Why Sport Psychology Can't Stay on the Surface

It’s been a devastating Olympics for Mikaela Shiffrin. She should have multiple medals around her neck by now.

Not because the world’s eyes are on her or because of the expectations set by the media.

But simply because she is the best in the world, a technical legend, with more world cup wins than any other skier in a single discipline.

She has all of the accolades to make one think that Beijing was her time to shine.

Instead, she skied out of 3 of 6 possible races and left with a humbling DNF (did not finish) result.

What went wrong?

Performance means pressure.

Pressure puts athletes like Mikaela on a pedestal.

Sports psychologists have to focus on making sure Mikeala is ready to perform.

At every race, in every turn, for every interview.

Performance starts before the race even begins.

As the camera pans across Mikeala’s face as she’s minutes away from the start gate, you see her, eyes closed, visualizing every turn.?

Taking her body through the motions. Getting dialed in.

But the visualization didn’t work. Stress management didn’t work. Positive self talk didn’t work.

Most sports psychology strategies like these stay on the surface.?

They don’t go deep. They don’t change the mind. They only mask what the mind is thinking.

As a high performance expert, I search for clues.?

Clues that let me inside someone’s mind, so I know what’s going on deeper. I need to know the mental blocks that they are burying so I can help them heal and rebuild.

That’s what takes performance to another level.

• What thoughts are creating roadblocks??
• What’s unresolved from the past?
• What triggers lack of confidence?
• What emotions are they too afraid to share?

With Mikaela, I see 3 key clues that I want to go deeper on and how I would approach it…

Clue #1: “I have a recurring image of myself skiing out on the fifth gate again…"

That’s what Mikaela said in an interview shortly before the 2nd leg of the alpine combined event.?

A few hours later, she was out of the slalom course by gate 10.?

It’s actually not surprising. Mikaela was rehearsing the very failure she wanted to avoid. She was training her body to perform the way she feared.

Our minds are always listening to what we’re telling them. For athletes, one of the worst things to do before a performance is to tell themselves what they don’t want to do. What they’re afraid of.?

Because it sets that stage for that very thing to happen.?

Correction #1: Mikaela needed resilience from the first 2 DNFs from Beijing, so she could bounce back from the mistakes, rather than letting them sink in her head.

This is about shifting how to visualize and building different images in the brain to focus on.

I immediately think of the “switch” NLP technique, so she could make the images from those mistakes smaller in her mind and have the space to play out the positive scenario for her next race.

That is a method that can be done in a matter of minutes.

Clue #2: “I don't know what I'm supposed to fix. That's the frustrating thing. I don't think there's something to fix. It just went really, really wrong.”

Athletes focus 80%, if not more, of their time and focus on the physical aspects of their sport. When everything looks impeccable on the surface, you have to go deeper.

Correction #2: Every athlete needs to be trained in self-observation. Meaning, having the ability to deconstruct their beliefs, emotions, their patterns.

Something is unresolved here for Mikaela. It could be grief from losing her father. It could be anger from all of the pressure and haters.?

Whatever it is, there is a wound there. Something that is triggering her to have an uncharacteristic lack of confidence.

I find in my clients that when they need to trust themselves the most is when the deeper wounds show up.

We see it all of the time in sports.?

If those deeper issues are unresolved, they’re like a cork on a champagne bottle, ready to pop.

Mikaela is likely focusing on the physical and technical things that she doesn’t need to fix, without being shown how to ask herself, “Ok, if that’s good, what’s deeper that I still have to fix?”

High performance starts in the trenches.

Clue #3: "I don’t really understand it.”

The inner critic is our toughest enemy. We can let one mistake define us while letting all of our victories go silent. We can obsess about our mistakes. Build beliefs around them. Shape our identities around them.?

But that is not the path to go down. You can’t obsess about mistakes or be baffled by them. Either perspective is disempowering.

“I don’t really?understand it” is telling her brain to find reasons why it’s confusing, frustrating, and doesn’t make sense. Reactions like this just add to a disempowering story. This doesn’t give any room for self-reflection, only self-criticism.

Approach #3:? First, Mikaela needs to deal with the frustration. Be with it. Feel it. Go deep with it for a moment.?

Then, reframe. Rather than telling herself a story that she doesn’t understand it, she could ask herself, “Why does this actually make sense? How could I understand what happened?”

This is where Mikaela can do deeper. Her brain will help her see unresolved wounds, deeper thoughts, hidden fears that can look to fix next.

Rebuilding her confidence is a process. It will have to happen with time, intention, and the right guidance.

Too often I’ve seen sport psychology graze the surface and neglect to give the deeper personal blocks the attention they need.

My approach is the opposite. The depths is where you find your wisdom and your strengths.?

It’s where you can tap into that next level because you are releasing the emotional baggage you’ve been, likely unknowingly, holding onto.?

I can help Mikaela. If I get the opportunity to do that, I will.?

But if I don’t, then I will focus on all the other athletes out there who need healing from the inside out.

There is greatness in all of us, and the way to greatness is to fix the deeper s*it.

Clue #4: “That's where I'm meant to be and I'm stubborn as S**t.”

Mikaela?knows that she belongs. Now she needs to believe again that she belongs.

Dr. Jen

I'm Dr. Jen - a high performance expert, best-selling author, and athlete. I help my clients break free from performance paralysis to reclaiming their personal power. For coaching or speaking inquiries, email [email protected] or send me a direct message here on LinkedIn.