Mastering Mindfulness in Sports: Dr. Sara Mitchell on Enhancing Athletic Performance and Well-being

As athletes, we often focus on physical training while neglecting the mental aspects that significantly impact our performance. Mindfulness, a practice I hold dear, is a key tool for nurturing mental strength, and nobody knows this better than Dr. Mitchell. In our conversation, she unravels how mindfulness not only enhances awareness and focus but also helps athletes manage pressure and optimize performance.

Dr. Sara Mitchell is not only a sport psychologist but also the Chief Performance Officer at Enso Mental Performance. Her impressive journey includes serving as the first full-time Sport Psychologist for the Paralympic Division at the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. With experience spanning three Paralympic Games and numerous world championships, Sara brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. She has a strong background in performance enhancement and a profound understanding of the psychological pressures athletes face.

Why mindfulness is a game-changer

This conversation with Dr. Sara Mitchell is packed with insights that are not just applicable to elite athletes but to anyone looking to improve their mental game in sports and life. Whether you’re a seasoned competitor or a weekend warrior, embracing mindfulness can profoundly transform your approach to challenges and your overall well-being.

I hope this post inspires you to incorporate mindfulness into your performance strategy and everyday life. Remember, the journey to mastering mental skills is as rewarding as it is challenging. Here’s to growing stronger, not just on the field but in every aspect of life!

Here are Sara’s mindfulness takeaways:

• Mindfulness and Awareness: Dr. Mitchell shares techniques for breath awareness and the benefits of maintaining present-moment attention to boost performance consistency.
• Task Orientation vs. Judgment: Discover why focusing on the task, rather than judging your performance, can lead to greater success. Sara highlights how instructional self-talk aids in navigating performance pressures better than motivational self-talk.
• Balancing Planning and Presence: It’s easy to get caught up in planning and lose sight of the present. Learn how to strike a balance between preparing for the future and embracing the now to maximize contentment and unlock your true potential.
• The Role of Coaching: Dr. Mitchell discusses the invaluable role of mental performance coaching in providing athletes with the feedback necessary to understand their mental and emotional landscapes, enhancing self-awareness and performance.
• Managing Intensity and Avoiding Burnout: Understanding the fine line between pushing yourself and recognizing the need for rest is crucial. This discussion will help you identify signs of mental and physical fatigue and advocate effectively for your needs.

Check out the full episode to delve deeper into these topics and start integrating these powerful mindfulness strategies into your training regimen. Let’s continue pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve, both mentally and physically!

Listen to Sara’s episode

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Sara’s Links

Episode Chapters

• 00:00 Mindfulness and Awareness in Performance
• 07:04 The Role of Acceptance and Contentment
• 13:08 Task Orientation and Agency
• 18:52 Self-Talk: Instructional vs. Motivational
• 24:53 Mindfulness in Chaos and Performance
• 26:15 The Role of Mindfulness in Performance
• 30:51 Self-Training vs. Coaching: Finding the Right Path
• 34:05 Skills Beyond Physical Training: Mental Rehearsal and Focus
• 37:16 The Importance of Coaching for All Athletes
• 40:12 Navigating Burnout: Understanding Mental and Physical Fatigue
• 45:55 Trusting Yourself vs. Confidence: A Deep Dive
• 51:10 The Importance of Nuanced Language in Goal Setting

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Transcript

Sonya Looney 0:01
Sarah, I’m so excited to get to talk to you on the podcast.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 0:04
Thank you. I’m stoked to be here. I think this is a great opportunity to share our thoughts about mental performance.

Sonya Looney 0:11
Yeah, and I you were a speaker at the women’s cycling Summit, and that’s where we initially connected. And the topic of your of your talk, a big part of it was talking about awareness and using mindful practices to build your awareness. Do you mind leading us through a little mindful a short mindfulness practice, just to get us all kind of connected and synced up? Absolutely,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 0:33
yeah, let’s do it. So if you wouldn’t mind closing your eyes, if you feel comfortable doing so and just beginning to turn your awareness inwards, we’ll just do a little bit of breath watching and really sort of learning to anchor our attentional focus on observing The breath. So that’s our task. So with this practice, as you close your eyes and turn your attention inwards, perhaps you could begin to notice the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe in and out. Perhaps you could notice even the sound of the breath moving through your nose or through your lips, if your mouth is open, simply observing the breath as you breathe in and out, and perhaps adding to your observation or other aspects of your breath, so noticing the sound of the breath as you breathe in and out, perhaps even noticing the temperature of your breath. Maybe it’s warm or cool, perhaps it’s quiet or loud and without judgment, simply noticing those qualities of your breath that stand out To you, and with each observation,

perhaps inviting that thought or reaction, to ride the out breath with the exhalation, and then bringing your attention back inwards on the inhalation to observing the breath and the task at hand. And doing so without judgment, simply noticing all the aspects of breath that are with you right now in this moment, without changing anything, just noticing adding each one of those observations to ride the out breath as you exhale, inhaling again and returning to the task at hand of noticing or observing the breath you breathing in, breathing out, moving at your pace, perhaps noticing that there are other thoughts, feelings or sensations that bubble up to the surface of your awareness as you work this task of observing the breath. It’s okay that those other things come into your purview. You notice them, simply acknowledging those things that rise to the surface of your awareness, and once you’ve acknowledged them, perhaps inviting those internal experiences to ride the out breath with the exhalation, almost like a wave. We’re placing that experience on the breath like a wave and letting it go, inhaling and coming back again to the task at hand of creating space to observe what is. Breath with your breath in this moment without judgment, simply noting over and over again, noticing where the mind has wandered to, perhaps hooking into those other thoughts or feelings, and if that’s the case, simply inviting the mind to come back to the present, come back to The task of spacious observation, noticing, returning to our task of noticing without changing and without judgment,

and working in this way for maybe about 30 seconds more just to get the feel of dropping anchor into the body and into your awareness, you

good. And as you feel ready to come up out of the task, sort of broaden your attentional focus, opening your eyes as you’re doing, inviting cite that experience back into your purview, and beginning to sort of make sense of that experience. And I always ask people to share after mindfulness, if they’d like to what they noticed. I think every practice in my experience is different. Sometimes there are similar themes. Sometimes they’re very different themes, but it always feels like a new experience of reacquainting oneself with yourself. I don’t know how else to say that, but that’s really how it feels. So I’m curious. How is that for you.

Sonya Looney 7:20
I promise I didn’t invite you on the podcast so I could get a private meditation session. Yeah, that’s okay. I forgot that I would be doing it as you were, which was, was great. And yeah, I’m happy to share. And for those listening and those who tried it, like, well done. And just just to say, like, your mind is going to wander constantly like that is part of it, and just coming back is the practice. And I love how you talked about coming back to the task, which I want to ask you about in a minute. For me, when I’m meditating, my mind always goes into planning mode, like I want to do this I want to do it’s very future oriented thinking, and it’s constantly coming back. And even in the when I, when I started settling in, it was like, oh, I should ask her about this. Or like, you know, my mind just started going way down that, that path. And I kept bringing it back, because it’s something that I’ve practiced. And I started, one of the thoughts I had that I tried to pack away was using this in the context when you’re in a performance space, it was. So we’ll talk about that in a minute. So that was my experience is just like it always does. My mind goes into planning mode and just recognizing and coming back. We don’t need to plan right now

Dr. Sara Mitchell 8:30
just to be here. That’s right. Yeah, we have this incredible capacity to forecast. I think athletes in particular, part of being a professional athlete, I believe, is really the capacity to manage one’s energy effectively, right? We want to get the most out of ourselves for the duration of the event, for the task at hand. And so being able to forecast well is an incredible strength, and it’s like a massive muscle that is very hard to turn off. And so there are times where we maybe need to stop forecasting and we need to just be and so that planning part of your brain is probably really well honed through years and years of racing. And so your your mind goes to planning, because you’re forecasting what you need to do and how you need to get it done. So we just want to recognize as a part of that awareness piece, like why we’re doing what we’re doing. We’re like, oh, that’s the part of me that forecasts. That’s the part of me that’s preparing. And I wonder if, in this moment, I could maybe let go of that a little bit and trust that I will get everything in I need to get in. I’ll get all the things done I need to get done. And there’s enough time and space in this moment to take for myself, to be with myself. It kind of connects to that performance space. And. Terms of that, trusting your instincts, trusting that you’re exactly where you need to be, trusting that you have the capacity to respond when you need to respond. If we’re talking about bike racing, we’re talking about attacking, counter attacking. We’re talking about the process of closing a gap or not or trusting that elastic to stretch all of those things that are really important to being both excellent at managing your energy and being a super dynamic bike racer. And it’s sort of holding those two things that is always the dance, isn’t it? Yeah,

Sonya Looney 10:38
and also not creating a story when something happens, not jumping to a conclusion. And I think that, you know, being more generalized, like a lot of us do, that something happens and we immediately have a judgment. And you were saying, without judgment, and like, we immediately jump to judgment.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 10:56
That’s right, that’s a great point, too. I think that piece around sort of the need to change like now is not enough, and what’s happening right now is not good enough. We’re not happy enough. We’re not strong enough. We’re not I don’t know rested enough. We’re not enough. In these various ways, is often what leads us to that place of judgment and leaping to change before we’ve really even like explored what’s actually not enough about right now. I think we often learn when we can sit with right now without changing it, that it is enough, that we’re actually okay. And this like constant striving for perfection. I know that’s perfectionism is an interest area of yours, and it’s something you know quite a bit about. It’s that striving for perfectionism is like to feel perfectly to be perfectly prepared to for everything to be just so it almost makes it impossible to move forward effectively at all. It can almost become paralyzing in some ways.

Sonya Looney 12:05
Something else that I think about a lot is contentment, and how contentment actually exists in the present moment and when we’re trying to, that was just sort of a realization I had, like, recently. And we’re always trying to, we’re always trying to, like, plan ahead, plan ahead for various reasons and uh huh. And one of those reasons is we want to feel fulfilled in our lives. We want to feel content, which are different, but contentment is right now. And when you’re thinking about the future all the time, you’re not being content with right now, it means I always have to be doing and planning and and trying to think forward instead of thinking right now.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 12:42
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think that’s a great way to frame it. I often talk a lot about acceptance of the present moment, and that’s hard, because I think we associate complacency with acceptance, and it’s not the same as sort of not being driven or not working hard towards a goal, or being complacent at all. Acceptance is the capacity to sit with what is so that we can be resourceful and adaptive in the moment. Right It allows us to deal with what’s right in front of us, so that we can then truly be committed to our goals. Because if we’re in denial of what is or discontent with what is right now, if we’re not accepting it, then we’re not able to work with the resources we have in that moment to get to where we really want to be. We’re actually almost sabotaging that opportunity in that moment because of that,

Sonya Looney 13:45
something else you kept saying is come back to the task at hand. Can you talk about a task orientation? Having a task orientation?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 13:53
Sure. I’m probably not going to talk about it academically, unless you really want me to be like, let it tell you that versus task orientation. Okay, good, no, I’m not going to get into that. But I think for me, what I have found through experience, in my work, in the applied so, like everything I share with you, is from that applied lens. I hope that’s okay, oh, that’s great.

Sonya Looney 14:17
That’s what we want. That’s good,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 14:19
okay, good, good, good, yeah, in that applied sense, you know, the task is where we have the most agency and impact in a moment. Really, it’s often what’s most controllable. It’s where we can impact, not just 10 seconds from now, but five minutes from now, two hours from now, if we’re stage racing, it’s tomorrow stage it’s like in that task is where we have so much opportunity. And if the task is to calibrate to the to the effort, to calibrate to the cadence, calibrate to what it is that we need to do in that moment. It, then that’s the task. If the task is to find ease in the discomfort, I say find ease really in the sense of not fighting it, but being content to use your word or just to be at a place of acceptance within that work, then we’re most able to actually unlock our own potential, because we’re most able to really connect to the again, back to the resources that we have within ourselves and the opportunities around us.

Sonya Looney 15:33
There’s something that attached to

Dr. Sara Mitchell 15:35
me is everything.

Sonya Looney 15:35
Yeah, that was really like I wrote that down, the task is where we have the most agency and impact. And that’s a quote that I’m actually gonna refer back to regularly, because that was so so succinct and well done, which sometimes I struggle with being succinct.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 15:48
Okay, yeah, so yeah, practice something I wanted to

Sonya Looney 15:53
ask you about is, like, there’s this question that I encourage people to think about, and I know that there’s nuance there, and I want to hear your opinion of this is a lot of times we are thinking about how we are doing instead of what we are doing,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 16:07
hmm, so it’s that’s interesting, yeah, yeah, how we are evaluating it versus the the executable of what it is we need to do. And that’s interesting. I think that’s that is very true. It’s it’s sort of turning off that interpretive part of our brain that judges and narrates the experience as we’re in it, right? So I’m doing really well. I have not found that to be super effective long term for in terms of an internal dialog, it’s really about like and go and and like and look and commit, right? It’s like real simple executable execution cues in the moment as particularly like deeper into a race or an event where you’re in increasing amounts of discomfort, yeah, totally

Sonya Looney 17:04
agree. So you so you think, because there’s, like, I’ve talked about this in the past, like there’s different types of self talk, like, there’s the motivational self talk, like, yeah, like, you got this, like, kind of what you were just saying, like, You’re doing so well, or, then there’s like the instructional, which is what you were just saying, is probably more beneficial. So you think that being more instructional is better than being motivational?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 17:24
Yeah, I find motivation to be a fickle friend. I find all those things where we’re like, in like, envision yourself as this, that or the other. If it’s not related to the task at hand, it’s useless. Frankly, when the going gets tough, you don’t have time to have like, this is, this is my style. I know other people do it differently, but my style is like, you don’t have time to have a whole conversation with yourself, to prop yourself up and be like, I’m great. I believe in myself. It’s really about being succinct and clear. Because when you’re hurting, you’re like, psychologically open to so much, right? That’s why it’s irksome when somebody says something to you in that moment that’s like, off target, right? It’s we don’t need judgment, you don’t need any extra dialog. You just need to know what to do. And oftentimes we get, as you said, focused on interpreting that which we’re doing, so deciding whether or not this is good enough or not good enough, and is this okay? Am I where I need to be? Do I need right? All of we kind of go down this rabbit hole of thinking, and it distracts us from the things we need to execute in order to put ourselves in the best position to win. And that’s your job as an athlete, always put yourself in the best position to win. And if you’re and you always, in my opinion, should be racing for first. I don’t care where you are in the peloton, you should always be racing for first and and if you’re not, then that’s a different conversation to have. But it’s those instructions that keep it clean, concise, and to the point there’s no room for fluff in those moments. Yeah, and then that’s not to say motivation is fluff. I’m not implying that, but the extra words and verbiage. And, you know, I’m succinct in what I say, because I’ve had a lot of practice at this, and you get your own style, and you get more succinct the more you do this work. But I think, you know, it’s really extra, extra words on the bike or in an event, any event, any kind of performance setting that that is not useful, in my opinion. It’s too much thinking. So you’re

Sonya Looney 19:44
talking, we’re kind of talking about in the heat of the moment. What about when you’re not in the heat of the moment, like the rest of the time, when there’s this narrative going about all the things

Dr. Sara Mitchell 19:56
you mean, like that motivational piece, I think, having. Connected to compassion and being accepting of where you are, and like having the capacity to sort of reflect or have perspective on your process and where you are within any stage of your life or a project that you’re working on, if you’re an athlete, and we’re talking about the arc of a season, just where you are in that journey. I think that’s a wonderful thing. I think there’s more space for that kind of positive self talk. I just think when we’re talking about performance settings, that I have found that that kind of dialog is less effective than something that’s more executable and clear also makes

Sonya Looney 20:47
me kind of think about equanimity. Like you’re not trying to say something is good or bad. You’re just trying to be and do the task at hand

Dr. Sara Mitchell 20:54
totally. It takes the judgment out. It doesn’t. It’s not, did I do a good job giving getting up and over the top of my gearing. It’s like, Get up and over the top, and then we do it again, and then we do it again, right? It doesn’t it’s not that other part of our brain that goes into that dialog about it, yeah, that’s that’s not as useful when you’re quote, unquote time crunched, when you’re really when you every millisecond matters,

Sonya Looney 21:23
and then there’s kind of, when you’re in it, you’re not thinking anything, you’re just doing, yeah, like, almost like, moment flow. Like, not always flow, but sometimes you’re just, there’s like, no mind. There’s no There’s you’re just out there. And then you realize it’s like, you come back to yourself. You’re like, Oh, I’m not really thinking about anything, and you’re just, like, doing. And then you realize, like, all this time is going by and I’m just not even, like, I’m just, yeah, there’s nothing, no, no dialog, any kind

Dr. Sara Mitchell 21:46
Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. So our brains jobs, like our mind, it’s, it’s actually our job to produce thoughts and feelings like, so our brain is actually always on and working. It’s just not that. It’s just that you’re not narrating what you’re doing. You’re still paying attention those thoughts of like, how to move on the bike when you’re out there after hours and hours and you’re like, wow, I was just so present. You’re actually attuned to all the things you’re doing. It’s just not being cataloged in the same way. It’s more of that automatic, those sort of, I think of them as, like, meta cognitive it’s like those other thoughts that you don’t have to think about. And that’s really the goal, I think, in any performance setting, not to keep bringing it back to like, performance. But obviously that’s my sort of area of expertise. And I would say, like, that is that’s what we want. We want to, like, be able to sort of get really automatic at self regulated attentional control, and having the capacity to observe without judgment, all of those things with practice get easier in time. So I want

Sonya Looney 22:59
to bring us back to the meditation that you led. And that’s what you were helping us do. You’re helping us realize, like, if there’s chatter going on and coming back and just Yeah, training back, training attention, training the attention.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 23:12
You’re training attention. That’s all you’re doing. Training attention. And so by closing your eyes, being in a nice office as you are, with quiet around you is a beautiful thing to do. I would say the the My goal with my athletes is to be able to train attention such that they’re able to do it in increasingly busy settings. I think you’ve heard me talk about this before, like putting people in situations where it’s not quiet and comfortable and your eyes are obviously not closed, but you’re actually in like, you’re on the bike and you’re able to self regulate your attentional focus. You’re in the middle of an interval, and you’re and you’re doing a super tough ride, or you’re in a race, and you’re able to do that over and over again. So that’s It’s like a It’s a skill and a muscle, like any other other part of you, really that we need to train to be able to to become automatic in increasingly almost chaotic environments, or noisy, so to speak.

Sonya Looney 24:13
I’m just smiling chatter. I’m smiling because, like, I’m a parent of young children, you know, four and two. And I’ve actually it is loud and chaotic, and like, they can get your emotions going, or, I guess you are the one getting your emotions going. You’re allowing things to get your emotions going. And I’ve actually had to picture myself as, like, being the eye of a hurricane, like there’s all this chaos happening around me. But I have to come back to this, like, calm center in the chaos. Yeah,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 24:43
yes, that is so true. Yeah. It’s like seeing yourself as a resource in and of yourself, your strength, your capacity to stay clear, grounded and strong, is a tremendous resource. Worse, and trusting that you have that capacity not just to feel that way, because we’re not striving to feel any kind of way, but what we’re really working towards is to embody that, so that irrespective of what’s happening, and really regardless of how we feel, particularly back to the performance settings, but also in our lives, with kids, with work, with school, with conferences, with all of these things, we want to be able to come back to that embodied presence. So that’s what I talk a lot about with my athletes, to connect that to holding space. That’s what it means to hold space that eye of the hurricane is holding space on and off the bike. I’m

Sonya Looney 25:47
going to try and ask this question in a way that’s not confusing. I’m just just kind of formulating it so I’m thinking about mindfulness, right? Like we were talking about awareness. We’re talking about Non, non judgmental awareness specifically, yeah, and I know you can have performance outcomes like this podcast isn’t just about sport performance, but it’s about the intersection of performance and well being. So you can have performance like do well without being mindful. You can, because I was going to argue, well, you have to be mindful in order to perform well, but that’s not necessarily the case. So I guess the question I’m trying to ask is, how does mindfulness enhance performance, if you can be doing well without the mindful aspect?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 26:33
I would argue that’s not the case. I would argue there’s a certain level awareness of awareness of what you’re doing, whether or not you are acknowledging that that is mindfulness. I don’t. I don’t really care what words people use. I don’t care if we call it mindfulness, or if we call it paying attention, or we call it being locked in or like in the zone. I don’t even care like, call it what you will. But at the end of the day, what we’re talking about is a presence and an awareness. And I have never met an athlete in my life that wasn’t aware on some level of what they’re doing. So I would argue that you can’t actually be successful, truly in the sense of unlocking like maybe you could be pretty good at some things, some of the time, but I would say if you want to be consistently the best in the world at what you do, you’re absolutely aware of what you’re doing. I think it would be a disservice to the amount of mental focus and work that goes into performing well to pretend that that’s not the case again, I think you can be pretty good some of the time at some things without being totally attentive or aware. But if we’re talking about consistency, we’re talking about peaking when it matters, and we’re talking about showing up when we need to show up, there’s an intensity to that focus that is undeniable, and there’s a clarity of vision and a capacity and an awareness of what you’re doing. And I would argue that people tend to dumb down sport that is a disservice to the process, which I happen to think is really cool and far more meaningful and complex than people give it credit for.

Sonya Looney 28:23
Tell me more,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 28:26
just that, that’s it. I just, that’s my feeling about it. Yeah, yeah. I think, I think we tend to talk a lot about athletes as though it’s like, everyone’s low IQ and it’s just like, about brawn and strength, then, like, you just gotta, you just gotta go. I think particularly in sprinting sports, where you have sprinting, people are like, I don’t really think right, that’s not the case. There’s a real focus and a tremendous amount of work to training the mind to be laser sharp that people don’t give credit to. And I don’t mean the athletes, I think the athletes I work with, have done a tremendous job of focusing their mind and leveraging that strength to their advantage. Because what we know is, if you leave your mind, your mind is powerful, right? And if you leave it untrained a not only are you missing an opportunity to leverage a tremendous asset and strength, you’re actually getting in your own way, and your mind can become your adversary pretty quickly, as we all know, how many times have we, like, sort of tuned out when we needed to be focused? How many times have we over thought things when we needed to be clear and decisive, how many? I mean, we’ve all done it, and so that’s the reality. Is, like we want to leverage all the resources and strengths we have, and our mind is a huge resource and strength. I think it particularly if we’re talking about sport. It’s a tremendous resource and strength. How use it will look. Slightly different, and the things that are individual to you are your own and your own strengths to capitalize on in your own growth edges for each of us. But I think irrespective of that, like idiosyncratic and individualized process of learning yourself and learning your strengths and weaknesses, you can certainly, you need your mind. It’s powerful.

Sonya Looney 30:26
Yeah, what do you think about those of my thoughts? Because there’s, like, the there’s people that are self trained, that do things naturally, and that tried to figure out what they’re doing. Like, this is kind of how I kind of got, got here, right? Like, I’m I got to figure out what I’m doing in the moment. I’m going to try to train my own mind versus you can work with a coach like you. What’s what are the key differences there of trying to do it on your own versus doing it with a coach?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 30:52
Well, is the coach a sports psychologist? Is the coach a like a coach that’s trained in exercise physiology, and that’s their role. So let’s assume what you mean by that is somebody who’s trained to do mental training. I think that’s what I mean,

Sonya Looney 31:07
right? Yeah, okay, got it. It’s hard coach, because that coach can mean so many things. It totally can. It

Dr. Sara Mitchell 31:13
has many meanings, and like, specialization or lack thereof is a whole other conversation. But yeah, so for a mental training coach, the the I think the the benefit of that is getting that honest feedback and having a guide in many ways to help you again, learn about yourself. So gain self awareness, learn what your strengths are mentally, how to leverage them to your advantage and how to execute consistently, those are things that are really hard to do on your own. It’s not to say that you can’t, but I have found more times than not, like having that sounding board and that person that you trust that is not benefiting necessarily from your performances. So they’re sort of, they’re not a stakeholder in the same way that, say your coach, who then gets to go to the Olympics with you, or the tour with you or whatever, right? Like, there’s certain things that other people in your life get benefits from when you do well, right? What you need is some, what we all need are people in our lives who are not stakeholders in that, but somebody who is willing to be really honest with you. And when you’re going sideways, that they’re always going to tell you that truth, that is, that is like a commitment and it’s really uncomfortable. Some athletes are better at taking feedback than others, as we all know, some people are some people aren’t open. They think they know more than they do, or that that receptivity to learning is just different. It varies person by person. And so I think you do if you are going to work with a mental training coach, that you do want to work with somebody who are you? You want to be in a space where you’re open to feedback and you’re open to growth. It’s like, conceptually we talk about it. So if I was to go to like, just clinical psychology or counseling psychology, we would talk about as stages of change, or like, readiness to make change in one’s life, right? And so, and there’s this that’s usually characterized by a certain amount of openness to feedback. You can really tell somebody that’s like, ready to do the work. They also conceptualize mental training as not just a negative like you caught you contact your sports psychologist or whomever when you’re in trouble or things are going sideways, but actually when you’re sort of focused on accessing that upper end of your potential as well.

Sonya Looney 34:00
Yeah, what are, what are some other skills that you work on with your athletes? Like you work with some very highly accomplished athletes. So we talked about training attention. What are some other things

Dr. Sara Mitchell 34:10
that you work on? Gosh, I mean, it just, it’s athlete by athlete. But certainly there’s mental rehearsal. There’s like so that could be similar to visualization if we’re talking about skills. Specifically, I don’t we do some skills, but I don’t spend a ton of time on skills. Often I’ll just like, send them skills, and our time is spent on understanding more the complexity and nuances of where they are within their lives. So with the athletes I work with, it’s often about like optimizing mental energy and focus so that we’re peaking. We want to be working in parallel with where they are physically. So things are all trending at sort of the same speed, in the same direction at the same time we work on manage. Pushing intensity a lot. So a lot of the athletes I work with, surprise, surprise, we’re all pretty intense. We’re like, super laser, be right? Like, really into it. We’re like, Yes, I was joking with somebody recently. Was like, gosh, she was washing her dishes. And her husband was like, what is wrong? She’s like, nothing. I’m just focused on washing my dishes, right? Like she’s super intense, and that intensity unchecked can be we can end up burning ourselves out. So like learning to modulate that intensity a little bit, so knowing when to turn it on and off a little bit with without it being quite that abrupt or dichotomous. Sort of just being skillful about managing that intensity is a big piece. There’s also a lot of stuff around, like agents, stuff around interpersonal relationships, to put it broadly, with coaches, with sponsors, with, I don’t know, interviewers, would you name it like those are all stressors with family, when and how to integrate, how to create balance, all of that. Those are all things that we work on, learning a season, injury, identity, gosh, all that stuff.

Sonya Looney 36:12
Yes. And those are very big things,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 36:16
yeah, yeah. They certainly seem to take up a lot of space in the mind of anyone who’s like managing their lives and trying to move not just through the arc of their season but their career, and thinking about, gosh, like I’m in the thick of my career in five years. Am I? Am I doing everything I need to now to set myself up? So back to that forecasting while also being present and relaxing during the quote, unquote off season. And what does that look like? The whole thing. So there is, there’s a lot of the word balance comes to mind. There’s a lot of that.

Sonya Looney 36:53
I have two more things. The first thing is, a lot of people think that they need to be a professional athlete before they deserve I’m using that word intentionally to have a cycling coach, a mental performance coach, any of those things they don’t think they deserve it because they’re not racing at the top level, and I don’t believe that’s true. What, like, what words of encouragement can you offer to people when, yeah, that it’s okay to get coaching, like, when you’re not trying to be an

Dr. Sara Mitchell 37:20
Olympian? Yeah? Yeah, because I think that what we often don’t realize is that coaching can help you move towards your goals, right? We don’t really know what you’re capable of without that feedback and without that consistency, and without an opportunity to approach things properly, like a proper, structured training plan that you get from your physical coach or your primary coach, and then for the mental training, we don’t really know where your strengths are or what it is that you can achieve or unlock within yourself if we don’t have a proper mental training coach. So those are the things that sort of allow us to set reasonable goals. You don’t really know until we start to have those dialogs and start to have those conversations, we don’t really know what our strengths are in terms of tactics or strategy. That’s also another thing I work with athletes a lot on, honestly, it’s that’s been surprising to me is how much time I spend like in working with athletes on in the moment decision making within a race. I think I had always when I was younger, thought of that as something a primary coach does, like the physical training side, but I’ve learned in time so much about the psychology of it and how important it is to be able to offer that, because it is so much about trusting your own instincts and whatever. So for athletes that are earlier on in their development, I think understanding where they are on the continuum all the way up to professional it’s really helpful, even if they just did a session or two or a period of time with a primary coach or a mental training professional, I think that would help them to understand sort of where they are in their development and set more reasonable goals based on the assessment and feedback they get.

Sonya Looney 39:20
It’s funny. Whenever I have guests on, I can usually because as a when you’re interviewing, you’re listening to what somebody is saying, but you also have to be like, thinking about what you’re going to say next. And when I’m talking, when I’m talking, when I’m talking to you, it’s interesting, because I normally can do that really well, but when I’m talking to you, you’re so engaging, it’s actually really hard for me to think about the future, and then when you stop talking,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 39:43
sorry, yeah, oh no,

Sonya Looney 39:44
this is wonderful. I’m just pointing out what I’m noticing because I’ve been doing this for over seven years, and that hasn’t happened very often where the parallel processing or the whatever switching on and switching off, yeah, but now I remember what I was doing. Say it’s about, it’s about, you mentioned burnout, and this is something that amateur athletes really struggle with. And I guess it’s an entire different conversation about the challenge between, like, there’s the physical like, training coach for the actual workouts, and then there’s like, if they have a mental training coach, and those who can actually be at odds, because maybe the cycling coach is prescribing or suggesting, like, too many workouts or too much pressure, and then the mental training coach is saying, you know, we need to back down here like you are burned out. You need to stop pushing so hard. So that’s kind of one paradox or dilemma. And then the other thing is, if an athlete’s burned out, like, what should they do? Like a lot of people don’t want to do when they’re burnt out. And instead, they just keep pushing.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 40:44
Yeah, yeah. I think that’s a great point. I I think that’s a very that’s a dynamic conversation. It depends on your relationship with the coach. What I can tell you is that in my work, in what I’ve learned it’s not useful to get into a pissing match with a coach. I said, at some point like the athlete, you’re then putting the athlete in a super stressful situation where they feel like they need to choose sides, and that’s not okay, that’s not that’s not healthy or good. What I’ve found is also that athletes know when they’re not feeling good, and it’s my to go back to that guide. It’s my job to help them learn how to listen to themselves and advocate for themselves as autonomously and independently as possible. I don’t tell my athletes what to do, but I do say things like, I hear that you’re really struggling with the fatigue right now, and I’m wondering if you’ve had a really open and direct conversation with your coach about that 910, times out of 10, the answer is no, when they’re like, talking about that fatigue. So I wonder what it would be like, and then we do some of the coaching around, like, Gosh, I wonder what it would be like to have that conversation. Well, I feel really embarrassed. I don’t I, for some reason, I feel like I the coach. I need the coach to like me that I hear that a lot, or I really look up to them a lot of times, we have the primary coach as somebody who’s achieved something in the sport, and people look up to them, and it’s a whatever that situation. So we kind of have to work through that, because it doesn’t really matter if the coach likes you, if you’ve hired them, then they’re working for you, right? And you have to be able to say in a way that’s not blaming, but more collaborative. So it’s about teaching people how to be a collaborator and take responsibility in their training. And so if I’m taking response, so let’s say I’m the athletes, let’s tired, and you’re my my primary coach. You’re training me, I would say to you, gosh, you know, I know we’re doing all this. I’m really into it, and I feel kind of uncomfortable about it, or I don’t really want to tell you that I’m like, so tired, but I am. I’m exhausted. And I wonder if, instead of doing like, 3030s we could do something else on the bike. I wonder if maybe I should take a day or two off. I guess I’m just really struggling with the fatigue right now and then, if you’re a great coach, which you are, and I always assume the best you would then say to me, gosh, what are you noticing? Tell me about your fatigue, and then we can kind of sort through it. It’s also really hard for athletes, I think, in my experience, to know the difference between mental and physical fatigue. Like, is this mental? Is this not mental? You know, it’s like this whole conversation I’ve had athletes, where we spend months on this. It’s like, I don’t know. Let’s How do we know? The difference, is it that we’re not feeling that word motivated? Is that we’re not feeling like we’re super lethargic and we just like, want to do anything but get on the bike? Or is it that when we get on the bike, we can’t hit our numbers, our like muscles are burning, and how’s our nutrition and how’s our sleep, like? There’s a lot of factors right that go into it. And so I’m I’m never quick to say to somebody, you are burnt out or not burnt out. I think I’m quicker to help them assess what makes sense and advocate for themselves. Does that make sense? I

Sonya Looney 44:22
also think a big part of it, especially just even for athletes that don’t have a coach, is their identity is so tied up in the doing of being an athlete, that when they need to do less, they can’t, because they’re they’re so worried that, Well, who am I if I’m not constantly doing

Dr. Sara Mitchell 44:41
right, right. Who am I? I call it for some of my athletes, it’s, I don’t know. This might not make sense. I guess it does to us. I don’t know why, but we talk talk about as like, touching the flame, like we want, like the doing, like that little bit of effort, that little bit of pressure on the pedal, that. Little bit of work or pain lets us know we’ve still got it. It’s still there. I could turn it on if I wanted to. I could really take it up a notch if any. I could do that if I needed to. So it’s like some the feeling of insecurity about how close we are to that intensity or the doing is hard, and so we have to learn to trust that we don’t have to touch the flame every day, every two days, whatever. We can allow ourselves to taper, we can allow ourselves to recover. We can allow ourselves to do these other things, and know that we will have the capacity to come back and do the work again. So it goes back to trusting ourselves and trusting that elastic to not just stretch between riders, but stretch within yourself, trust that you’ll be able to come right back and give yourself credit. Do

Sonya Looney 45:55
you have time for one more question? Yeah, please. Yeah, whatever. We’re using the word trusting. And I this was, this became apparent to me. It was a book I read. It might have been like Simon Marshall’s book, like the brave athlete. And I think he said something like, athletes that over train are not very confident, because it takes confidence to rest. And can you differentiate between, like, trusting yourself versus being confident?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 46:19
Oh, that’s a big conversation. I like that question I have. I think that, like I often have asked myself throughout my life, when I was an athlete, as a sports psychologist, like in this field, in sports psychology, working with the Olympic and Paralympic Committee now on my own, I will say the concept of confidence is a tricky one. It’s complex. The confidence is like, really distills down to, like, this commitment and belief in yourself, in my opinion, to come back to the work. It doesn’t mean that you don’t think that you have weaknesses. It’s not a false sense of self. It’s not being inflated. It’s really that space within yourself where you’re connected and really clear on who you are and what space you can hold, where your strengths lie how to leverage them. It’s holding space. That’s what confidence is to me, and trusting oneself allows you to believe in yourself because you see yourself more clearly. So when we trust our instincts, a that means that we have to know what our instincts are saying, like we have to listen to them. We have to know what they’re saying, and then we have to know how to respond. Through repeated exposure to that process, we then build that self belief, because our belief is based in reality, and it’s not fickle. It’s not going to ebb and flow so much with the circumstances. It’s a deep sense of knowing who we are and what space we hold in any court.

Sonya Looney 48:07
Wow. I love that. I was like, having visual, like, trying to think of, like, how they overlap and like, what the what the overlaps. Like, what is that overlap space called,

Dr. Sara Mitchell 48:16
yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, confidence and trust. It’s like we could combine the word, but to me, it’s, it’s really just about knowing yourself and the belief that comes out of, like, that honest relationship with yourself. That’s strength, like confidence and and I have athletes where, literally, they’re like, Sarah, I wasn’t quite confident enough at race 436 on the day, and I’m like, yes, let’s talk about confidence. I know you’re laughing, because it’s like, once again, we’re back to the word confidence. Because everyone talks about confidence. I almost don’t even like that word, because it seems like this elusive thing we have to chase, when the reality is, is that self belief is something inside of us that we work on internally by tapping in to our own instincts and in time, through repeated exposure of that process we just talked about, we really build whatever that strength or space is needed to withstand any storm, truthfully, like forget, forget. I don’t need to be confident. I need to be strong. I don’t need to be anything but me. And the more I’m me, the more I can dig in and do exactly what I need to do to achieve the result I want to if that’s getting your degree, if that’s get, you know, finishing first in a race, if that’s, you know, getting an overall title, whatever it is that you’re going for, it will allow you to get to where you need to go. The more, the more Eunice there is. That’s also a made up word, though, really that’s a Sarah ism. Uh huh, for sure. I

Sonya Looney 50:00
love it, yeah, yeah. I think about like confidence kind of feels like self esteem, where it’s almost conditional, versus like agency. Agency is more like, I believe that I can do my I can accomplish my goals now and into the future. And that’s, yeah, that’s not the same thing as, quote, confidence, but that’s more in line with, I think what we’re trying to talk about, maybe, I don’t I’ve been thinking about this a lot, actually, too much.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 50:29
Yeah, no, it’s a good thing to think about. What you’re describing is, I mean, obviously I haven’t said it again. I don’t need to be academic about it, but you’re describing, and we’re touching on self determination. So that concept of self agency is a really important concept for athletes and human beings. And the capacity to be an animator in one’s own life, on or off the bike, is like the name of the game. Like, that’s what we’re after. Let’s be animators, not not passively having training done to us. And then we’re like, I’m over trained. No, it’s like, let’s be contributors to the process and communicate our needs clearly. I

Sonya Looney 51:16
think adding nuance like this is really important, because there’s words that are thrown around all the time, and just understanding what those words mean to you and your context, I think it’s really powerful when you’re approaching your goals.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 51:29
I think so too, and for each of us, again, it’s like individualized and it is idiosyncratic, like it’s all very much about the person, and I think, but I do think having sort of this nuanced language that allows us to communicate effectively with each other and build a bit of a vocabulary is super helpful and get the wheels turning. Even if somebody listens to this and doesn’t have a primary coach or a mental training coach or whatever, they can start to think more deeply about their own process and where they want to go and how they want to animate their life, on or off the bike, in or out of sport. Doesn’t really matter. It’s just, it’s just, um, they cross pollinate, really, across domains. Well,

Sonya Looney 52:18
I feel like I could talk to you for hours about this, and I can’t believe the time is already up. Where can people find you and your work?

Dr. Sara Mitchell 52:25
Yeah, so I’m on internet. They could go to my website. It’s Enzo mental performance. We have a social site. They can follow us on. It’s Enzo mental performance. Those are two good places to go, but certainly word of mouth, if there are athletes out there, they could ask about the work and how it feels for them and what they like or don’t like. And you know, that’s always good too. They can reach out anytime, and there’s contact info on the website and and also on the socials, so you know where to find us that way.

Sonya Looney 52:58
Well, thanks so much.

Dr. Sara Mitchell 52:59
Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you for having me. This was really fun. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of these great ideas. You’re doing really great work, and I’m glad that you’re creating space for the mental training as well. Thanks. Applause.