Are you as good in competition as you are in practice? If not then the reasons are completely mental!
I am often contacted by athletes in various sports with a very common concern.
Their practice self is significantly better than their performance self.
This can be very frustrating for athletes when they can not replicate their “in practice” performances on the competitive stage. In addition it becomes an area of frustration for everyone involved – team mates, coaches and even parents when they see potential being unfulfilled.
They say practice makes perfect right? Well….. not always. You can reach high performance levels in practice and not hit the same heights in performance and it is most commonly based on how an athlete, coach or team mentally prepares for performance.
There are several reasons that lead to this common symptom 0f performance inconsistency.
How an athlete handles pressure is key to making sure the transition from practice to performance is a smooth one.
Anxieties and nerves also play a huge part in this discrepancy.
Understanding the environment and visualization techniques help make the performance levels more consistent and closer to practice capacity.
Fear of failure is very inhibitive and counter productive to competitive commitment.
And confidence in one’s ability to achieve goals or execute a skill in competition leads to mixed results.
There are so many reasons why athlete can not reach their full performance potential regardless of how well they do in practice.
Remember….
Total Performance comes from Total Preparation.