Parents: check out my Parenting in Athletics CD
Your Guide for Developing Talent
available at BaseballMentalMaster.com or SoftballMentalmaster.com
INDIVIDUAL CONSULTING
Maximize your Return On Investment for your sport with Coach Traub's 1-1 Coaching
- Do you know the specifics of how to prepare yourself like a champion, both physically and mentally?
- How to think about your sport in healthy ways
- How to take your skill in practice into pressure-packed situations
- How to increase your consistency
- How to get better faster at practice
- How to consciously increase confidence and create calm
- How to focus effectively...right now
- How to relax
- How to make your teammates better
- How to deal with adversity and disappointment effectively
- How to shift into your Peak Performance Zone on command
- How to use imagery, power phrases, routines, cues, and other tools in your mental game toolbox
- How to control the controllables and give your best effort one step at a time.
Learn what it takes for you to consistently give your best effort now (the only time you can control). Coach Traub clients receive support and instruction that helps them control their thoughts, emotions, and performances. Core concepts and individualized activities are combined to create a personally designed mental skills training program that produces results.
"When I started working with Aaron I was what many would call "a great bullpen pitcher". I struggled with confidence both on and off the field, and at game time I was a mess. I was constantly worrying about what others thought of me and had so many thoughts floating in my mind that I could never focus or relax. I've been working with Aaron for a year now. He has helped me both as an athlete and in my day to day life. Within two months of working with him, I had 5 colleges at one tournament offer me a scholarship as a pitcher. Prior to that I had not had a single college approach me. I was on cloud nine as you could imagine. I am much more confident and secure in who I am, and when I step onto the field I feel fully prepared to handle the ups and downs that you can experience in a game as a pitcher. It really is a brand new world for me. I am continuing to work with Aaron as I follow my dreams of playing college softball. Thank you so much Aaron for all that you do for me personally and as an athlete."
"Coach Traub is absolutely amazing! At first, I thought it was a little weird to have a mental coach, but once I started talking to him I realized that this is more than just advice. He also provides exercises to deal with your mental approach. As a pitcher, I was hit with line drives three times within one week. A fear grew inside of me that every single ball would come back at me. But Coach Traub has a lot of great ways to help with just about everything you can imagine. Not only did he help me overcome my fear, but also gave helpful tips for other things as well. I put his advice to the test and it has made a huge difference! Do not be hesitant about asking for help, it will make you better than you were before. Coach Traub’s help is not only for an athlete’s mental game, but can be carried on for life lessons also!"
"In her final event of her high school career, the 1600, she got the GOLD and set a NEW 1A State Record breaking the 11 year old previous record by more than 2 seconds! I have no doubt that the sessions she took with you gave her the skills to do her very best for that race! Thanks again for everything!"
Initial Assessment – Awareness Empowers Growth
An analysis of your current mental skills and the most effective direction for your mental conditioning comes from an interview and at least one written assessment.
Core Concepts
You will develop these skills to an elite level (see details below):
- Focus
- Positive Self-Talk
- Confidence/Trust
- Self-Control
- Routines
- Imagery
- Goal-Setting Process
- Perspective
Tracking Progress
Using your personal monitoring system, you’ll find a new level of awareness and focus in your training and competition. This will lead to effective adjustments and longer periods of being “in the zone” as you accelerate the process of approaching your potential.
An investment of both time and money into this process is required.
Homework assignments are expected to be completed before attending, as agreed upon with each person (everyone's homework is different).
Initial Package: $500
Includes all needed training materials and 3 sessions.
First meeting = 2 hours.
Sessions 2 & 3 are 1 hour each.
Details: This package is for personalized, individual training. Sessions take place either in Coach Traub's office or via Skype/Facetime/Phone. Debriefing on the phone after a game is included as needed during this initial month of 1-1 training.
Follow-Up Full Season of Support: $500
After the initial package is completed, many athletes some athletes feel empowered to coach themselves effectively. Others appreciate the benefits on their development of continued direct support. This "Season of Support" package includes office session up to once per week and unlimited phone/Skype/Facetime meetings such as before or after competition.
What defines a season? We can discuss this, but for varsity athletes, it typically means through the last competition of their biggest season of the year.
Coach Traub is also available for small group lessons at your location. This is for up to 8 athletes.
Fee: $120/hour + Travel with a 1.5 hour minimum.
CORE CONCEPTS / DETAILS
Focus – Do you clutter your mind with too much thinking while you’re trying to perform? Focusing on the task-at-hand is a vital performance skill that can be learned with quality practice. You’ll learn to block out regrets about the past and worries about the future, recognize the correct present-tense object for your focus, and find that “trust mode” where you can truly give your best effort.
Positive Self-Talk – Self-Talk is not optional…you’re going to think and the quality of your thoughts is going to determine the quality of your attitudes. Are your thoughts helping you excel or holding you back? This is where the rubber meets the road, and everyone has some good and some bad habits. Identify the good ones so you can do them again and identify the bad patterns so you can make an adjustment. It is exciting to think of what you can achieve. Your potential is absolutely astounding, and training your brain to move towards the things you want can help you fulfill that potential.
Confidence and Trust – Is there anything more important for you to perform the way you are capable of than to trust? To do this, you must not get in your own way by thinking too much and you must be confident. Great athletes consciously control their confidence level. They don’t lose confidence after mistakes and they do gain it after successes. Their self-talk has a consistently Optimistic Explanatory Style that is always honest, but emphasizes positives and de-emphasizes negatives.
Self-Control – You must first control yourself if you are going to control your performance. You have little to no control of what goes on around you, but total control of how you respond. Learn to recognize your "red light" and "green light" signals. The goal is get yourself into your ideal state when it is time to practice and perform. Your internal state is comprised of your attitude and your physiology. It is useful to have multiple routines for getting you on track, both before and during competition. Your sport will provide adversity. No one stays in their ideal state all of the time, but consistent competitors come closer.
Perspective – Anyone who's ever "choked," meaning that they played below their potential when they perceived that it was a particularly important situation, should realize this: a performance/self-concept link is extremely damaging to the quality of a performance. Worry is counterproductive because it prevents the athlete from being in the moment and often turns attention towards uncontrollables. If you're worried what others will think of you, you're going to be partially distracted from the task-at-hand. Training in this area will clarify for you the perspectives that allow for the greatest performances. There is plenty of evidence to support the truth of these beliefs. Ultimately, your perspective on performance is your choice, but if you are competing with less information, you may be fighting an unnecessary uphill battle.
Routines – Wouldn’t it be great if you could GUARANTEE giving your best effort every single time? You can. Not best effort ever, of course. That's not realistic. But you can control the controllables and give the best effort you possibly could give at this point in time in this situation. By using your experiences effectively, you can build routines that will make sure that you are physically and mentally at the right place at the right time. And if you define success in controllable terms (Coach Wooden: "the peace of mind that comes from knowing you did your best," this means you can guarantee success.)
Imagery - The mind/body connection is powerful, but communicating from mind to muscle can be challenging. Learn about the impact imagery has for many famous athletes and work to improve your imagery skills. Imagery is free and always available! You can use imagery before, during, and after your performances to maximize growth and winning. By running experiments (games and practices), you will figure out how and when to use imagery most effectively for you.
Goal-Setting Process – You have some big goals already. You want to prevent frustration at the distance of big challenges and prevent complacency from destinations already achieved. Certainly, you are already demonstrating goal-directed behavior often, but mounds of research indicate that writing down S.M.A.R.T. and Controllable goals will help you maintain goal-directed behavior more consistently. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” A formal goal-setting process will also ensure that each step is headed in the right direction. It is a process rather than a one-step resolution because monitoring and adjusting goals is critical.
For audio lessons that inspire and teache many of these core concepts in some detail, check out my library of Elite Athlete Audios.
Plenty of free content is also available at my blog: www.SmileNowCoach.com. You can also sign up for my e-Newsletter there!