It’s ironic that therapy has grown in popularity but mental skills still seems to be creeping along. There was a period where therapy almost seemed like a fad. It was the cool thing to do. When does mental skills training become the cool thing to do? I think the time is now.

I think mental skills are a more long-term solution than therapy as it teaches us coping skills that prove to be necessary and give us the tools and the foundation of our everyday lives.

Therapy

There are many types of therapy and I am not here to knock therapy. I was in therapy for many years of my life and without it might not be where I am today. However, when I was in therapy, I was a bit broken. I needed someone to listen and help me to understand why I was dealing with life the way I was. I suppose at that time I needed to get to the root of what was troublesome and realize I didn’t need to be that person anymore. While I recall sometimes transitioning my thinking to reflect conversations in therapy, I don’t remember consciously changing any behaviors. Sure, the behaviors came along as my thought process was changing but it took a very long time for that to happen. Although I was VERY broken at that time.

Mental skills

There is some overlap between therapy and developing mental skills. The biggest is that during the initial assessment the client does share their story. I ask a lot of open-ended questions to learn information about the whole person. I ask questions to explore when things started changing and what was going on during that time. From that point, I think mental skills training starts to diverge away from therapy.

Every individual is different. How they learn is different. And their current situation is unique. After I get to know them, I begin to determine what they need and how I can help:

• develop a deeper awareness of what’s happening (who, what, where, when, and how)
• develop a new coping skill
• practice developing the new coping skill while performing or in regular life
• tweak the new coping skill if necessary
• reinforce it
• repeat the process for other new coping skills
• transfer skills to other areas of life
• put a plan together

Mental skills development is, of course, about listening to a client tell their story and their changing story. However, it’s largely about helping them to figure out how effective their current coping skills are, re-develop them, and/or develop entirely new ones. The re-development or development of the right mental skills is entirely based on what’s going to work for every individual.

Each client walks away with an individualized plan based on their needs.

Coping

Coping is learning how to deal with and take control of situations and thoughts. Many of us cope just by reacting and responding. The problem is, we don’t often think about how we are acting and responding and sometimes how ineffective it is. In this scenario, coping is often seen as a struggle but it doesn’t have to be.

Coping might always be a challenge, but more so in certain situations. When you have the opportunity to develop mental skills that are more effective and have more than one way to deal with situations, you discover how much easier coping becomes.

You have more control and then can be more consistent in whatever it is that you are doing.

Mental skills for all areas of your life

In sports, rather than allowing your nerves to get the best of you prior to competition, you can learn to understand what nerves mean, how and when they start and how to deal with them. Nerves are debilitating and effect how you start a competitive feat which then can snowball and impact an entire performance.

In business, rather than allowing your fear of not being good enough effect you prior to giving a presentation, learn to understand what the fear is, how and when it happens and how to deal with it. Fear is debilitating and will affect how you start a presentation which then can snowball and impact our entire presentation.

In school, rather than trying to be what you think everyone else wants you to be (caring what everyone else thinks about you), understand who you are, learn how to be OK with it and realize that you can’t please, nor do you have control over what anybody else thinks.

In music, rather than worrying about whether you’ll win the audition before the audition even starts, learn to stay present and just play. You only control the process. If you stay in the process, that means you’ve done your best. It’s the only way to get the outcome you desire.

In life, rather than just reacting to situations, understand how you are responding to them and why you are responding that way. For most people who have never had the opportunity to develop optimal mental skills, they discover that their why is usually because it’s the only way they know how or that they’ve never understood the fear and doubt behind how they are acting and responding.

I work with many clients in all these areas. We don’t (necessarily) develop new mental skills for all areas of a person’s life but we talk about transitioning mental skills (coping skills) from one area to another. For example, many of my younger clients need a way to cope with nerves before competition and tests. The way to do that is the same or similar when dealing with other situations that arise in life.

Mental skills empower you

My passion is to help clients develop mental skills; not fix what’s broken. It’s about building the coping mechanisms they need so they can deal with their environment in the most optimal way. Until you have the proper mental skills for you, the way that you are dealing with your environment is the only way you know how to deal with your environment. You really don’t have control over what’s happening.

Mental skills give you the ability to have more control over how you compete, and how you deal with negativity, doubt, nerves, stress, and how you view mistakes. Mental skills allow you to perform more consistently and learn to enjoy the process – enjoy the match, enjoy speaking, enjoy the audition.

Let’s take the stigma out of developing mental skills because they are an equal part of the equation (physical being the other part) in anything you do. Let’s make developing mental skills the new fad. My hunch is that once you realize that you could be much more effective and feel so much better about whatever it is you do, you will be happier and more successful.