Sports Psychology - Research Paper Example

ychology to these basics will dramatically improve the three key ingredients to a successful athletic program : fun, participation and development .” (Sports Psychology Basics PP2) He calls sports psychology “the glue that holds the three ingredients (mentioned above) together.” The first step in the psychological preparation for a sports person is to decide his commitment to the particular category of sports. Some people will engage in sports just for fun. Hence beyond the fun element the degree of commitment has to be decided first.

One’s own skill in that particular sport or in the position in which one wants to play in a team is to be assessed next. Only after doing these can one set a goal to achieve. This goal is to be set up in the general backdrop of the goal of one’s life thus to prioritize the goals. Though goal setting is the most important first step many sports persons are found to be lousy in their attitudes towards goal setting. Mark Anderson in his book “Doing Sport Psychology” brings out this attitude thus: “I anticipate getting virtually all players to complete this first stage of goal setting quickly and efficiently.

But players offer various explanations for not completing the goal sheets. The poor response rate is frustrating…..I view non compliance as a form of resistance.” (PP 94) The goal should be set in a measurable manner with dates, times and amounts all fixed precisely. Only a measurement of the achievement can give psychological satisfaction. The performance should be the criteria of the measurement and not the outcome of the performance, that’s winning or failing, which could be due to lots of external factors like bad judgment or bad weather conditions.

One must be able to ignore all the rewards and fame that would come along with winning and concentrate on one’s performance and its measurements. For this one has to set specific goals and not unrealistically high or conveniently low ones. Correct goal