“See it, believe it.”

Imagery, sometimes called visualization or mental rehearsal, is widely used by athletes, business professionals, musicians, and almost anyone looking to enhance their performance. It involves creating mental images of your performance to help you perform better under pressure, improve skills, evoke emotions, or create an immersive mental experience (Ramsey et al., 2010). I should also emphasize that Imagery is a mental skill; like all skills, it requires practice.

How does Imagery foster confidence and enhance performance?

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What can this French Philosopher teach coaches about mental toughness?

The late French Philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was well known for his explorations of power, control, and social discourse. He was particularly critical of how political institutions organize and control workers, students, soldiers, and prisoners to the extent that they surrender their power and become passive and docile bodies (Denison & Mills, 2014). Although this criticism emerged from the social-political sphere, they are also applicable to sports coaching, particularly when coaching becomes mainly about the power to control, monitor, and intervene to the extent that athletes become passive learners.

High Discipline + High Control = High Performance?

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What is NOT Mental Toughness

As a former sports coach, I can relate to the frustration coaches feel after witnessing how their athletes falter during critical moments of competition due to the perceived lack of mental toughness. During these times, mental toughness can seem elusive, especially when it is one of the most used but least understood terms used in sport psychology (Jones et al., 2002). We should explore some of the misinformation related to this construct to gain clarity.