The Six Mood States Coaches Should Monitor on Their Team
An athlete’s mood state is constantly in flux. While traits are more stable personality characteristics, states are a reaction to a situation that causes a temporary behavior. It’s these temporary states that coaches have the most influence over.
Moreover, there are six mood states in particular research suggest that coaches must pay the most attention to influence their team’s performance. Those six moods states include:
- Tension / anxiety
- Depression
- Anger
- Fatigue
- Vigor / energy
- Confusion / fluster
Out of these six mood states, five of them relate to negative performance behaviors (tension, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion). Only one relates to positive performance behaviors (vigor).
With that said, it would be easy for coaches to judge their team by using the old eyeball test. However, I would encourage all coaches who take mental skills training seriously to consider being more rigorous. When I work with teams, I use an assessment similar to what’s suggested here that allows for quick data collection and analysis across each athlete on the team.
Using this approach, not only is the eyeball test obsolete, but you also don’t need to rely on just one or two assessments to make broad assumptions about the team’s mood state. Instead, you assess a couple times a week and use aggregate data over time to make a more reliable decision about the state of the team or individual athlete.
Simply stated, research proves that mood state impacts performance. Therefore, it would be wise for coaches to both know the mood of their team and use mental skills training to positively impact that mood.