Recover faster from mistakes
How to recover from mistakes in your sport faster comes down to creating strategies so that you have a plan in place to be able to recover from a mistake when it occurs. Mistakes happen often and frequently in sports. That is the nature of it. Sports happen at such a high intensity of speed that requires athletes to make good and accurate decisions fast. Most things in life don’t happen as fast as sports do. You generally have more time to think things over. Sports you don’t, and if you look at a professional game of any sport, there are mistakes occurring all the time. The difference between the good and great athletes is how one responds to the mistakes they make. If you are unfazed and keep doing what you need to be doing and staying present on the game, you can recover from the mistake, whether right away or by later doing something to "make up" for it, like scoring a goal.
People often don’t think about how they will react to a mistake before it occurs, then they are caught off guard and struggle to bring them selves back to where their focus needs to be. You don’t know when and how you will make a mistake, but you do know at some point you will. When you make a plan for how you will rebound from mistakes you have a go to approach to think about and implement in the moment. When you have a strategy you don’t have to think you just have to do. When there is no strategy then you have to think about recovering and then you are in trouble because now you are thinking and can get caught up in worrying about the mistake you made, or making another one.
Sports are about being in the moment and having your focus external. When you create strategies that bring your focus back to where it needs to be you stay in the game mentally and keep from really getting impacted by the mistake. It is not the mistake that is the problem but how you react to it that can become problematic. Obviously there are things to do to try and lessen the number of mistakes you make, which is another topic of discussion, but no matter how prepared you are, or how skilled you are, you will make mistakes and you need to know how to deal with them when they do occur.
Want more help on how to refocus check out my book Fortitude: The Essential Guide to Building and Sustaining Mental Toughness. Available on Amazon.
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About: Kate Allgood is trained in the field of applied sport psychology. She holds two Masters degrees in psychology where she graduated with distinction. She has spent the past 14 years working one on one with high school, college, Olympic, and professional athletes to help them with their mindset, mental performance and mental skills training. Kate has also been a consultant for professional teams, including the Anaheim Ducks primary minor league affiliate the San Diego Gulls, to help the team and players develop their mental game. It is important to note that while Kate has graduate school training in applied sport psychology and general psychology, she does not diagnose or treat clinical disorders, and is not a licensed psychologist.
**The information provided is not to dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique, either directly or indirectly, as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems, without the advice of a physician. The information provided is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for high performance. If you know or suspect you have a health problem, it is recommended you seek your physician's advice.