Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

Sometimes you can look like you’re not doing much and still make a great deal of progress. Conversely, you can look extremely busy and get nothing done. The latter happens often in youth sports. The former does not happen enough.

Too often young athletes spend too much time doing a lot of nothing. It’s not uncommon for a kid playing youth sports to go to practice 3 days a week for two hours each day and not get any better. Literally 6 hours of busy work with little improvement to show for it. Not only is this frustrating to a young athlete, it’s also an expensive waste of time considering the cost to play youth sports these days. So what’s the solution?

Unlock Hidden Talent by Working Less on Physical Skills and Working More on Mental Skills

If you are a sports parent who has experienced this cycle of counterproductive busyness, then I have one suggestion. Have your child work less on developing their physical skills and more time on developing mental skills. Too many people overrate the value of working on a child’s physical skills, especially when a child has yet to hit puberty. At this age, it’s far more productive to help a child develop emotional intelligence, mental toughness, and resilience.

Developing mental skills is not less work in terms of time and difficulty. However, coaches undervalue working on mental skills because there are no physical signs of blood, sweat, and tears. Don’t let this illusion confuse you. The most important thing for young athletes to develop is and will always be mental skills.

Obviously, I’m not saying that physical skills are not important, they’re just not as important as you would think for younger athletes. Yes, one day the physicality of a sport will be front and center. However, the main differentiator among experienced athletes is not physical, it’s mental. Furthermore, older athletes who have strong mental skills are capable of pushing their physical skills beyond the boundaries of peers with weak mental skills.