The Sports Mastermind

You've practiced the skill hundreds—maybe thousands—of times. You know what to do. You know your routine. You know where your attention should be. But suddenly, it's match point. The final possession. The last shot. And instead of focusing on what you've trained yourself to do, you're thinking about the score, the outcome, who's watching, or what happens if you fail. Why does pressure make it so difficult to focus when it matters most?

In Episode 58 of The Sports Mastermind, Laura Ratto wraps up the three-part series on concentration and focus by exploring how pressure influences attention and why athletes sometimes struggle to execute familiar skills in high-stakes situations. Building on the 5-Second Reset from Episode 56 and selective attention from Episode 57, this episode examines how pressure can pull attention away from task-relevant information and toward outcomes, consequences, and even the mechanics of movements that have become automatic. The good news? Attentional control is a skill that can be developed and practiced.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why pressure can change where athletes direct their attention
• How focusing on outcomes and consequences can interfere with performance
• Why thinking too much about the mechanics of a well-learned skill can sometimes make execution more difficult
• The difference between focusing on what you don't want to happen and what you need to do
• How task-focused cue words, breathing, and pre-performance routines can help redirect attention
• How to combine previously learned mental skills to manage attention under pressure
• Why coaches should intentionally create pressure situations during practice
• How athletes can train their ability to recognize and redirect attention before the biggest moments of competition

The Focus Four

1. Expect Pressure to Affect Your Attention — Recognize that pressure can change what captures your focus.
2. Notice Where Your Attention Goes — Are you thinking about the outcome, the score, your last mistake, the crowd, or your mechanics?
3. Give Your Attention a Task — Replace thoughts like "Don't miss" with actionable cues such as "Target," "See the ball," or "Breathe. Routine. Execute."
4. Practice Attention Under Pressure — Don't wait until competition to practice controlling your focus. Train it during practice.

Bringing the Concentration Series Together

Episode 56: The 5-Second Reset: How to Move On After a Mistake — Learn how to get your attention back.

Episode 57: Focus on the Right Thing: Where Should Your Attention Be? — Learn how to direct attention toward useful information.

Episode 58: Why You Lose Focus When It Matters Most — Learn how to manage attention when pressure increases.

Because pressure doesn't necessarily take away your ability, it sometimes simply pulls your attention away from the information you need to use it.

Get your attention back. Put it where it belongs. And practice keeping it there when it matters most.

Learn more about mental performance consultation, team workshops, and other resources at RattoConsulting.com.

For workshop inquiries, virtual seminars, or individual consultations, contact [email protected].

You can be completely focused...and still be focused on the wrong thing.

The score. The crowd. Your last mistake. What your coach is thinking. What happens if you miss. Your attention is definitely somewhere—but is it on information that will actually help you perform?

In Episode 57 of The Sports Mastermind, Laura Ratto continues the three-part series on concentration and focus by exploring selective attention and how athletes can learn to direct their attention toward the information that matters most in the moment.

Building on the 5-Second Reset from Episode 56 and the foundational concepts of focus and concentration introduced in Episode 4, this episode moves beyond simply telling athletes to “FOCUS!” and asks a much more useful question:

What information do I need right now?

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why being focused isn't necessarily the same as being focused on the right thing
• How selective attention helps athletes filter relevant from irrelevant information
• How to think about attention as a spotlight
• Why athletes need to shift between broad, narrow, internal, and external attention
• How open and closed skills create different attentional demands
• Why narrowing your attention too much can sometimes hurt performance
• How to determine whether something is giving you useful information
• How athletes and coaches can use the Spotlight Drill to deliberately train attention
• Why individual cue words can help direct attention toward useful, actionable information

This episode also connects concepts from previous episodes on self-talk, focus and concentration, open and closed skills, relaxation, decision-making, and the 5-Second Reset.

The Focus Four

1. Attention Is Selective — You can't pay attention to everything, and you don't need to.
2. Ask What Information You Need — Give your attention somewhere specific and useful to go.
3. Move Your Spotlight — Learn to shift between broad, narrow, internal, and external attention depending on what the situation requires.
4. Practice Focusing — Don't just practice your physical skills. Practice where you direct your attention.

Ask yourself:

What am I focused on? Why? And is it giving me useful information?

Because concentration isn't just about being focused.

It's about being focused on the right thing at the right time.

Learn more about The Sports Mastermind, mental performance consultation, workshops, and other resources at RattoConsulting.com.

You make a mistake.

You tell yourself, “Forget about it. Next play.”

But are you really on to the next play—or are you still thinking about what just happened?

In this episode of The Sports Mastermind, Laura Ratto kicks off a three-part series on concentration and focus by exploring what happens to our attention after a mistake and how quickly we can regain it.

Building on the concepts of focus and concentration introduced in Episode 4, Laura introduces the idea of Response Time: how long it takes an athlete to recognize that their attention has moved away from the present and become mentally available for the next task.

You'll also learn the 5-Second Reset, a simple four-step routine athletes can use after a mistake:

RELEASE → BREATHE → CUE → REFOCUS

The goal isn't to pretend the mistake didn't happen. Mistakes contain information, and athletes should learn from them. But there's a difference between evaluating a mistake and living in it.

In this episode, you'll learn how to:

•  Recognize when your attention is still stuck on the last performance 
•  Use a physical or mental cue to release a mistake 
•  Use an intentional breath to return to the present 
•  Develop short, task-focused cue words 
•  Refocus your attention on what matters right now 
•  Practice your reset during training instead of waiting until competition 
•  Measure improvement by shortening your Response Time 

Along the way, Laura connects the 5-Second Reset to concepts explored in previous episodes on self-talk, focus and concentration, pre-performance routines, relaxation, mindfulness, managing emotions, decision-making, and training the way you perform.

The Focus Four

1. Notice It — Recognize when your attention has left the present. 
2. Release It — Take the information you need from the mistake and leave the rest behind. 
3. Use Your 5-Second Reset — RELEASE. BREATHE. CUE. REFOCUS. 
4. Shorten Your Response Time — The goal isn't perfect focus. It's getting better at coming back. 

Notice sooner. Reset faster. Return to the present.

Learn more about Laura Ratto, mental performance consultation, team workshops, and Ratto Consulting at RattoConsulting.com.

Have you ever had so much time to think that thinking actually became the problem?

A volleyball player preparing to serve has time to breathe, think, and prepare. Seconds later, that same athlete may be reacting to an attacked ball with almost no time to consciously think at all. Same athlete. Same sport. Completely different demands on attention.

In this episode of The Sports Mastermind, Laura Ratto explores the difference between open and closed skills and why understanding the mental demands of a skill can change the way athletes train and perform.

Closed skills occur in relatively stable, predictable environments and can create opportunities for overthinking and conscious control. Open skills require athletes to read a changing environment, make decisions, and react. Most sports require both, which means athletes shouldn't necessarily approach every skill with the same mental strategy.

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  The difference between open and closed skills 
•  Why open and closed skills are better understood on a continuum 
•  How overthinking can interfere with automatic execution 
•  Why routines, imagery, and cue words can help with closed skills 
•  How attentional flexibility supports performance in open skills 
•  Why variable practice can help athletes learn to read, decide, and react 
•  How coaches can train the mental demands of a skill—not just the physical movement 

The Focus Four:

1. Know what the skill requires.
2. For closed skills, simplify and trust.
3. For open skills, read and react.
4. Train the way you have to perform.

The goal isn't to think about nothing. It's to understand what the skill requires from you right now and train your attention to meet those demands.

Learn more about Laura Ratto, mental performance consultation, team workshops, and Ratto Consulting at RattoConsulting.com.

What do you believe you’re capable of doing? And what happens when the people around you believe, or don’t believe, you can do it?

In this episode of The Sports Mastermind, Laura Ratto wraps up the three-part Confidence Series by exploring the difference between confidence and self-efficacy and how our belief in our ability to perform a specific task can influence what happens when it matters.

But belief doesn’t develop in isolation. Coaches can influence athlete self-efficacy through the opportunities, feedback, instruction, and expectations they provide. Laura examines how coaching expectations can create a cycle in which what a coach believes about an athlete subtly changes how they coach them—and may ultimately influence how that athlete develops and performs.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  The difference between confidence and self-efficacy 
•  Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy 
•  How coaching expectations can influence athlete development and performance 
•  Why two athletes making the same mistake may receive very different coaching experiences 
•  How to recognize when an evaluation has turned into a label 
•  Four practical ways athletes and coaches can intentionally build belief 

The Focus Four:

1.  Build belief through evidence 
2.  Make belief specific 
3.  Question your expectations 
4.  Turn belief into action 

And after a three-year break, The Sports Mastermind is officially back! New episodes will once again explore how sport and performance psychology can be applied in practical ways by athletes, coaches, and performers.

Learn more about Laura Ratto, mental performance consultation, team workshops, and Ratto Consulting at RattoConsulting.com

The Focus four for How to build Confidence after a bad practice or competition are:

Hit the RESET Button

Be BETTER THAN YESTERDAY

SET REALISTIC GOALS

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

This episode starts the 1st of three in the confidence series. This first episode is tailored more for coaches and specifically discusses how to build confidence in your athletes. The second episode will shift back to the athletes perspective. Specifically, how to build confidence after a bad practice or competition. The third episode will go into more detail about self-efficacy, what it is and how it relates to sports and sports confidence.

The Focus four for Coaches and how to build confidence in your athletes are:

Use psychological skills training skills, such as goal setting, Mental Imagery or Visualization, Positive Self-Talk and focusing on the right thing at the right time

Create situations within the training environment to provide athletes opportunities for success

Take into account individual differences between athletes and help athlete’s identify individual strengths

Track an athlete’s progress across time for a visual representation of overall increase in skill level and performance

Hello and welcome back to the sports mastermind. Last week we used PETTLEP to break down serving a ball in beach volleyball. In this final episode of the series, we will be going over the sequence of events leading up to shooting a free throw in basketball. For those of you that are new to the series, see episode 46 for more details on PETTLEP imagery. 

Hello and welcome back to the sports mastermind. This is the FIFTIETH episode today, so I am going to be doing the beach volleyball bonus episode of PETTLEP. Last week we used PETTLEP to break down taking a shot on goal in soccer. This episode we will be going over the sequence of events leading up to serving the ball in beach volleyball. For those of you that are new to the series, see episode 46 for more details on PETTLEP imagery. 

Hello and welcome back to the sports mastermind. Last week we used PETTLEP to break down hitting a pitch in baseball. This episode we will be going over the sequence of events leading up to shooting a penalty kick in soccer. For those of you that are new to the series, see episode 46 for more details on PETTLEP imagery.