Posts by John Gassaway, PsyD
Creating an Advanced Mindset (Part 2)
After you have given yourself the opportunity to create an advanced mindset, it is time to further develop that mindset. You began by understanding that difficulty and challenge can still be exciting and fun. Then you started to treat effort as a behavior that helps you progress forward with your performance (measuring and observing changes…
Read MoreCreating an Advanced Mindset (Part 1)
Optimizing your performance or your life requires a lot of dedication and time. One of the first priorities in doing so is to create an advanced mindset. The mindset of successful, happy, satisfied, and accomplished people is one that accepts challenges and shortcoming along with enjoyment and progress. Dr. Carol Dweck first identified such a…
Read MoreBest Ways to Cope with Injury in Sport
Athletes strive to keep their bodies fit and healthy, but inevitably we all need to know the best ways to cope with injury in sport. Physical training, skills development, nutrition, regeneration/relaxation, and performance psychology are all centered on safety, health, and optimizing performance. The stronger and more flexible we are, the more prepared we are…
Read MoreBecoming “Free”
The topic of this post is the process of becoming “free.” Not in the sense of living in a country where we talk about our personal freedoms and what it means to have freedom of speech and such. Being truly free is when you are at peace with yourself (mind, body, soul) and everything else…
Read MoreCommitment to Excellence
When athletes and performers engage in a mental skills process to help them work on themselves and their mind game of sport or event they are making a commitment to excellence. One of the more important and essential elements is that the commitment to actually doing the things required to coach the mind is not…
Read MoreUtilizing Self-talk
There are many aspects of self-talk that can be utilized in sport performance. as previously mentioned, we can direct our attention and focus using cue-words (like “quick feet” or “square hips”) that support technique and skill. We can also talk ourselves through a routine in our heads and identify the process and procedure to keep…
Read MoreBelieving Your Internal Thoughts
Self-talk is a well-known psychological skill that can be used to enhance performance, but only if you believe what your internal thoughts are saying. Of course, the type of self-talk employed makes a big difference in belief. For instance, belief isn’t necessarily part of the picture when using internal cue-words to direct attention and focus,…
Read MoreReturn from Set-Backs
Returning from set-backs can be a frustrating process. To put it in familiar, frustrated experiences: the pain and discomfort of biting the inside of our cheek or lip. Inevitably this leaves a small bruise with some swelling. Well, when we have a small swelling in a place our teeth are accustomed to having none, we…
Read MoreWhy Athletes are Good at Life
Participating in a sport, training your mind and your body, and challenging yourself will make you an athlete, and doing these things will make you good at life. When we participate in a sport (individual or team) we start to understand how rules apply to us and those around us. We can identify goals and…
Read MoreSelf Talk: The Way We Interpret Reality
Simply observing our environment and the stimuli in it would appear to show us reality, pure and simple; what we tell ourselves (self-talk) about what we observe, however, is the way we interpret reality. When things in our lives and our environments don’t go according to our plan we all experience stress. While we may…
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