In episode #269 David addresses the question, “What Can I Expect When Working With A Sport Psychologist” for the final time as this episode marks the end of an 8 part series.  This time he focuses on the following statements “Performance Enhancement: The sports psychologist will help you identify and overcome mental barriers that may be hindering your performance” and “Feedback and Reflection: Expect regular discussions about your progress, experiences in training or competition, and adjustments to your mental training plan.” 

David highlights that a high percentage of athletes who contact sports psychologists are reactive often acting on emotion seeking to deal with challenges they are going through.   Whilst proactive clients, especially top performing elite athletes, contact sports psychologists when they are in a good place, seeking continuous improvement and looking to embrace a marginal gains approach.  He concludes by encouraging listeners to reflect on their 2024 achievements, failures, and lessons learned, offering a blog post with additional questions for self-analysis so that you can make 2025 a great year.

Key Learning Points

• One typical challenge athletes bring to sports psychologists, link to not performing at the level that they train at, which can be caused by the need for social approval, perfectionist tendencies, questionable culture and processes at a club or organisation, with fear then kicking in for the athlete.
• Sharing surprising statistics about elite athletes such as Harry Kane’s goal scoring success rate and Trent Alexander-Arnold's cross accuracy can help perfectionists recognise how many times elite performers do actually miss or fail, forcing athletes to revisit their own expectations.
• He shares a case study of a proactive top cricketer who used detailed performance profiling to benchmark and measure progress, therefore challenging them to get out of their comfort zone.
• A skill of a sports psychologist is to ask athletes great questions so that they go on to assess how they can continually strive to improve their methods and performance levels.

Connect with David Charlton

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To Listen to Related Podcasts To Help You Improve Your Performances Next Year

Ep264: David Charlton - How to Enhance Focus, Motivation and Confidence

Ep260: David Charlton - What Can I Expect When Working With A Sport Psychologist

Ep144: Jon Watkins – Mental Strength: What You Can Learn About Resilience From The Special Forces

Ep106: Amy Rowlinson – Why is knowing my WHY important?

Ep086: David Charlton – Observations: How to Learn from Setbacks

Relevant Blogs and Resources To Help You Make Next Year a Great Year

Blog: How To Learn From Last Year 

Blog: What Did You Learn From Last Year? 

Motivation for Sport Quiz

Blog: Make Better Decisions to Help Your Sport Performance including VALUES LIST

David Charlton, Sport Psychologist: Why I Do What I Do