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Journal of Sport Psychology in Action

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Mindfulness Strategies: Consulting with

Coaches and Athletes: Background and
Presentation of the 2013 AASP Annual
Convention Workshop
a a b
Amy Baltzell , John Mccarthy & Tina Greenbaum
a
School of Education, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
b
Tennis to the Max, New York, New York, USA
Published online: 26 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Amy Baltzell, John Mccarthy & Tina Greenbaum (2014): Mindfulness Strategies:
Consulting with Coaches and Athletes: Background and Presentation of the 2013 AASP Annual
Convention Workshop, Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, DOI: 10.1080/21520704.2014.943916

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 Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 00:1–9, 2014
Copyright © Association for Applied Sport Psychology
ISSN: 2152-0704 print / 2152-0712 online
DOI: 10.1080/21520704.2014.943916

Mindfulness Strategies:
Consulting with Coaches and Athletes:
Background and Presentation of the 2013
AASP Annual Convention Workshop

AMY BALTZELL and JOHN MCCARTHY

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School of Education, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

TINA GREENBAUM
Tennis to the Max, New York, New York, USA

The purpose of this article is to provide a summary and discussion of

the main workshop ideas presented at the national 2013 AASP Con-
ference, entitled Mindfulness Strategies: Consulting with Coaches
and Athletes. In this article a brief overview of the meaning of
mindfulness and potential benefits of mindfulness-based strategies
are offered. Specific mindfulness-based strategies for sport psychol-
ogy consultants working with athletes and coaches are presented.
The mindfulness-oriented strategies offered, integrated with tradi-
tional mental skills training, include normalizing the experience
of negative emotions, accepting aversive emotions, clarifying and
committing to task-focused efforts in performance, visualizing suc-
cess and noticing the good.

KEYWORDS acceptance, mindfulness, sport psychology, sport psy-

chology consulting, workshop

Sport is a performance environment. The demands associated with this en-

vironment often elicit emotional responses in the participants that can nega-
tively impact their performance. Not surprisingly, many athletes and coaches
are faced with the challenge of negative emotional, and associated, cog-
nitive distractions. Fear, a typical aversive emotion that can co-occur with

Address correspondence to Amy Baltzell, Ed.D., School of Education, Boston University,

Two Silber Way, Boston, MA 02215, USA. E-mail: baltzell@bu.edu
Color versions of one or more figures in the article can be found online at
www.tandfonline.com/uspa.

1
 2 A. Baltzell et al.

pre-performance anxiety (Baltzell, 2011; LeUnes, 2008), can thwart optimal

sport performance if not effectively addressed. Other debilitative emotions
that performers and coaches face include anger, embarrassment, indignation
and/or frustration. Such aversive emotions are sometimes not ameliorated by
the implementation of sport psychology mental skills traditionally employed
to stop or change such experiences (Gardner & Moore, 2012).
The purpose of the workshop was to offer sport psychology consul-
tants working with coaches and/or athletes additional tools and strategies
to help them effectively cope with potentially debilitative emotions that can
undermine performance. Three mindfulness-based interventions were of-
fered that included both mindfulness meditation and non-meditation based
strategies. The specific techniques integrated in the three interventions in-
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cluded: (a) the use of self-talk, with the goal of normalizing the experience of
negative emotions, (b) accepting aversive emotions, (c) clarifying and com-
mitting to task-focused efforts in performance, and (d) visualizing success
while noticing what is good. We have found that integrating mindfulness
approaches to sport psychology practice is particularly useful when helping
athletes, coaches, teams and other performers optimize performance when
faced with emotions that are debilitative, distracting, or perceived as beyond
their control.

MINDFULNESS AND PERFORMANCE

The prominent conceptualization of mindfulness in the current literature is

based on the Buddhist approach popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of
the now-worldwide Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program,
and the first researcher to use mindfulness meditation in sport (Kabat-Zinn,
Beall, & Rippe, 1985). Kabat-Zinn (1994) defines mindfulness as “paying
attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-
judgmentally” (p. 4). In this workshop, we offered a few key ways that
mindfulness could be integrated into strategies intended for sport psychology
consultants helping athletes and coaches cope with aversive performance-
related emotions.
The main reason we have turned to integrating mindfulness training
into our practice is to help performers learn how to pay attention to the
task at hand, particularly while experiencing aversive emotions. We contend
that integrating a mindfulness-based approach with traditional mental-skills
work (e.g., self-talk) can be preferable when helping athletes cope with their
aversive emotions in sport. A mindfulness-based approach is particularly
helpful when trying to accept or tolerate emotions versus trying to stop or
change the flow of involuntary thoughts. With a mindfulness approach, the
performer and/or coach can learn to pay attention to the task at hand with
a changed relationship to unwelcome or debilitative thoughts, emotions,
 Mindfulness Strategies 3

and physical sensations (Gardner & Moore, 2007). One can learn how to
desensitize, tolerate, or even accept previously debilitative aversive emotions
(Gilbert, 2010) such that attention is freed up to focus on the task at hand.
Mindfulness training and mental-skills training can work together quite
well. Being mindful allows the performer to acknowledge, in a nonjudgmen-
tal way, what is actually transpiring, and to select what mental skill would,
subsequently, be most helpful. For example, if an athlete mindfully notices
harsh and hurtful intrapersonal dialogue, a response could include bringing
to mind a constructive, helpful self-talk cue or, alternatively, employing a
mental cue of acceptance to support a more positive outcome.
When athletes or coaches experience a changed relationship to their
aversive emotions, they become freed up to have better control over their
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intentional attentional focus and are not as easily distracted by involuntary

thoughts. Hanson and Mendius (2009) note that being mindful has to do with
“having good control over your attention: [when mindful] you can place your
attention wherever you want it and it stays there; when you want to shift it to
something else, you can” (p. 177). Essentially, when being more mindful we
become better equipped to make a choice of where to place our attention,
whether we feel confident, angered, frustrated, or fearful. Aversive emotions
no longer necessarily dictate an inflexible, internal, and narrow attentional
focus. We can choose to tolerate aversive emotions and still focus on the
task at hand that will most facilitate optimal performance.
Though the research is limited in the sport psychology literature regard-
ing the impact of mindfulness practice, research with clinical populations has
indicated that mindfulness practices can serve as an effective intervention to
ameliorate psychological distress. For example, Keng, Smoski, and Robins
(2011) recently conducted a meta-analysis of the impact of mindfulness prac-
tices, most of the studies included at least eight weeks of daily mindfulness
meditation training. They concluded that,

The elements of mindfulness, namely awareness and nonjudgmental

acceptance of one’s moment-to-moment experience, are regarded as
potentially effective antidotes against common forms of psychological
distress—rumination, anxiety, worry, fear, anger, and so on—many of
which involve the maladaptive tendencies to avoid, suppress, or over-
engage with one’s distressing thoughts and emotions. (p. 1042)

Mindfulness practices have been associated with outcomes that would be ex-
pected to also contribute to sport performance. These outcomes include (1) a
greater self-reported ability to let go of negative thoughts about the self (e.g.,
Frewen, Evans, Maraj, Dozois, & Partridge, 2008) and (2) enhanced cogni-
tive flexibility and attentional functioning (Hodgins & Adair, 2010; Moore &
Malinowski, 2009).
 4 A. Baltzell et al.

There is now initial support for the impact of mindfulness training in

the sport realm, including mindfulness meditation enhancing performance
based on self-reports (e.g., Aherne, Moran, & Lonsdale, 2011; Kabat-Zinn
et al., 1985), the Mindfulness Acceptance and Commitment (MAC) Approach
in sport case studies in which athletes experienced less anxiety and enhanced
performance (e.g., Gardner & Moore, 2004), Mindful Sport Performance En-
hancement (MPSE) Approach in which athletes experience more flow (e.g.,
Kaufman, Glass, & Arnkoff, 2009) and Mindfulness Meditation Training in
Sport (MMTS) in which athletes reported a changed (more productive) re-
lationship to negative on-field emotions (Baltzell, Chipman, Caraballo, &
Hayden, in press).
Mindfulness training helps the athlete or coach experience their thoughts
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as just that, thoughts. Athletes and coaches are encouraged to observe invol-
untary intrapersonal dialogue and not necessarily “buy into” them or believe
them and thereby allowing those sort of thought patterns to dominate a
large portion of the performer’s emotional and psychic landscape. Marsha
Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which combines
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and elements of mindfulness, stated that
an important consequence of mindfulness practice is the realization that
most sensations, thoughts, and emotions fluctuate, or are transient, passing
by “like waves in the sea” (1993, p. 8). Such an idea is also supported by
Kabat-Zinn et al. (1992) who hypothesized that: “the insight that one is not
one’s thoughts means that one has a potential range of responses to a given
thought if one is able to identify it as such” (p. 942).
Figure 1 conceptually demonstrates how, we suggest, mindfulness is
foundational to performance. When athletes and coaches are able to be
mindful in their performance realm, remaining nonjudgmental (or some-
times even tolerant) of moment-to-moment experience, they have freedom
to attend to task-relevant cues. Instead of being distracted by uninvited
thoughts and feelings, they could accept such distraction and place their
attention on cues that would most facilitate success. Placing mindfulness
at the bottom of the model suggests that being accepting and/or tolerant
of internal and external distractions is foundational. With such acceptance,
the athlete or coach is freed up to focus on the task at hand—the next
level of the model. As the flow model suggests, when fully focused on
the task at hand, we are most likely to optimize performance—the top of
the model.

MINDFULNESS INTERVENTIONS

After presenting the above foundational information for this workshop, we

offered the following three interventions:
 Mindfulness Strategies 5
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FIGURE 1 Mindfulness: Foundation for optimal performance.

Intervention I: Traditional Mindfulness Meditation

To experience a brief (5-minute) mindfulness meditation, the workshop par-
ticipants were asked to do the following:

1. Get comfortable and close your eyes

2. Focus on your breath as the anchor to present-moment focus
3. Notice any sound, thought, or physical sensation most dominate in your
awareness
4. Intentionally practice accepting whatever comes to mind, with an open-
hearted interest
5. Bring your attention back to the present if your mind begins to wander to
the past or future; try to do so with kindness and without judgment

Many participants commented that they had an “intense” or “power-

ful” experience. After the session some asked about mindfulness meditation
resources (e.g., audio files or books). Those who have received instruc-
tion in and themselves practice meditation are best suited to teach others
how to practice mindfulness meditation (for more information on facilitating
mindfulness meditation practice, see Siegel, 2010). An alternative is to direct
athletes and coaches to expert mindfulness meditation teachers’ audio files
of instruction and guided practices.
 6 A. Baltzell et al.

Intervention II: Mindfulness for Fear (without Meditation)

In our practice, we have found that there are times when our clients cannot
shift out of intense, debilitative emotions that can often thwart performance
with solely the use of traditional sport psychology mental skills interventions.
The following intervention is based on cultivating a mindful approach to the
fear while helping the client focus on the task at hand. The athlete is asked
to bring to mind the predictably most difficult, fear-filled moment before
or during performance. Working with the consultant, the athlete or coach is
helped to do the following four steps; in the workshop, participants practiced
in pairs doing these steps in sequence:

1. Acknowledge thoughts and emotions. The first step in this intervention

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includes noticing feelings and thoughts related to a specific, difficult per-

formance moment.
2. Practice witnessing and tolerating aversive emotions. Though the athlete
would like to get rid of such emotions, the client is encouraged by the
consultant to make no effort to change feelings. To this end, consultants
can encourage the athlete to label thoughts/feelings (e.g., “This is what
fear feels like . . . ”).
3. Clarify task and commit to focusing on task at hand. The athlete is directed
to clearly state what he or she would need to focus on behaviorally or
strategically to perform successfully in key performance moment(s). The
athlete is next prompted to visualize such a successful performance while
tolerating the secondary aversive thoughts and feelings.
4. Visualize outcome success including positive emotion. After visualizing suc-
cessful key performance moments, the athlete follows with infusing his or
her body with positive emotional responses when imagining performance-
outcome success.

The workshop participants were highly engaged in this activity. One

workshop participant said he was “frustrated” because he did not have
enough time to work though the activity. Any sport psychology consultant
could offer this intervention.

Intervention III: Coping with “Choking” Fear: Worst Fears about

Competing
In this portion of the workshop, participants were asked to consider moments
when they were most fearful or embarrassed in performance. The goal of this
exercise was for the participants to experience the related aversive feelings in
their physical body and to reorient them to a different way of viewing those
feelings. The following four prompts were offered to workshop participants
to investigate:
 Mindfulness Strategies 7

1. What are your worst fears about competing?

2. What are you most embarrassed about in your performance?
3. What is your fear, really? (Participants were asked if the fear is a distrac-
tion, an excuse not to deal with, or an attempt to explain some other
thought or behavior).

Once the participants had brought up such memories, they were asked to
explore the sensation in their bodies via flowing body-scan prompts:

Find the place in your body where you hold the fear. Focus on that spot.
Focus on the sensation of the fear. Allow it to expand. Does it have a
shape? Does it have a color? If it could speak, what would it say? What’s
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underneath it? (Repeat)

The key question to this intervention is the fourth:

4. What does the fear have to teach you?

Intervention III garnered many comments post-workshop. Some com-

ments include: “I couldn’t believe how vivid the memories were when you
took us through the exercise,” “I got nauseous when I focused on my worst
competitive experience,” “I was amazed at how accessible my feelings were
when you took us to our bodies,” and “I wanted to get to know how to
process more of the memories that were surfacing.”
As indicated by workshop participant comments, this intervention could
lead athletes or coaches to reflect on difficult memories and emotions. The
professional offering this intervention needs to be prepared for and have the
skill set to effectively work with those individuals for whom this exercise
could open up deep emotions and memories. The professional must know
how to navigate the terrain of material that is deeply held in the body and
the brain so that the client can feel safe and be competently taken through
the process and to finish the session with appropriate sense of closure for
all the participants.

MINDFULNESS STRATEGIES WITH COACHES

The last segment of the workshop considered how such mindfulness strat-
egy could be considered when focusing on the athletic coach. First, the
participants were asked to consider the range of situations that are likely
to arise that could prompt aversive emotions for coaches including athlete
interactions, parent interactions, and working with media. Such interactions
can lead to self-doubt, worry, anger, frustration, and fear. Participants also
were guided to consider consequences of “mindless” coaching, including:
 8 A. Baltzell et al.

• Lack of flexibility: When coaches do not notice changes that are happening
within a player, an assistant coach, or team in general.
• Habituated responses: Such responses are a result of no longer considering
new information in regards to themselves, players, other coaches, or the
team.
• Not really paying attention (external focus): Missing opportunities to re-
spond differently (e.g., tactical situations, interactions, etc.) occurs due to,
again, not noticing novel stimuli in one’s environment.
• Worry (internal focus): Some coaches get stuck in worrying and, due to
limited attentional resources, miss processing essential information.
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After considering challenges when coaches are not being mindful, workshop
participants were encouraged to use Intervention II, above. The participants
were prompted to work in dyads, with one person playing the role of the
sport psychology consultant and the other as sport coach in the following
scenario.

The situation: In the week before a game versus your league rival, a key
player comes to you as a coach right before practice and says he or she
has to miss practice.

In dyads, the “consultant” worked with the “coach” using Intervention II.
All mindfulness approaches in sport are intended to help athletes or
coaches be more present and accepting of their experience. In this workshop,
we focused on how the sport psychology consultant could help coaches and
athletes be more accepting of internal challenges (e.g., fear, anxiety, doubt,
distractions) such that they could be empowered to focus on task-relevant
cues to optimize performance. Clearly, the traditional use of mental skills can
facilitate the optimization of performance. In addition, the traditional mental
skills can be an integral aspect of bringing mindfulness to sport, specifically
by using mental skills to practice both accepting thoughts and emotions that
emerge while simultaneously focusing on the task at hand.
This workshop was designed to offer mindfulness-based strategies for
consultants to help the athlete or coach accept or tolerate emotions that
are difficult to change or destructive to suppress, in service to optimizing
performance.

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 Mindfulness Strategies 9

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