RESOURCE LIST: Mental Training Resources All Coaches & Athletes Should Read At Least Once

Hey folks!

Here is a book list for your Black Friday and Christmas shopping lists. These are some resources I regularly recommend in sport psychology sessions with both athletes and coaches for a well-rounded foundation of mental skills and psychoeducation (=understanding how and why our cognitions - our thoughts and feelings - work, especially in training and performance scenarios).

A FOREWARNING: Reading is not the same is learning is not the same is doing is not the same as mastering.

It is easy to search out “more resources”: read more books, listen to ALL the pods, burn through YouTube playlists by the world’s top sport psychologists at 2x, start every training session with motivational speeches by famous athletes. It’s simple to slip into believing we are actually learning, doing, changing something by consuming content. But massive amounts of inputs are not skill-learning, and it does not practically, concretely help us. It can confuse and overwhelm us instead.

Yes, if we do not have the skills or knowledge we need to optimize our performance, we must gain that Information. And then we must practice it.

I highly recommend you pick one resource, take notes or highlight while reading/listening, and spend one to two weeks committed to implementing those skills or that knowledge.

Whatever resources you learn from, make sure you are actually, practically learning through allowing yourself trial-and-error, with hundreds of reps, with self-feedback and reflection in a journal etc. DOING is the only way to make those skills ready for action!

And: Practice. Practice. Practice.

BOOK LIST: In no particular order; all well-read and well-loved.

Which of these books have you read?