any other person doing the exercise is small, then the performance will also below. The thinking pattern of an individual can also be affected the level of confidence in this person. High levels of self-confidence will mean positive thoughts, and vice versa. A confident person has high chances of producing positive results in his/her activities. Achievement and success in an activity or task create real feelings. Unlike when someone has low level of confidence which may lead to failure and consequently low feelings. Lack of self-confidence fosters many unhealthy behaviors, while confidence results to positive behaviors. The sense of anxiety and fear, being restless and at times being timid and anti-social are among many behaviors that result from lack of confidence in oneself. On the other hand, self-confident people will always have positive ways such as being open and free to other people, taking up challenging tasks and an excellent overall performance in the activities undertaken. Self-confidence is closely linked to an individual’s physical condition. Physical strength and endurance are essential elements in building confidence especially in sports and other physical exercises and activities. Relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation and taking off deep breaths are good for control of physiological and emotional state. This action, in turn, builds confidence in someone. Depending on a person’s confidence level, the consequences can be positive or negative.

The plan

Goal Setting

Short-term goals

Long-term goals

Goal

Actions

Goal

Actions

Perform challenging exercises.

Identify exercise that challenges me most.

Work it out with positive attitude.

Improve my health.

Go to grocery and buy healthy foods.

Avoid all kinds of non-nutritional foods.

Exercise regularly.

Learn a new sporting activity.

Browse through the net or go the library and look out for an activity I have never done before.

Learn how it is performed and try to do it on my own.

Leave unhealthy habits.

Identify, by myself or through friends all the unhealthy habits that I have.

Device a good plan to do leave them, either one by one, or all of them at once.

Join a local sporting club.

Identify a local sports club and register as a member.

Attend to the activities and sessions offered in the club.

Train for a sporting event.

Check out for upcoming sporting events.

Train thoroughly for the sport activity that I love most, so as to be the best performer.

Do relaxation techniques.

For at least thrice a day, have som time aside and do progressive muscle relation exercises, and take in deep breathes.

Break records (time records) in my activities.

List my best time records during exercises.

Work hard to break each of the records.

Goal Setting Staircase

Improve my health.

Leave unhealthy habits.

Train for a sporting event.

Break records (time records) inactivities.

Self-confident

Achievement

Long-term goals

Perform challenging exercises.

Learn a new sporting activity.

Join a local sporting club.

Do relaxation techniques

Short term goals

Average confidence

Present ability

Self-confidence

To build confidence, self-talk is necessary. There are different ways of assessing self-talk. One of the ways is through retrospection. Retrospection will include looking back and doing a review of past events and situations and evaluate the good and bad performances. In the various sports activities including athletics, sometimes I have failed and other times passed. In athletics, for example, there are times I emerged the best in a splint and other times I was last. By looking at the successes in the events, I build up my self-confidence knowing I have the ability to perform best.

The second strategy I will use to assess my self-talk is imagery. Imaging strategy involves creating and recreating experiences in mind. There are two types of experiences one can encounter during a lifetime, these include good, and bad experiences. The real experiences give a good personal memories and help in building a positive attitude. Throughout my life, I have had some good experiences such as family time with my siblings during holidays. Recreating images of these experiences in my mind forms part of the strategies that help me build self-confidence.

However, the strategies of self-talk might as well exacerbate the central issue, confidence. In retrospection, reflecting on the dangerous situations and how one failed makes you feel inferior. Feelings of inferiority make a person less confident and therefore not ready to take new challenges, do new exercises and activities. Imagery as a self-talk strategy might as well threaten the success of a person to build high levels of self-confidence. Not all experiences in life are good. Creating and recreating images in mind about bad experiences makes one develop a low self-esteem.

Imagery

Imagery is the mental rehearsal of using your senses to rehearse a sport, exercise or activity in mind.

There are some reasons why we use imagery. To get the best and a lot out the training, athletes, and people doing exercise use imagery to extensively build on their areas of best performance and do away with areas of poor performance. Also, during completion in sports, people use imagery to compete more efficiently. Effective competition is achieved because imagery regulates the anxiety experienced during the games. The athlete’s and sporting people also remain confident, mentally tough and focused. Another reason for the use of imagery is to increase the pace of progress to the say finish line or the end of the activity. Most sportsmen, especially athletes who have used imagery in their careers have found it as a useful tool to develop their skills. Imagery is a motivational factor in an exercise or athletic event. Through imagery, an individual maintains vision of what he or she wants to achieve at the end of the sport. Motivation also comes from setting out daily goals and enduring tough training sessions, which is a result of imagery. The last reason why imagery is to be used is that it keeps one at the top even when training cannot be done. Missing training sessions at times can occur because of reasons such as injury or something urgent coming up, and a person has to attend to it and miss training sessions. In such a case, imagery helps an athlete to maintain his or her abilities and helps them cope with the current situation, in this instance an injury or something else. For injury cases, imagery can help the person heal fast.

The central issue being self-confidence, I will use imagery in some the activities which I enjoy doing to build high levels of self-esteem. The procedure will include concentrating on creation of control of my images. The process will begin with me high-quality imaging images for a limited period, and then slowly increasing the amount of time allocated for imaging. The scene is the setting of the sport that I love most. The view of the practice session and completion venue is created in my mind’s eye. Other details inclusive are colors of the opponent’s uniform, the sound of the spectators’ cheering, and of course a feeling of actually experiencing the performance. I will then image myself performing a skill in the game perfectly and confidently in the game, and even the upcoming sport events. I do not allow distractions to come my way by staying relaxed and focused amidst the distractions. Lastly, I will imagine myself performing the skill in the way I want to despite the presence of those conditions that make me nervous when playing.

The Plan+

Additional considerations for the success of the plan include; arousal regulation, stress, coping, injury and rehabilitation and team cohesion. Arousal regulation means I maintain an optimal performance level, be alert to sustain my attention and complete tasks as appropriate. I should be able to adjust to the changing demand of any activity I am engaging myself into build self-confidence. Stresses are the strains and pressures encountered during practices and exercise activities. Too much stress could be unhealthy, and too little of it is also not good. Whichever the stress, I should learn on how to cope with the situation to meet desirable health stress levels. In case of injuries during any activity or sporting event, appropriate measures will be taken for rehabilitation. A methodology such as imagery can be used to promote fast healing. The last consideration is team cohesion. Team cohesion is the willingness of group members to input their ability for better performance of a team. Emotional and social bonds link the group members. In my participation in various sporting and exercise activities, I will be working with groups at times. Working with groups helps me socialize with more people and build relationships. Through such kind of interaction, I can be motivated, make friends and hence build my confidence.