- Six reflections on starting out in a new career
- Sleep Tool to try: Cognitive Restructuring
- Coaching Cards: Now available to purchase
- Interview to read: Cath Bishop with Dr Kate Hays
- Book review: Teenagers
- Site of the month: Women’s Sport Collective Jobs board
This week I got to go along to the Women’s Sport Collective London networking event. There are 10,000 members of the Women’s Sport Collective worldwide (if you are female and work in sport, or want to work in sport you can join here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/join-the-collective – I was asked to talk about my career as mine is a little different, starting in journalism, sliding through PR and Crisis Comms and end up in Sport Psychology. Or as I put it yesterday: “from Monica Lewinsky via Tony the Tiger to Threat Systems and Motivational Mantras.” It allowed some reflection on what I have learnt from having a career change, especially now I am 10 years down the line.
Six reflections:
Time will pass anyway. It doesn’t matter if you start your career change at 37 or 52 that time will pass anyway and you might as well spend it doing something you think you will love rather than something you have probably grown to resent.
Slow down and savour the process. You will get there and if you rush you’ll miss lots of the important lessons along the way and not have so much fun doing it.
Network like crazy. And ideally in real life. I only know the worlds of communication and sport but in both networking opens so many doors (and many doors in sport feel firmly shut). It helps you connect to people who can help you, and people you can help. It helps you see opportunities before they show up in the wider world. It means you get to learn so much more about the sector you are in. And yes it can be super daunting walking into a room of people you have never met but (and I have tested this) if you walk up to a group of three you’ll always be welcomed in.
Haters gonna hate. When I began I only had my comms skills and was still getting to grips with the psychology side so I did the only thing I could, lots of media work. But really, who was I to be talking about sport psychology in the media? I imagined WhatsApp groups of the established sport psychs complaining about me, suggesting I get back in my lane. And they may well have been but it was worth it – and they had the same opportunities as I had – they just hadn’t taken them. Don’t let fear of judgement make you diminish yourself.
Brace yourself! This isn’t suggesting you should be pessimistic (in fact optimism is the 8th Pillar of Success) but do expect a ton of setbacks so you don’t get disheartened. Setbacks in sport are totally normal, both on and off a pitch (or court, course etc!). Ideally identify which specific emotion that setback has triggered and use that awareness to plan your next steps.
Be so good they can’t ignore you. I love this phrase. Sport can feel like a closed world that is hard to break into – but working super hard and being effective with what you do means you’ll break through eventually. I’m definitely not there yet but it is a great goal to work towards.
Sport Psych Tool to try: Cognitive Restructuring
High performers often have two traits in common: Highly intelligent (which means they overthink) and Perfectionistic (which means they set an impossibly high bar and beat themselves up when they inevitably can’t reach it). These traits mean that sometimes sleep is tricky. Lying awake ruminating about things you can’t actually do anything about (especially at 2am) is very frustrating – and as sleep is our biggest performance enhancer we need to get on top of it. A really nice tool I find can be effective is Cognitive Restructuring. Try this if you are ruminating and struggling to switch off to sleep.
· Think of a word that feels soothing and calm to you. For the example here we will use Comfy.
· Take each letter in turn and think of five words.
· For C we might come up with Calm, Close, Coffee, Creative, Caller.
· For the O maybe Open, Octagon, Obelisk, Often and Obtuse.
· Keep going until you hit Y.
It helps your brain switch off the rumination and it is rare I can make it to the last letter before falling asleep.
Coaching Cards: If you are working with athletes who get nervous I have put together packs of coaching cards that can help them with calming down, grounding themselves, building up confidence and reflecting and analysing their events afterwards. Coaching Cards
Interview to read: Cath Bishop with Dr Kate Hays.
A really lovely reflection piece from two of my favourite female role models: Former Olympic Rower and now Smarter Thinker Cath Bishop (I have been lucky enough to train with her in Lanzarote – she is fearsome on an Erg) and Dr Kate Hays (Former head of UKSI Sport Psych and now supporting the women’s team at the FA). The four questions are simple but effective pillars we can all benefit from for ourselves and athletes we might work with: How FA mindset guru’s four questions provide building blocks to sporting glory | Sport | The Guardian
Book review: Teenagers
Teenagers: The Evidence Base by Matilda Gosling – Performance in Mind
Site of the month: A massive bugbear of mine is Sport Psych jobs being posted with no salary. I always assume it is because it is so low it would be embarrassing for them to put it into the public but it is really unfair on a candidate to spend all that time completing application forms to find out they couldn’t afford to take the role anyway. Women’s Sport Collective have launched a jobs board of jobs in Sport and I love that they will only post jobs that list the salary: www.fearlesswomen.co.uk
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