Great Course - Psychology of Performance
A clinical sport psychologist distills the science of excellence into a practical system for performing your best in any domain by training your mind to value, accept, focus, and commit—no matter how you feel.
The Psychology of Performance is a tour through modern sport and performance psychology that overturns the myth of innate talent and shows that excellence is built through deliberate practice, clarity of values, and mental skills anyone can develop. Drawing on acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness, self-determination theory, and decades of research, Dr. Eddie O'Connor teaches readers to stop fighting their thoughts and feelings and instead accept them, focus relentlessly on what they value, and commit to action 'no matter what.' Along the way he tackles the dark sides of performance—anxiety, choking, perfectionism, burnout, injury, and disordered eating—and the social context of teams, fans, parents, and aging athletes. The result is a comprehensive, evidence-based playbook for being your best in sport, art, business, and life.
The model it argues
A causal framework in which design levers and conditions (deliberate practice, values clarity, autonomy support, routines, imagery, self-talk, mindfulness training) shape psychological and behavioral states (acceptance, commitment, internal motivation, confidence, focused attention, self-compassion), which in turn drive performance outcomes while performance barriers (anxiety/choking, perfectionistic concerns, burnout) degrade them.
Key ideas
- Deliberate Practice
- Purposeful, effortful, feedback-rich practice carried out just beyond current ability over sufficient time to build skill and refined mental representations.
- Values Clarity
- A clear, behaviorally defined understanding of one's enduring performance values that guide consistent conduct regardless of feelings.
- Values-Based Goal Setting
- Goals derived from and emotionally connected to values, structured for difficulty, specificity, proximity, and type to direct energy toward achievement.
- Mindfulness and Acceptance
- Nonjudgmental present-moment awareness plus willingness to experience thoughts, emotions, and sensations without struggling to control them, including cognitive defusion.
- Committed Action
- Consistent behavioral follow-through on values 'no matter what,' persevering through unpleasant internal states in service of goals.
- Internal Motivation
- Autonomous, self-determined motivation toward intrinsic ends arising from satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
- Autonomy-Supportive Environment
- Coaching/parenting/organizational practices reinforcing choice, initiation, and understanding while minimizing controlling behaviors.
- Confidence and Self-Efficacy
- Belief in one's capability to organize and execute actions to attain desired results within a goal-striving framework.