16-05-2025
Five small habits sports psychologists wish everyone did
When Dr. Elizabeth Nobis has a pile of tasks that start to overwhelm her, she sometimes pauses and does 10 to 15 push-ups.
'Every time I get up after that, I feel just a little more like, 'OK, I can do this,'' she said.
For Nobis, a sports psychologist in the University of Pennsylvania's athletic department, it's a small habit she developed in high school that helps her reset her attitude. It's also the kind of mental tool that anyone can try.
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We asked Nobis and several other sports psychologists for small habits they wish everyone would do.
Dr. Kirsten Cooper is a clinical and sports psychologist who works with Fortune 500 companies and professional athletes. She believes that substituting the word 'but' for 'and' when we speak can make a difference.
By just tweaking the way we talk to ourselves, we're expanding our emotional capacity to have multiple emotions at once, while preventing them from triggering poor performance.
Cooper gave a couple of examples to illustrate her point: 'I'm uncomfortable and I can stay in the present' and 'I'm angry and can act like a sportswoman.'
'We're developing distress tolerance for discomfort,' Cooper said.
This helps us move away from negative thinking. The idea is that 'and' means two things can be equally true, while 'but' pins two parts of a sentence against each other.
'I can perform but I'm nervous.' 'I'm nervous and I can perform.'
It can be hard to remember to do, though, when the way we speak becomes almost subconscious. For that reason, Cooper recommends creating a little reminder for yourself, like painting one thumbnail a different color from the rest of your nails or hanging a sticky note with the word 'and' at the edge of your computer screen.
That way, when you see that visual symbol, you remember the meaning behind it.
Lorna Harkins, an assistant director for leadership and mental performance at Dartmouth College, said the most common struggle athletes approach her with is managing mistakes.
'On the field, when they would mess up, or when something wouldn't go to plan, they struggled to move on,' she said. 'They would beat themselves up in the moment and then also after the fact.'
It's something a lot of people can relate to, and it's why Harkins wishes everyone would do what she calls 'scenario plan.'
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'Being able to say that it won't be perfect and it won't always work out,' she said. 'So what are the things that are going to go wrong? Then, when that happens, what are you going to do?'
Having a plan for every scenario helps prevent spiraling or freezing in the moment and instead causes productive thinking. You might not feel great in the moment when the unexpected happens, but you'll have already thought about what to do ahead of time and become more resilient and mentally flexible.
She asks athletes to journal and write scenarios down and then close the book.
'Because we will pick this up in time if that happens,' she said, 'but you've planned (for it) so you can let it go and focus on the present moment.'
When Dr. Marc Cormier engages in small talk, the typical 'What do you do for a living?' question is usually followed by another: 'What are your best tips?'
Cormier, a performance psychology specialist and the director of performance psychology for the University of Kentucky athletics, has a simple answer: Arrive on time.
He views that as the 'initial gear.'
'When you think of a performance, it's like a sequence of events,' he said. 'It's like the inside of a clock; you've got hundreds of gears all turning and working together. But in the end, if that one initial gear is not working, then nothing else works.'
There are two reasons Cormier said people struggle with punctuality. The first is that they self-identify with being notoriously late. A lot of times, it even becomes a running joke. But saying, 'I'm always late,' is problematic in the way that it prevents attempts to fix the issue and therefore causes the word 'late' to feel less impactful.
It's also easy to blame a busy schedule. To that, Cormier says it's important to do less.
'If you find yourself in a position where you're arriving late or notoriously submitting things late, that means there are too many competing things you're trying to do,' Cormier said. 'Sometimes, we don't have that choice and everything we're doing is required.
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'From that standpoint, let's see what we can intentionally wait to do. So, 'I'm not going to clean the house today, I'll wait until Saturday as a choice so that I can get to my kid's soccer game on time.' '
Many of us are wired to rely on results to affirm us, and we chase the feeling they can bring. But our identity can also get wrapped up in those results.
Dr. Ian Connole, the director of Dartmouth College's peak performance initiative, works with athletes to remember that their performance is only a small piece of a puzzle.
'The more we can move it to the 'what they do,' the more free they are to enter into that space without a reliance on every outcome being a reflection of who they are,' Connole said.
While we can and should embrace great moments and feel the not-so-great moments, we should always be consciously reflecting, he said, on what matters to us.
As we set out to accomplish something big or meaningful, it's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed. But Nobis said those feelings are preventable.
'Break things down into the next attainable action,' she said. 'Control what you can control at that moment. I can do one of these things. And we know that motivation begets motivation. So once you start one small thing, you're more likely to keep going.'
Before Nobis begins a task at work herself, she often closes her eyes and reminds herself of the first step she needs to take, rather than dwelling on all that's ahead. It lowers the barrier in the moment, which lowers the intensity.
Nobis finds that when we address emotions, like the feeling of being overwhelmed, with questions, everything can change.
'Try to name the emotional experience that's going on,' she said. 'I feel uncomfortable. Why? My body is tense. Am I feeling nervous? And then you can make deliberate choices because you notice and you have awareness.'
This can be the difference-maker, she said, when taking that small first step.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; iStock)
