On The Firing Line
Physical – Technical – Mental – Emotional Part 3 (57th in a series)
BY JP O’CONNOR “The happiest travelers are the ones who roll with the punches.” Once a level of under-
standing and experience with the physical and techni- cal aspects of a sport is at- tained, the athlete then runs into the “other” side of the sport when they notice that their confi dence and compe- tence in practice fail them
strength and resilience to re- liably and consistently thrive under pressure with confi - dence, capability and deep enjoyment.
Mental The mental aspects of sport are numerous. Some
ting. It can be a dry exercise, seemingly with no purpose. However, merely showing up to practice and shoot- ing will not allow an athlete to grow and thrive to the degree that they wish. Any challenging journey needs a plan or roadmap. A good
cal to understand and con- sider. If the athlete puts all his or her “eggs in one bas- ket” consisting only of out- come goals, there is great risk of devastating failure from which the athlete may not recover. Performance (the doing,
not the score outcome) is vitally important and must
Attention control is another important aspect of high perfor- mance. Where are we mentally focused? Is it helpful to us? Any- thing in the past or future (even if only a second or two in the past or future) is not helpful. We need to be only in the Present Moment and focused only on the task at hand.
in competition. Welcome to “the mental game,” as it is so often called. Many people understand
the importance of “the men- tal game,” yet have limited understanding of its many facets and how to go about improving. There are two major areas: mental and emotional. The mental com- ponents provide the foun- dation while the emotional aspects provide the inner
of the most important foun- dations are goal setting, mental rehearsal, men- tal activation level (called arousal level in the litera- ture), self-talk and atten- tion control. This list is by no means comprehensive and merely provides a foothold into the topic. Additionally, we will address emotional aspects in the next install- ment. Many athletes groan at the mention of goal set-
46 USA Shooting News | July 2014
goal set that is frequently maintained and modifi ed as the athlete grows provides direction and motivation. A good set of goals ad- dresses desired outcomes, over which the athlete has no direct control, as well as performance (behavior) components, over which the athlete has or can learn to have direct control and which support the outcome goals. This difference is criti-
have at least equal empha- sis as outcome goals. These performance goals support the desired outcome goals, and interestingly are goals unto themselves from which the athlete may draw great satisfaction when they are accomplished. The goal set also involves
specifi c actions and task activities. These action or task goals support the per- formance (behavior) goals. Most short term goals are action goals. Most outcome goals are long term goals. A mature goal set includes all
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