Do You Need A Mental Coach?    A mental coach helps you learn faster, groove your skills better, and perform consistently under pressure, when it counts most, in competitive arenas. A mental coach helps to improve an athlete's mental readiness, focus, ability to relax, energy and emotional control, mental control of thoughts and images, and all other mental factors involved in training and performance. This article helps you discover how a mental coach can help you reach more of your athletic dreams.    783 words.

Do You Need A Mental Coach?

Here's How Excellent, Consistent Performers
Use Mental Coaches As Their Secret Weapon

Bill Cole, MS, MA
Founder and CEO
William B. Cole Consultants
Silicon Valley, California

As a mental coach, I help my clients learn faster, groove their skills better, and perform consistently under pressure, when it counts most, in competitive arenas. A mental coach helps to improve an athlete's mental readiness, focus, ability to relax, energy and emotional control, mental control of thoughts and images, and all other mental factors involved in training and performance. This article helps you discover how a mental coach can help you reach more of your athletic dreams.

I have worked with athletes, parents and coaches in over 55 sports. You probably have seen many of my clients on national and international TV as they compete.

Recently, one of my clients, Miriam Nakamoto, won her fourth world kickboxing championship, and became the first U.S. woman to hold the WBC Muay Thai World title. I have been mental coach to athletes in all the mainstream sports, and also in some very unusual ones, such as a nationally-ranked roller figure skater, a national champion in airplane gliding, the Mexican national champion in water skiing, numerous high-ranked competitors in rodeo roping, and even a world class bridge player. When I was the mental coach for the Stanford Baseball Team they were ranked number one in the United States. I also was the mental coach for the Israeli Davis Cup Tennis Team, spending time with them at events in Europe and the U.S.

So you can see that a mental coach can help in a wide variety of sports and competitive events. How about you? Do you have a mental coach? Are you achieving the results you want, and having the fun and satisfaction you deserve to have in your sport?

Here are seven ways a mental coach can assist you in reaching more of your potential.

1. A Mental Coach Helps You Create And Clarify Your Dreams. What do you want to accomplish? How do you want to get there? Do you have a plan and system for achieving this process? A mental coach helps you draft and execute this vision.

2. A Mental Coach Provides Objective Feedback And Perspective. A mental coach has your best interests in mind in providing feedback and counsel to you. He wants you to succeed. His years of experience cut your learning curve dramatically, and prevent you from going down blind alleys.

3. A Mental Coach Helps You See What You Cannot Yet See In Yourself. Everyone has blind spots. Everyone. These are areas others can see in you, yet you cannot. Blind spots can hold you back from success. A coach can help you uncover these, improve these, and turn them into strengths.

4. A Mental Coach Is Your Trusted, Confidential Advisor. Moving through a sport career can be challenging, and sometimes lonely. Even though you have coaches and parents helping you, maybe you can't really open up and speak to them honestly about some of your important issues and concerns, since they have an investment in your success. They almost live through your success in a vicarious way. A mental coach is your most trusted advisor, where you can tell this coach anything, and they do not judge you, criticize you or reject you.

5. A Mental Coach Teaches You The Secrets Of Mental Training, Mental Readiness And Mental Toughness. Every athlete needs mental toughness training. You need a process for preparing mentally before lessons, practices and competitions. And you also need a mental training system that teaches you the visualization, relaxation and focus strategies that all successful athletes know and use. A mental coach can teach you all of this.

6. A Mental Coach Teaches You The Intricacies Of Attentional Control. The most critical part of the mental game is attentional control. This is where you place your focus, in what way, and for how long. A mental coach teaches you how to choose the appropriate attentional cues so you keep your mind tuned it, not out.

7. A Mental Coach Helps You Discover How To Be More Confident. Ultimately, there is no confidence unless there is competence. You must know what you are doing, at all levels, and this is particularly so in the mental arena. A mental coach can guide you towards a confident approach to your training so you cover all your bases, and arrive at a self-satisfied level of competence, and confidence.

Now you know what a mental coach can do for you. There is no need to be unhappy and stuck in your sport when you know there is a way forward. Find a mental coach you connect with and trust, and start a mental coaching program now so you can get unstuck, move ahead and gain traction and velocity in your sport. You deserve success. Good luck!


For a comprehensive overview of your mental abilities you need an assessment instrument that identifies your complete mental strengths and weaknesses. Here is a free, easy-to-take 65-item sport psychology assessment tool you can score right on the spot. This assessment gives you a quick snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses in your mental game. You can use this as a guide in creating your own mental training program, or as the basis for a program you undertake with mental coach Bill Cole, MS, MA to improve your mental game. This assessment would be an excellent first step to help you get the big picture about your mental game.

Copyright © Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved.

Bill Cole, MS, MA, a leading authority on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and CEO of William B. Cole Consultants, a consulting firm that helps organizations and professionals achieve more success in business, life and sports. He is also the Founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com), an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development, professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. He is a multiple Hall-Of-Fame honoree as an athlete, coach and school alumnus, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments visit him at www.MentalGameCoach.com.

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