{"id":2021009,"date":"2026-07-01T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2021009"},"modified":"2026-07-01T10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:00:24","slug":"this-is-the-most-disruptive-change-in-mental-performance-in-my-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2021009","title":{"rendered":"This is the most disruptive change in mental performance in my 40 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story is part of Peak, <\/em>The Athletic\u2019s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak\u2019s newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jeff Troesch is a mental performance coach who has worked across college sports, with individual athletes and MLB teams. He is the author of the book \u201cOne Day Better<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first started as a consultant in sport psychology almost 40 years ago, the world of mental performance training was in a nascent state. I encountered a great deal of skepticism from athletes:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need your help \u2014 I\u2019m not crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all voodoo and snake oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does this have to do with catching a football?\u201d<\/p>\n

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These days, the general attitude is vastly different. The field of professionals has grown dramatically, and athletes and coaches are openly accepting, seeking and embracing mental skills. But in the last 10 years or so, the effect of social media and smartphones on mental performance has emerged as the most disruptive change I\u2019ve witnessed over my four decades in sports.<\/p>\n

In my work, I have the opportunity to get the truth from athletes\u2019 experiences. Today I spend an inordinate amount of time in my sessions helping athletes manage the fallout from online trolling, the sense that they have \u201cgot to post\u201d regularly to \u201cstay relevant,\u201d and the habits of staying hypervigilant about what their competition might look like, train like or generally experience.<\/p>\n

A great number of these athletes then translate this information into narratives they find anxiety-inducing:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe looks fitter than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s getting the endorsements that I feel I should be getting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cMaybe I need to change to the equipment she\u2019s using.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I had done well yesterday, but given what I now see that she did, maybe what I did wasn\u2019t so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people were making comments about my body.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of that stuff used to be behind closed doors; players didn\u2019t have access to it so easily. Now it\u2019s everywhere.<\/p>\n

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As a result, the things we\u2019re trying to do to help players simplify their craft have become exponentially more complex, if not more complicated.<\/p>\n

It translates into what\u2019s happening when a player is in the batter\u2019s box, on the mound or when they\u2019re playing defense in the field. We get players who are traveling to the future in their heads: What\u2019s this going to mean relative to my next contract? Are they going to send me down and bring the next guy up?<\/p>\n

That was somewhat normal back in the day. But now it\u2019s on blast 24\/7. Athletes are breeding a lot of anxiety and social consciousness around comparison, but also from people going at them online \u2014 the trolls and the gamblers.<\/p>\n

It has real, real implications.<\/p>\n

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Our favorite mental tools from athletes and experts<\/div>\n
Elise Devlin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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