DEVELOPING RESILIENCE IN THE INDIVIDUAL ATHLETE

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

Substandard performance, injuries and personal failures are an integral part of the sporting experience. But why is it that some athletes are able to withstand and overcome these setbacks whilst others succumb to the pressure?

Mental resilience. It’s not something that all athletes have, thus in the same way that physical resilience is built over time, mental resilience is something that can be developed.

How can we facilitate resilience in the individual athlete? A paper by Sarkar & Page (2020) provides four practical recommendations to aid the development of individual resilience.

 

1. Ensure clarity of what resilience is and is not

            With the term ‘resilience’ being a buzzword and mixed up with other psychological terms, it is beneficial to clarify the definition to have a common language amongst athletes, coaches and other practitioners. See the table below to see what resilience is and is not.

Sarkar, M. & Page, A. E. (2020).

2. Enhance and refine personal qualities

As mentioned above, resilience is not a fixed trait – meaning every individual can develop their ability to be resilient in the face of adversity. There are psychological factors that are associated with resilience, including but not limited to:

Motivation

The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of our behaviour – where are you directing your energy and persistence?

Self-confidence

The belief that one has the internal resources and abilities to achieve success. Over and over again, research suggests this is a mental skill critical to sport performance – how confident are you in your ability to execute physical skills, make correct decisions, achieve personal performance standards and demonstrate superiority over opponents?

Focus of attention

The ability to exert deliberate mental effort on what is most important in a situation – this requires the ability to be aware of the situation around one’s self and change the scope of attention as demanded by the situation. Sometimes, lapses in attention can distinguish between a win and a loss for an athlete. Do you practice total absorption in the task at hand?

Perceived social support

Whether an individual feels that they have a relationship meaningful enough to call upon in a time of need. Research suggests that social support and connections with our broader social circle are important in protecting and maintaining our sense of self and identity. Family, friends, teammates and coaches all play a significant role in positively shaping sporting experiences and protecting athletes from the pressures of elite sport. You are who you surround yourself with. Who do YOU surround yourself with?

 

3. Evoke and maintain a challenge mindset

Resilient athletes have a Challenge Mindset, meaning they evaluate and interpret the obstacles they face as a challenge to overcome, rather than a problem.  

The US Army draws upon seven practical psychological skills to develop a challenge mindset. These seven skills are built upon the foundational skill of learning your ABCs – realising that our emotions and behaviours are not triggered by the events themselves but how we interpret those events. Meaning if you can influence and decide how you interpret situations you can change the way you feel about them and behave in response to them.

  • (A) Activating event

  • (B) Beliefs about the activating event

  • (C) Emotional and behavioural consequences of those thoughts

For example

  • Not performing to your standards during fight camp

  • I’m not a good enough fighter, I’m not working hard enough

  • Anger, embarrassment, frustration – ‘trying harder’ despite making the same mistakes over and over again

VS

  • Not performing to your standards during fight camp

  • I have more in me, I know I can improve

  • Focus, desire to improve, openness to learn – asking for feedback, reflecting on the training session, workshopping ideas

 

This requires practice, in the same way athletes get reps in on the gym floor or practice the same combo on the mats over and over again, they will need to train this skill in their sporting and personal life. Once athletes are aware of their own thoughts, they are in a position to understand and regulate their thoughts. This will be a good opportunity for athletes to challenge any unhelpful beliefs about an event and buffer the negative effects of stress.

 

4. Create a facilitative environment

This one’s mainly for the coaches. In order for athletes to flourish and develop a challenge mindset, there needs to be a focus on creating environment that facilitates athlete resilience. A balance of challenge and support is important when developing a high performance environment. Challenge involves all individuals to have high expectations of one another, which conveys accountability and responsibility. Support promotes learning, builds trust and allows individuals to develop their personal qualities in a safe environment. A facilitative environment incorporates both high challenge and high support.

            Coaches can engage in Pressure Inurement Training with their athletes to provide a balance between challenge and support. This involves gradually increasing the pressure on an individual via challenge and manipulation of the environment to evoke a stress-response with the aim of maintaining functioning and performance under pressure.

Throughout this process, it’s important to closely monitor how the athlete respond to these changes, psychologically and in terms of performance. If athletes respond positively and adapt to the new level of pressure, further challenges can be imposed with feedback. If athletes respond negatively, motivational feedback and support should be provided, as well as possibly decreasing the challenge.

 

In summary

Mental resilience is the ability to maintain functioning and withstand pressure. It is multidimensional and dynamic. It is not a fixed characteristic and all athletes have the ability to practice resilience. This can be done by focusing on the qualities and resources you already have – some guiding questions are:

  • Where are you directing your energy and persistence?

  • How confident are you in your ability to demonstrate superiority over your opponents?

  • Do you practice total absorption in tasks during training?

  • Who are the type of people you surround yourself with?

Another skill to practice is learning your ABCs – identify your activating events, your beliefs about these events and the resulting emotional and behavioural consequences from those beliefs. Identifying and understanding your beliefs will allow you to challenge those that are negative and unhelpful to your growth as an athlete. Lastly, coaches have a substantial role in creating a facilitative environment for the athlete by providing high levels of both challenge and support.



 References

Bruner, M. W., McLaren, C., Swann, C., Schweickle, M. J., Miller, A., Benson, A., ... & Vella, S. A. (2021). Exploring the relations between social support and social identity in adolescent male athletes. Research quarterly for exercise and sport, 92(3), 566-572.

Sarkar, M., & Fletcher, D. (2014). Psychological resilience in sport performers: a review of stressors and protective factors. Journal of sports sciences, 32(15), 1419-1434.

Sarkar, M., & Page, A. E. (2020). Developing individual and team resilience in elite sport: Research to Practice. Journal of Sport Psychology in action, 1-14.

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