PSYCHOLOGICAL CO-ACTIVE - DAN ABRAHAMS PART 3

 

The 3rd and final installment of psychological co-active tips from Dan Abrahams.

Cognitive Player Issues – Paying attention to cues and clues that are irrelevant/noise. Letting your mind wander. Will present as slow decision making through inexperience, inhibition through anxiety and an internal focus of attention too often.

Learning - Promote learning rather than performance in your training sessions via desirable difficulties via the use of variability, spacing, interleaving, less and less feedback and also by creating high challenge training activities you may increase learning through struggle and effort.

Theories of Motivation – Goal setting theory x I want to start. Self determination theory x it’s my choice to start. Self efficacy theory x I know I can do it. Attribution theory x it’s in my control. Achievement goal theory x I just have to put in the effort.

Your Talent - Respect the talent that you do have. Don’t worry so much about what you don’t have v what you do have, and how you can utilise it in a game.

Tactical Creativity – Deliberate play. 1 dimension games. Diversification. Deliberate coaching. Deliberate motivation. Engaging in these steps may help free up working memory.

Disagreeable Players – Ask them their viewpoint. Empathise with their position by outlining the strengths of their arguement. Explain your position. Negotiate solutions. Confirm what the player needs from you. Hold the player accountable.

In-Game Mental Excellence – Attention x concentrating on the task at hand and dealing quickly with distraction. Intensity x executing every task at an optimal intensity (not too high or not too low). Intent x executing every task positively with confidence.

Attention Warm Up – Ask your players to visualise a task. What does a great session look like today? Make your 1^st activity fun. Incorporate scanning into that fun activity. Make sure communication is involved.

Self Talk – What do my biggest supporters say about my game? What does resilience look like to me? What small habits increase my confidence/energy? When I’m feeling lethargic, what self-talk can energise me?

Coach to Athlete Questions – What did you see that led you to make that decision? Who can you talk to to get some answers here? What did you experience during that period? When do you enjoy playing the most? How can I be of help in this situation?

Player Motivation – Is attained via experience playing, mastery, values, emotion (pride/guilt), purpose, need for achievement and outcome objectives.

Coaching – Make your captain a part of your coaching staff. Have a leadership goup that is involved in tactical decision making. Learn every players specific motivational drivers. Put psycho-social aspects 1^st in training. Put mindset 1^st on game day.

Task Cohesion – Engage players in small group meetings. Check the understanding of each other’s roles. Discuss any doubts/concerns. Create solutions to problems.

Low Self Belief Athletes – May have extreme inner thoughts (can’t/awful/disaster/must). Need a learning environment with less information. Will find a model of success useful. Will draw on successful past performances. Need to shift from ego focus to a mastery focus.

Brave Athletes – To teach players to play with bravery ask them to define what brave looks like to them. Have them picture their brand of brave. Help them break their picture down to a few action based words. Insist on seeing them play in the style of those words.