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Sports performance mindset and mental skills blog

Mental Edge: Do more then is required

Kate Allgood

May 26
2 min

Mental Edge: Do more then is required

Get a mental edge by going above and beyond It is not always easy to know what you can do to stand apart from the crowd. In sports as any thing in life, success requires someone to stand apart. Many times people are doing only what is required of them and they wonder why they are not getting the position they want, aren’t starting the game or getting the scholarship they want. You can’t just do what people are asking of you. The saying "you have to do what no one else will to

Excellence Versus Success in your Sport

Kate Allgood

Mar 23
2 min

Excellence Versus Success in your Sport

Process versus Results Most clients that walk through my door have a high level of focus on results. This causes them a lot of stress, lack of confidence and frustration. Today I want to talk about focusing on the process versus results. One of the ways we do this is by looking at whether or not we want to achieve excellence or mastery in our sport versus have success. Most people want to master their sport or skill set, but still focus more on results. Not realizing that foc

Can you stay at the top?

Kate Allgood

Mar 14
2 min

Can you stay at the top?

Can you stay at the top once you have reached it? Getting to the top of your sport is not a race, it is not about who gets there first, it is who can stay there once they have reached that level. I work with many high school athletes who are so focused on how they compare to their teammates in their development. They worry that someone is faster then them or stronger then them when they are 15 years old. When no one has yet reached their physical peak. There are so many insta

How to play your role on your sports team

Kate Allgood

Mar 10
2 min

How to play your role on your sports team

Learning how to play your role on your sports team is very important for not only being a good team player but also learning to focus on things you can control. Everyone wants to be the star player, the one to make the big save, or score the big goal, or be out in dying seconds of a crucial game. However, even the best players will at one time or another find themselves playing more supporting roles, how one handles the change in what role they play will become not only a bet

Championship mindset – Defining mental toughness

Kate Allgood

Feb 24
2 min

Championship mindset – Defining mental toughness

What is Mental Toughness? Mental toughness is a word that is thrown around a lot, but many people don’t know what it really means. Think right now what does it mean to you? Is your definition something that can give you insight into how to develop it? For many it is a stand alone concept, when in reality it is a word to describe a multitude of elements that when brought together create mental toughness. In my second book, Fortitude, I go into exactly what these elements are a

Attention and sports performance

Kate Allgood

Feb 18
2 min

Attention and sports performance

Improve your sports performance through better attention Attention and sports performance is about looking at the role attention plays in ones ability to perform. Like many things attention is a skill, one that can be developed and trained. The amount of information your brain takes in predominantly comes from your eyes. Approximately 2 billion pieces of information per second enter your brain through your eyes. That’s a lot of information! Your brain can’t meaningfully take

What is Mental Skills Training?

Kate Allgood

Feb 8
2 min

What is Mental Skills Training?

Sport psychology is about understanding the “mental game”, whether that game is athletic or otherwise, it is about human performance..

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Kate Allgood

Feb 1
2 min

Mental Skills Coach: The power of you

As a mental skills coach my job is about helping clients to uncover what is already within themselves. To pull it out of them and help them

Sports Mental Coaching for Athletes: The Importance of Being Specific

Kate Allgood

Jan 19
3 min

Sports Mental Coaching for Athletes: The Importance of Being Specific

Last week I was talking to a client about his production levels. He had dropped off considerably over the last month, compared to what it had been early on in the season. His role on the hockey team he is on is to score and get assists and that wasn't really happening. At first he and his team were getting back from being off for a couple weeks due to Covid protocols. So at first not much to note, he was getting chances, and getting back into the swing of games, but as it pro

Mental Skills Training for Athletes: Making Sure the Process Lines up With your Goals

Kate Allgood

Jan 12
3 min

Mental Skills Training for Athletes: Making Sure the Process Lines up With your Goals

In this post I wanted to touch upon the need to look at if your process and the work you are doing to get better as an athlete lines up with the goals you have or an area you are trying to improve on. I wanted to touch upon this because this week I had a client come in to my office with this issue, and I think it is something many athletes do, where they focus on the amount of work or practicing they are doing, the effort they are putting in, but not necessarily does it fully

Top Performers Mindset for Distractions

Kate Allgood

Dec 18, 2021
2 min

Top Performers Mindset for Distractions

Every one gets distracted. Research has shown that no one, in any circumstance can sustain concentration and focus for the entire time. Distractions will be apart of the equation. Whether that is from your own thoughts or something in your environment. Top performers are no different than any other athlete, in terms of if they get distracted. The difference in how they handle distractions is apart of the equation that helps them to reach the top. So how do top performers hand

Athletes Mental Toughness: Holding two Realities

Kate Allgood

Dec 11, 2021
3 min

Athletes Mental Toughness: Holding two Realities

In this post I want to talk about something the top athletes in the world are able to do, that helps them perform in high pressure situations. From the outside looking in, we only see the outcome, and don't see the systems, processes or mental aspects that an athlete has that has helped them accomplish the outcome. It can make it seem like they have something special inside of them, or are different and don't stress, feel the pressure or have self doubt. This is furthest from

Mental Strength Training for Athletes: Performance Systems

Kate Allgood

Dec 4, 2021
3 min

Mental Strength Training for Athletes: Performance Systems

In my last post I talked about goals. Goals are important, they can help create direction and help you know what type of performer you are wanting to become. However, once a goal is set then it needs to be put aside and majority of your focus needs to be on your systems. James Clear, author of the book Atomic Habits, puts it well. "You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems." All Olympic athletes have the goal of winning the gold medal. T

The Mental Skill of Goal Setting

Kate Allgood

Nov 16, 2021
3 min

The Mental Skill of Goal Setting

Goal setting is a mental skill set. It is something that can always be refined and be done better. To set goals that help you accomplish things along your path and journey as an athlete, without creating pressure or expectations. I think most of you know some of the basics of goal setting, such as long term versus short term, and process versus results. There is also another aspect to goal setting and that is external versus internal. What I mean by that is setting goals that

Do you Train your Attention? Do you Know How to?

Kate Allgood

Nov 11, 2021
2 min

Do you Train your Attention? Do you Know How to?

I would say one of the most valuable resources your have as an athlete is your attention. It influences so many factors, some you know and some you don't. Your attention determines: Your sense of fulfillment and accomplishment How calm you are or how reactive you are What you learn and remember How well you bounce back from mistakes The quality of your experience Sports are fast paced and high intensity, you need your attention to be where it needs to be when you need it to b

Self Talk and Its Impact on Confidence

Kate Allgood

Oct 20, 2021
3 min

Self Talk and Its Impact on Confidence

Confidence is something you want, you know it helps you be at your best, and you know when it is gone sometimes it is hard to find. Often times athletes look for confidence in their results, waiting for things to turn around to then feel confident. When this is the case, you are always chasing, needing that next good result, and once it is done, you look for the next one. What happens if you could be confident in yourself, no matter what is happening in your external world? O

The Power of Positive Rituals in Mindset Training

Kate Allgood

Oct 12, 2021
2 min

The Power of Positive Rituals in Mindset Training

Mental conditioning training works to help individuals to develop a way of doing things (positive rituals) that aligns with their goals so they can perform at a high level. Everyone knows that athletes can be superstitious, and while superstitions and rituals can at times look very similar the underlying mechanism and process behind them are very different. Superstitions give your power to something outside of yourself. When I was a kid I would not re-tape my stick until I st

The Greatest Hindrance to your Performance

Kate Allgood

Oct 7, 2021
5 min

The Greatest Hindrance to your Performance

In the world of mental conditioning and performance there are many techniques, tools and strategies that exist to help you build your inner game. The game within yourself, or as some will call it the mental game. These tools and techniques are useful, and are things that you can do to help with your inner game. If you are like most athletes you don't just want to have good or a great performance, you are looking to tap into your potential and to find the zone. The state of co

How to Stay at the Top of your Sport

Kate Allgood

Sep 30, 2021
3 min

How to Stay at the Top of your Sport

For a majority of athletes getting to the top of their sport is the goal. Whether that is college, the Olympics, or professional level. This can be due both to wanting to compete against the best but also wanting to see how good you can become, and knowing that within you, you have the ability to get to the top of your sport, if you keep working at it. Getting there is sometimes not the hardest thing, often once you have gotten there staying there can be more difficult. In th

Mental Toughness and Curiosity

Kate Allgood

Sep 22, 2021
2 min

Mental Toughness and Curiosity

As you read the title you may wonder what curiosity has to do with mental toughness? Quite a lot. Having a curious mindset, requires us to step into the unknown, the uncertain and all the discomfort and vulnerability that goes along with it. When we look to what we don't know, we are placing ourselves in a position of navigating an area where we don't know the outcome. I see this a lot with clients when they stick with what they know, afraid to look outside of it, for fear it