In my last post a few months ago, I addressed the importance of mental health for athletes. At the time, going back to grad school to study mental health counseling was on the top of my to do list. Since then I have started my first semester at Northwestern University and am super excited to say that I will eventually be able to provide not just performance based skills but mental health support to athletes when I am done in a few years. In addition to becoming a graduate student again, there’s been a lot of other things in the works this summer. It’s certainly been a busy few months with a lot of reading, writing, and learning (and some self care mixed in) and I am excited to share more with you all soon 🙌🏻📚🧠
Athletes have been trained to be tough: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Get up when you fall down. Refocus when you get distracted. Keep it together when you feel like you might fall apart. Never showing any signs of weakness, they have been taught to struggle in private and bury emotions that could threaten their status as an athlete. As a result, they are less likely to reach out for help because it goes against what they believe a competitor does. Ironically, numbing ourselves to emotions does more than just exhaust us mentally, it limits us. Studies have shown that emotion is a necessary component of effective decision making. If you don’t feel, then you can’t think. More importantly, emotions are the driving force behind our motivation. So while we are hesitant to talk about them, without them we wouldn’t achieve the things we are so proud to share with each other and the rest of the world. Strength doesn’t imply the absence of struggle or challenges. While we know it is ok to fall, fail, and make mistakes, it’s also ok to be not be ok.
Allain Mental Performance 