Sports and Performance Counseling

What role does counseling have in sports and performance?

Counseling and talk therapy can be a critical tool to developing mental performance skills. Whether you are a professional athlete, an avid recreational athlete, or a professional in a high performance career, mental health skills and emotional awareness play a significant role in reaching goals. Difficulty reaching peak performance levels, wanting to improve a skill, struggling with nerves, and decreases in motivation are all areas that can be improved with counseling.

How does mental health and emotion impact performance?

Mental health concerns and emotions often play a larger role in our daily functioning than we first understand. When asking our body to perform various tasks whether in the workplace or in the athletic arena, emotions and mental health concerns can inhibit an our ability to perform at their desired level. While emotions may allow us to experience life’s successes to their fullest, they can also be crushing when goals and expectations are not met. Emotions can be an our biggest strength or a debilitating hindrance. When mental health concerns overlap with performance, we may feel a general sense of unease, confusion, or just feeling “off” and not able to find the source. Both emotions and mental health concerns can be intertwined and have an impact on one another. Often, to truly perform at a high level, attention must be paid to both physical and psychological endurance.

What is a “high performance career”?

A high performance career is any position that requires you to use your career skills in a dynamic way. Often, these careers involve extensive feedback and successes are based on how well you perform at your assigned task. Put simply, if your job involves pressure to meet deadlines, be successful, or perform in any way, you are engaged in a high performance career. Some examples may include: executives and business owners, lawyers, real estate agents, computer programmers, artists in various mediums, athletes, coaches, teachers, health professionals, and many more. Often, the strain of such careers can take a toll on your emotional health. Constant pressure in the work environment may make it difficult to relax at home or to find time to take care of your emotional, physical, and interpersonal needs.

How does sports and performance counseling differ from typical therapy?

In short, it doesn’t! Often, the same general concerns experienced by athletes and those with other high stress careers are those commonly treated in counseling. However, the specific ways in which these concerns show up in your life may differ greatly due to who you are and what demands are placed on you. In counseling, you can expect to explore your relationship to your career and/or sport and what goals you have for yourself, personally and professionally. There is also a focus on your identity as an athlete or with your career and how that affects other areas of your life. Ultimately, sports and performance counseling is aimed at enhancing your performance, reducing your anxiety, and helping you to find balance in life.

What types of athletes does this treatment help?

Sports and performance counseling is geared to help athletes of varying sports and levels. It is designed to aid those in team sports to enhance interpersonal and leadership skills, while also addressing individual concerns, such as anxiety and stress. For individual athletes, it can provide an additional form of support not always found in competitive settings. For all athletes, counseling is a place where you are able to process your experiences, thoughts, and emotions around your performance and relationship to your sport. Through this approach, athletes from all sports can explore their motivations, concerns, fears, goals, and passions.

How do I know that sports and performance counseling is right for me?

Counseling in all forms can be a unique way to explore yourself and your life in a nonjudgmental and safe space. At Snowline Counseling, we believe that there are no concerns that are not right for counseling. In order to see if this is a match for you, we offer free initial phone consultations in which we discuss your concerns and how we might approach them, and offer you additional resources. If you are struggling with motivation, sports performance, career performance, feeling stuck, or even just feeling like you don’t have the same passion you once did, feel free to give us a call!