My thoughts on Mental Performance

written by JOSH GESSNER | The Athletter

'Mental Performance' is so important for athletes.

Yet - many find it hard to implement.

Here's my thoughts (how it could make more of an impact):

I played professional baseball for 5+ years.

I threw 95+, signed a decently big contract and had potential.

But... I struggled to compete.

As soon as I signed I got a case of the yips.

Fear and anxiety overwhelmed me to the point where I couldn't throw.

It was a mental block that took everything in me to overcome.

The point: I experienced mental struggles my whole career.

I've worked with more mental skills coaches than you can imagine.

I've seen what works and what doesn't - first hand.

I knew there was a clear issue after one mental performance meeting.

I asked my teammates how much they got out of it...

All said: Not much.

This got me thinking.

The mental game is extremely important - everyone recognizes that.

But what's taught isn't appealing to many athletes.

Why?

One thing I noticed during my career:

How much athletes talked about people like Andrew Huberman.

What makes his content so appealing?

It's based on scientific research.

And content that's grounded in scientific research has been shown to be more:

• Reliable

• Accurate

• likely to be acted apon.

Coming back to mental performance...

What if there's a way to teach athletes mental performance...

With proven content backed by scientific research?

An example from my career:

I struggled with thinking about what others thought of me.

When I talked to mental skills coaches a common answer would be:

"Stop overthinking, they arn't thinking of you anyway..."

This never resonated.

I knew it was probably true, but I still had a hard time accepting it.

This advice clicked when I read about the Spotlight Effect.

The Spotlight Effect is a well researched phenomenon that proves:

The brain overestimates how much other people notice or think about us.

It's how the brain works. It's fact.

This is just one of the mental models that I've been exploring.

Mental models are frameworks that help you understand the world.

And they've been used by the best thinkers in the world.

You might think that this is too much information for an athlete.

Yes, it will be for some.

But for others... It'll be exciting.

I saw first hand how excited players would become about science and data.

We would dig into pitch metrics, percentages, biomechanics etc.

I was one of them.

To be clear: Mental performance helped me in my career.

But incorporating mental models was what made everything click.

Similar message, different packaging.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading!