‘Because you brought the Munster title back to Clare in ‘95’; or so the song goes!
 
Brian Lohan returned home on Monday 22nd July 2024 as an All Ireland winning manager. On their drive down from Dublin, and after crossing the border from  the home of 2023 Champions, Limerick, the Clare team stopped for some refreshments inside the Clare border at Durty Nelly's pub in Bunratty, Newmarket-on-Fergus – a short distance from Brian Lohan’s home town (Shannon).

​From there, the team were driven for their first official pit-stop and a packed Wolfe Tones GAA in Shannon. After addressing the crowd assembled outside, Lohan was carried aloft by his old team-mates from Wolfe Tones Na Sionna GAA into the club bar with the Liam McCarthy Cup, as the stars re-aligned with his outstanding success as a player. The room was filled with emotion, pride and tears of unbridled joy. (Video clip here:  www.facebook.com/reel/440537942299511)
 
Many circles open and close in our lives through life and through sport and it was fitting that Lohan got to greet his own people in Wolfe Tones GAA in Shannon with the Liam McCarthy Cup before heading to the Fairgreen in Ennis for the larger celebration. Lohan grew up only around the corner from his club grounds and was an inspiration to his club for many years as a player.
 
In that life circle, he’d have encountered the great Ger Loughnane as an underage coach in Shannon before going on to shine and be the spiritual leader for Loughnane’s senior Clare hurling teams in the unforgettable Clare success of the 90’s. In fact, while Ger Loughnane is a son of Feakle in East Clare, he lived and taught in Shannon throughout his adult life as he led Clare through the 90's and was one of the main drivers of the Wolfe Tones club success for many years through the 80’s and 90’s. In the inter-linking of life's circles, the veteran current Clare centre back John Conlon is now a teacher in the same school (St Aidans, Shannon) as Loughnane served as principal for many years.

Another circle shows that John Conlon’s link with manager Brian Lohan goes back to his earlier adult career where Lohan coached him at Fitzgibbon Cup level in University of Limerick near Conlon’s native Clonlara. The connection and circle has extended as Conlon has grown to become the spiritual leader of the Clare 2024 team in the same way Lohan was to the Loughnane’s 90’s team, and that Loughnane was to his own Clare team as a player in the 70’s and 80’s.

​In fact, Lohan would have coached a few of the Cork hurling team (Clare's opponents that played in the 2024 final) at universities level, with UL having had 20 players as either former or current students between the Clare and Cork teams that lined out - the sporting circle no doubt extended.
 
Particularly pleasing for the Lohan family will be the introduction of one of their next generation to the inter-county hurling scene with more All-Ireland success. Brian’s nephew Darragh Lohan was immense for Clare in the final against Cork when appearing at full back as a replacement for the injured Conor Cleary, keeping his man scoreless as the match reached boiling point. Darragh continues the lineage following his uncles Brian and Frank who were both stalwarts of the Clare hurling team through the 90’s and early 2000’s. A deeper lineage that some may not realise exists, is that  Brian Lohan’s father Gus Lohan previously played inter-county hurling for Galway before relocating to Clare for work. Gus Lohan won numerous county senior championships with Newmarket-on-Fergus while playing for Clare in the 1960’s and 1970's and into the 80's.

Gus Lohan settled in Shannon as it developed as a new town in Clare, spawned by the industry generated and developed around Shannon International Airport, and built on the edge of the Shannon Estuary at Rineanna, Newmarket-on-Fergus. The town has become an employment hub for thousands living in Clare, Limerick, North Tipperary, South Galway and even further afield. As a new club 'Wolfe Tones Na Sionna' was formed  within the new town, Gus Lohan played junior hurling for Wolfe Tones at the end of his playing career, with his sons getting involved in a hugely successful underage hurling structure, that eventually led to the pinnacle of Irish sporting success in the mid nineties.

Like Ger Loughnane before him, Brian Lohan probably represents everything that is good about his native new age town in that he is the son of a settler from another county and his feat of managing an All-Ireland winning team will be forever spoken about within the town and way beyond.

​
As the team navigated their way to Ennis from Shannon, through the parishes of Newmarket-on-Fergus and Clarecastle, Bunratty’s finest entertainers Cathal Jones and Pat Hayes, among others, warmed up the excited and ever increasing crowd at the Fairgreen in Ennis with over 30,000 in attendance. Other Clare people assembled in their towns and their villages, reconnecting and celebrating with loved ones, family and friends, meeting the new and the old, and extending and opening new circles.
 
Clare have now won 5 senior All-Irelands in all their time. Many Clare people lived their lives in the hope of seeing some hurling success but without ever seeing any. Those that did, experienced the utter joy it gave the people and the towns and villages of Clare were lit up with elation and celebration.   
 
Not far from the sites of these homecoming celebrations, the graveyards in Bunratty, in Illaunamanagh Shannon, in Clarecastle and Ennis and all over Clare held the remains of former players and supporters who would’ve only loved to have seen this most recent All-Ireland success, in one of the greatest finals ever played. If hurling is the game of the gods, as so often quoted, maybe, just maybe, in the inter-linking of life's circles, they too had their own unique view and took some joy and pleasure from the events of the day. 

As the song about Lohan finishes, the line rings out, 'We sent Cork back to the Lee', just one of life's circles completing!

RIP Dad XXX. I know you'd have loved it.

​When the Limerick Senior Hurling Team went on strike in early 2010, nobody in their right mind could have envisaged such a stark turnaround within such a short space of time. Multiple All-Ireland winning goalkeeper Nicky Quaid was part of a young batch of outfield players drafted in by then manager Justin McCarthy to make up a squad when most of the previous year’s squad went on strike in support of a couple of senior players who were dropped from the panel. It resulted in Limerick being relegated to Division 2 that Spring after a 31 point mauling by Dublin. The unfortunate context to this is that it was considered that they had squandered what were considered a golden generation of players at senior level after winning three All-Ireland U21 championships in a row in the early 2000's. Urgent change was needed!

​

​Enter a number of people who sought to ‘Lift the Treaty’. A group of people led by Shane Fitzgibbon and Eibhear O Dea sought to get Limerick's house in order. Fitzgibbon had helped transform the Adare underage club structures, resulting in huge club senior success for Adare in the noughties and was now seeking to do similar with Limerick. Dr Aine McNamara (then a sport psychology lecturer at University of Central Lancashire and currently DCU) and Dr Cian O’Neill (then of UL) among others were recruited to help and were involved in drawing up a blueprint towards improvement. It was eventually approved by the county board and titled ‘Lifting The Treaty’. In an interesting article on Fitzgibbon by Kieran Shannon in the Irish Examiner (link below), Dr Aine McNamara (DCU) recalled that “The thing that really struck me about Shane and that group of guys was that they were in it for Limerick and not for themselves. It wasn’t about Shane Fitzgibbon driving the future of Limerick hurling, it was about Limerick hurling."


Limerick had not been having much success at minor level and the ‘Lifting The Treaty’ project sought to change the whole culture around Limerick hurling to maximise the talent within the county by exposing their development squads to higher levels of training. That would include developing best practice in terms of diet and nutrition, strength and conditioning, psychology and a coaching plan that sought to look widely across the county in terms of talent identification. Strength and conditioning coach Andy Murphy (now Connaught Rugby) became involved, as did numerous Ex Limerick hurlers and coaches such as Mike Galligan, Frankie Carroll, Ger Hegarty, George Lee, Brian Finn, Anthony Carmody, Joe Quaid, Eamon Cregan and Ger Cunningham (UL) among others. The main emphasis was on developing players holistically across squads and age grades with the sole focus being on developing a strong senior team down the line. They knew that if they did things correctly, the talent would flourish.


JP McManus became central as the project moved forward, supporting the project financially. McManus' brother Gerry became centrally involved with Ex Limerick stalwart Joe McKenna in over-seeing the academy development project. McManus’ funding saw ex Antrim senior hurling manager Jerry Wallace (Cork) take up a role as Academy Director on a full time basis. He was followed in this role by Ex Clare senior hurling manager and Sunday Game analyst Anthony Daly (Clare). These appointments were a real signal of intent and gave a loftier status to the Limerick Hurling Academy that ensured people looked differently at it. More than that, it sent out a serious message to clubs and young players that Limerick hurling was intent on doing things right and gave it a status that allowed it to compete favourably with other sports in Limerick that may have had a hold on talent in previous years

Central to the change however, was doing things right in every respect. It wasn’t just about the sport science, it was as much about how you carried yourself as a Limerick hurler and what you represented.
 

In the same Irish Examiner article (www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-30925148.html) Fitzgibbon relates a story where he is taking an underage Limerick squad for a Saturday morning session on one of the astroturf pitches in UL when he sees two players — who would both go on to be 2018 All-Ireland senior winners — standing at the side of the pitch, urinating.
 

“What does he do? What would you do? Ignore it and pass it off as something harmless and something they’ve probably seen or even done before back at their clubs? Not when you’ve talked about and emphasised the importance of culture. There’s more to it than sweeping the sheds. It’s literally not taking the piss. Not any more.


He recounts that “I called all the lads in and said to the two boys, ‘Lads, would you stand up and piss in your sitting room?’ Of course the boys were all sheepish. ‘No.’


“So I said, ‘Well, why would you come into this facility and disrespect it?’ Now apologise to the group.’ So they did. And then I said, ‘Okay. Now tog back in. You’re not training today.’


“Then I said to the rest of the lads, ‘This has to be a lesson to you. This is Limerick hurling. In Limerick hurling, everything we do is about respect. We respect the facilities, we respect our teammates, we respect everything to do with Limerick hurling. The minute you get that jersey, you are elevated to another level, so we must behave accordingly. At a higher level’.”
 

With reference to the four in a row All-Ireland winning Kilkenny team, he relates also that ““I’d often go to see Kilkenny train in Nowlan Park. Henry Shefflin would be on the field by quarter-past-five. By half-five most of the team were out, bating balls across the field. By 20 to (six), they were all out. Then the local church bell rang for the Angelus and they all ran into Mick Dempsey. Bang. Six o’clock. Training’s starting. They’d all warmed up themselves.


“In Limerick guys would still be running out onto the field, pulling up the socks. Different culture, different mindset. So we had to change that. One of my great frustrations in Limerick was that for generations we were beating ourselves first before a Cork or Tipp would try to.””


Later, when he was asked to write up a memo on Limerick underage hurling and how it should be restructured, he put hard work, honesty and respect at the foundation of his pyramid!
 

On the development front, the first positive wave of energy appeared in 2013 when Limerick won their first Munster minor (U18) title since 1984. The title was retained in 2014 and at least 10 of that particular group went on to feature and win All-Irelands at senior level. More importantly, Limerick reached 8 out of 9 munster finals in the years that followed reinforcing the value of the academy process, and developing a conveyor belt of success and a strong development pathway to senior success that followed. That  commenced with the senior team winning breaking a 45 year wait to their first All-Ireland in 2018 from their previous success 1973.

 
Around the same time as the academy began to see success, Ard Scoil Ris (boys secondary school in Limerick) had a strong reputation in rugby, and through the 90's and early 2,010's, reached provincial finals in A schools rugby and produced players of the calibre of British and Irish Lions captain Paul O'Connell and numerous others that would go on to play professionally for Munster Rugby. The Limerick hurling academy success however, made hurling a lot more popular in Limerick City, translating into school success and gave hurling more prominence in the minds of young talented athletes over other sports.


Ard Scoil Ris began to have success at schools level under the influence of Derek Larkin, Liam Cronin, Niall Moran and Fergal Lyons, and more recently Clare hurler Paul Flanagan among others.  This schools success only served to reinforce and accentuate the work done at academy level. Ard Scoil Ris have had numerous successful school teams at Munster A grade levels (White Cup (U15), Dean Ryan Cup (U17) & Harty Cup (U19) and All-Ireland Colleges Senior (U19) level in the last fifteen years. These teams included many of the record breaking Limerick team and most of the Na Piarsaigh team that went on to All-Ireland club success, while record breaking 5 time All Ireland winning captain Declan Hannon from Adare also attended the school around this time. The academy has spread its tentacles far and wide in search of talent and this is rubbing off in less populated areas with the likes of secondary schools in Doon and Hospital now competing in the colleges A grade competition (Harty Cup). Such is the popularity of hurling now in Limerick, Castletroy College, which would be previously known as a strong 'Rugby School', is also entering teams in the A grade Munster Colleges hurling competition.


McManus facilitated the academy players progression to senior level with his sponsorship of the senior team which allowed them to recruit some of the best sport science professionals on the circuit in supporting their senior teams. On that front, Paul Kinnerk was recruited as coach from the All-Ireland winning Clare team of 2013, while Caroline Currid has received many plaudits for her work on the psychological side of performance. Joe O Connor, Michael Kiely, and more recently Cairbre Ó Cairealláin took  the reigns on the strength and conditioning front and brought them to a whole new level. Their analysis team, led by Sean O'Donnell, leaves no stone un-turned while others are engaged in looking after the nutrition and medical side of the team’s support structures. It was all done in the name of doing things right in the best interests of Limerick hurling.


As the lights dimmed and after the crowds had left after the Munster championship victories against Clare and Cork in the TUS Gaelic Grounds pitch in Limerick in the Summer of 2023, the players and management could be seen together in each others company, taking it all in, shooting the breeze together, with pizza and a couple of beers. The craic was so good that on one occasion, midfielder Will O’Donoghue, living nearby, had to run home for extra supplies. In a recent newspaper article, O’ Donoghue suggests it was the wish of the players as when they go into town, it’s hopping and you’re not going to get a seat in a bar whereas there’s a keg under the stand and they get to chill out under the Mackey Stand, with the sun splitting the rocks. They had a speaker going, put the chairs in a big circle and sat there for three or four hours enjoying each other’s company. They’re special moments, as special as the dressing room after a match.” 


It was also interesting to note that on the biggest of days, it was very visible how they included their kids and families in their celebrations. They had a family like feel about the group and the children of both management and players joined their parents on the pitch for the celebrations. Special times call for special moments!  
 

Carrying the culture is a major task and it is mainly set by very upstanding and principled people. Incidentally, there is a high volume of teachers in the Limerick management structure with the main man John Kiely holding the principalship of Abbey CBS in Tipperary. Alan Cunningham is a principal at St Caimans Community School in Shannon, while Aonghus O’Brien is a principal at Broadford National School. Head coach Paul Kinnerk was formerly a PE teacher at St Caimans before pursuing doctorate level study in University of Limerick, while logistics manager Éibhear O'Dea is a principal of a second level Gaelscoil in Limerick City.


Collectively, they have scaled heights not seen before in Limerick and their current crop have probably out-done the deeds of their fabled hero Mick Mackey and his infamous hurling deeds of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Their challenge now is to continue to dream and perhaps even fulfill a new dream – and that may be to go and do what has never been done ever before in hurling and win five All-Ireland senior hurling championships in a row.
 

After they won the All Ireland in 2023, they veered away from the tradition of celebrating post match in a Dublin hotel. They headed back down the road to their own and partied it up with their families at Fitzgerald’s Woodlands hotel in Adare. They  swapped the suits for a more relaxed evening in their shorts and t-shirts for the Sunday celebrations in Adare – only a stones throw from where Fitzgibbon first started transforming the Adare GAA underage culture over 20 years previously. They visited the sick children in University Hospital Limerick with the trophy the following day. They would write their own template and dance to their own tune. It had all come full circle. The ‘Hard work, Honesty and Respect’ has born fruit.


Will Dolores be playing her song in Croke Park in July 2024? Who knows? Either way, the hurling gods will dance to the victors tune and somebody's dreams will come true.

​www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-30925148.html

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with Sport Ireland Institute.
Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley

Irish Examiner article on the Adare man Shane Fitzgibbon, that helped create the rocket for the moon. ​​www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-30925148.html

When we think about the best coaches, we think about coaches who consistently get their teams to win, but more importantly, to improve. If we are to look at some of the top coaches, a few spring to mind across a variety of sports. Rinus Michels was the famous Ajax coach that won numerous championships, a European Cup, and a La Liga title before going on to lead the Dutch team to the European Championship win in 1988. 

Louis Van Gaal won numerous championships including the Champions League with football teams across various countries including Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Jose Mourinho famously won league and Champions League titles in various countries while we might also consider the relative success of Gérard Houllier, Roy Hodgson and Guus Hiddink who won championships and leagues, but were well known for improving teams they got involved with. ​

In the USA, Bill Walsh brought the San Francisco 49ers from bottom of the league to win 6 divisional titles and three superbowls in the 1980’s while no college basketball coach has ever dominated the sport like legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, where he won an unprecedented 10 national championships in 12 years in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
In rugby, the likes of former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt, former Australian and English rugby coach Eddie Jones and recently departed Leinster coach, Stuart Lancaster might register as being among the best in their sport, while in Gaelic sports in Ireland, Kerry football coach Paddy Tally and Limerick hurling coach Paul Kinnerk might spring to mind. There is one thing that they all have in common. They all started their careers as teachers of Physical Education.


It is probably no fluke that these successful coaches had a professional background in physical education, prior to their involvement in coaching at the highest level in their respective sports. It would have ingrained in them, an awareness of best practice in message delivery and knowledge transfer, enabling them to optimise their contact time with their players, so that they can improve consistently and collectively in their pursuit of championship success.


Their background as teachers of sport essentially would have enabled them to address some complex issues that need to be addressed for their teams to achieve success. Firstly, coaches need to have a very strong background and game understanding in the given sport so that they will be able to assess where their players are technically and tactically deficient and what they need to do to improve. This would invariably require development of individual and collective performance improvement plans (PIPS) that would positively enhance skill and fitness levels for each player, while getting them to play cohesively well together in the best interests of team success.  For this to happen, they’d also have needed to foster a positive group chemistry and foster the right culture with people surrounding the group (physiotherapists, fitness / S&C professionals, performance analysts etc) so that these player groups have the desire to develop physically, technically and tactically within that culture and give of their best for the team and group.  
 
​
So, when we look at it in the round, it’s no secret that that among the best coaches in high performance sport are coaches with professional backgrounds in Physical Education. Their formal professional training would have delved into best practice and science behind a variety of issues in relation to sports performance improvement such as fitness development, effective coaching and skill acquisition, tactical and technical development. This expertise, in addition their development of understanding around good teaching practice in relation to message delivery and clarity around communication has served them well as they sought and seek to maximise the potential of the teams they have been involved with, suggesting that good coaching and good teaching go hand in glove.

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​
Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with  Sport Ireland Institute.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @Keith Begley
​
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-begley-69755850?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

​

​​In 2007, the All-Blacks were set to win their first Rugby World Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1987. They led France 13 to 3 at half time in the quarter final. In the second half, it went a little pear shaped for them and they lost 20 18 in the process. Star player Anton Oliver likened the feeling afterwards to a death in the family. The expectation was so great, the result so damaging and hurtful. The players had choked due to the fear of failure – a crippling form of anxiety and performance stress brought on by huge expectation, despite having done some work to prevent this.

​When the French took the lead, commentators suggested the All-Blacks just needed to get up the field and take a penalty to win it. They got up the field and created an opportunity but went for the try instead. Poor decision making and inability to stay calm and rational under pressure cost them the game and their chance to fulfill their countrymen’s expectations.

Have Leinster just gone and done similar?

​In the 2023 Heineken Champions Cup, Leinster started like a steam train and were fast out of the blocks with two tries in the first six minutes. They took like what looked to be an unassailable lead for most of the first half, leading 17 - 0 after only twelve minutes.

​A major turning point in the game came the final two minutes as Leinster were camped on the La Rochelle line, when only a point behind! Leinster’s Michael Ala'alatoa left his feet at the ruck, failed to wrap his intended tackle target and was red-carded for a dangerous hit as Leinster had a perfect opportunity to score what would have been the game-winning score in front of an expectant and frenzied home support.

​We have seen where huge expectations - often exaggerated by local media - have a major negative impact on performance in other sports too. The English soccer team failed to meet expectations at numerous championships – most notably the 2014 world cup as the media frenzy set huge hysteria and expectations around them before they finished bottom of their group. Leinster wearing the favourites tag and having to deal with a significant emotional build up within their home city could not have been helpful for the Leinster players. 

 
All Black sport psychologist Gilbert Enoka suggests that the brain delivers three types of response when challenged in a stressful environment – instinct, emotional and thought response. The body always does what the mind tells it to do and he felt that this was the root of the problem. The problem wasn’t one of fitness or physical skill-set.


Emotional and instinctive decisions can be somewhat erratic and often incorrect ones as had proved on previous occasions. He needed needed his players to steer towards decisions that are thought induced and made by clear and rational minds that aren’t overwhelmed by the stress and pressure of the occasion. For that to happen he needed the All-Blacks to be calm under pressure.


In 2011 the All-Blacks looked to further address the negative impact of expectation by building skills in the players to alleviate anxiety and performance stress under pressure. They brought in extra psychological support to help players manage their minds and decision making when under pressure. 


Gazing Performance System’s work with high end business organisations such as Xerox, UPS and Avis in handling pressure and improving performance. Gazing Performance began working with players by helping them understand match day nerves. They developed skills in players to help them control attention, alleviate anxiety in pressure situations enabling players to transition into a state of mind where they were clear, positive and on task. 


With the help of Gazing Performance Systems, they described the All-Blacks to be H.O.T when under pressure in tight games.

• Heated
• Over-whelmed
• Tense

They called this “Red Head” – where one is no longer in control.

Other unhelpful characteristics of having a “Red Head” might be

• Tight
• inhibited
• results oriented
• anxious
• aggressive
• over-compensating
• desperate

They required the players to have a “Blue Head” – one of calmness that can maintain clarity of consciousness, situational awareness, accurate analysis and have the ability to make good decisions under pressure.

Typically, a “Blue Head” would have the following characteristics.

• Loose
• Expressive
• In the Moment
• Calm
• Clear
• Accurate
• On task

Such a state of consciousness allows you to see the bigger picture, remain on task, and attend to relevant stimuli. Put simply, it allows the players to process the information at hand and make correct decisions consistently, but particularly in pressure situations. Specifically, they are enabled to have the ability to think clearly under pressure to make optimal decisions in following situations. Can they see a positive overload to left or right (5v4 or 4v3 situation)? Is there a gap off the side of the ruck? Is the maul dominant enough to make yards? Is there a kick chase on? Should we take penalty or scrum? Tap kick penalty or go for the line-out? What type of line-out? Contest the ruck or not? Such decisions are made on a constant basis in rugby and such decisions often influence the result. Therefore having the ability to take the optimal option can be the deciding factor between winning and losing.


In this regard, some players need to be more psyched down than psyched up for a performance so that they can maintain appropriate clarity of consciousness for optimal decision making. Without realising, the natural charge of the environment of competitive sport (stadium, fans & noise) can put players in the H.O.T zone where they are unable to manage their thoughts. Those in that negative zone tend to go with an instinctive or emotional response as opposed to a rational thought induced response which very often is the wrong decision.
 

James Kerr in his book about the All-Blacks “Legacy” allays that former All-Black out half Andrew Mehrtens likens it to “striking the balance between being lucid and being motivated. There comes a point where you become too hyped up and you lose your lucidity and ability to read a situation and make a good decision.”


For example, with only minutes remaining in a match where your team are expected to win, your team are in an attacking position on the pitch in possession of the ball but losing by two points. Your thought process might be, “crap, we have to win this game, we are in trouble here”, as opposed to a strategic rational thought oriented response. This type of thought can keep you calm, allow you to see the big picture and make optimal decisions to help the team create a score to win. 


In such a contact / collision sport such as rugby, the best players and teams must play on the edge of the rules. However, numerous athletes struggle to stay on the right side of that edge in intense pressure situations. Their “controlled aggression” can become no longer 'controlled' - often due to frustration and their minds being flustered due to inability to cope with the pressure. When this happens, athlete’s often overcook their aggression levels (H.O.T.), lose their thought clarity resulting in erratic performance or behaviour leaving them open to ill-discipline that may have further implications for the team or performance.


Is this what happened to Michael Ala'alatoa as Leinster attacked the La Rochelle line in the dying minutes of the Heineken Cup Final in Dublin 2023? With Leinster camped on the La Rochelle line, did the red mist came over Michael Ala'alatoa. With two minutes remaining, he left his feet, in an un-disciplined manner, needlessly diving at a ruck head first, resulting in the La Rochelle player leaving the play concussed. Ala'alatoa received a red card and Leinster scoring opportunity turned into a penalty to La Rochelle, which  enabled them to see out the game through the remaining 90 seconds as Leinster tasted another bitter final defeat!


All-Black sport psychologist, Enoka told Real Estate Business Magazine that it is crazy the way some people think, “because if you want to build up strength, you go to the gym three times a week and work on your core strength. It just seems that if you want to develop your ability to concentrate and focus and be flexible in what you do from a mental perspective, wouldn’t you apply the same approach?”
​

Prior to the 2011 world cup, Enoka, with Gazing Performance built layers of pressure allowing the player’s minds to adapt and acclimatize to the pressure. Accordingly, All-Black brains adjusted and developed clarity with regard to accuracy, automaticity of execution and situational awareness in a similar way to which a Math’s teacher might build layered schema in his students. When they were finished, players felt in control of their minds and were ready to execute their skills with appropriate tactical awareness.


​Mental strategies were first put in place to firstly calm the mind. Ex All-Black captain Richie McCaw in his book described how they were helped to maintain such calm in his book 'The Real McCaw'. Like meditation, he described how he they were helped to  reconnect during breaks in play at opportune times. “Breathing slowly and deliberately…..shift your attention to something external – the ground, or your feet or the ball at hand or the grandstand………use deep breaths and key words to get out of your own head, get yourself ‘back in the present’, regain your situational awareness”. These techniques help the body and mind to centre, relax and maintain appropriate thought activation.


Other mental strategies or what sport psychologists might call “attentional focus cues” or “triggers” were implemented by Enoka and Gazing Performance also. These cues gave players a map of what they should be doing generally in different scenarios. 
​

It enabled the All-Blacks to navigate their way through a game while enabling activation of appropriate thought processes and clarity of mind and purpose. While we don’t fully know the actual cues implemented for 2011, Anton Oliver – an All Black at the world cup in 2007 gave some insight into what may have been involved in James Kerr’ book “Legacy“. Remembering the “cues” from 2007, he said “I can still remember them……….TQB, top quality ball. OTG, over the gainline. KBA, keep ball alive. LQB, lightening quick ball. You get those four things going, we’re fine………that gave us the template to figure out the game”. Would Leinster have benefited from such a skill-set in the last couple of losing finals?


​It is quite interesting that in Ronan O’Gara’s thirst for development as a coach, he went to New Zealand and spent a few years as assistant coach to Scott Robertson at Richie McCaw’s old Christchurch club, Crusaders. It appears that he learned a lot about how they empower players to deal with pressure down there and it is notable that he has led La Rochelle to three European cup finals in a row, winning the last two – something the club never achieved previously. Man of the match Greg Aldritt mentioned after the game that it was the players that took ownership in the dressing room at half time. It is likely that this is a strategic ploy on O'Gara's part to empower his players to take ownership of problem solving for themselves so that when push comes to shove in the dying moments, that they have both the resilience desire and problem solving skills to execute under pressure.
 

​In the 2011 Rugby World Cup Final with the All-Blacks in the lead at 8-7 against the same opposition as 2007 (France), the All-Blacks now had the tools to win. The book “Legacy” describes how “Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment and managing the decision making process to see out the game, all maintaining appropriate clarity as the clock counts down slowly. They are in control of their own minds. The whistle goes. They are finally champions.


Was the opposite true of Leinster in the European Cup Final in Dublin 2023?
 

It was interesting to hear ex Leinster and Irish international rugby player Jamie Heaslip speak after Leinster's most recent loss to La Rochelle. He mentioned Leinster’s lack of leadership in the second half, stating the fact that international stalwarts such as Jack Conan, James Ryan and Tadhg Furlong missed most of the second half while Jonny Sexton’s ability to manage a game was also a huge loss during the last 20 minutes. He also mentioned Leinster’s lack of regular exposure to such intensely heated battles through their domination of the league section of the URC.
​

​It is also noteworthy that they also failed against Munster the previous weekend in the semi final of that URC competition as Munster scored a last minute drop-goal to win through to the final. In fact Munster went on to win that final against the Stormers with another late score to win the URC competition outright in 2023. Perhaps, Leinster Rugby can take some learning from others in implementing such processes so that they too can again fulfill their undoubted potential at the highest level of the club game.  


It is a game of small margins, and controlling the six inches upstairs when under pressure, matters.

​Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​
Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with  Sport Ireland Institute.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

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We know there are various types of leadership. Can you think of leaders in your organisation that you warm to. What is it about their style that makes engaging with them a pleasant experience?
​
Now think about a leader you have engaged with in the past that was a negative experience for you and others. What is it about their style of leadership that makes engaging with them such an un-pleasant experience. 

​Leadership and leadership style can have a huge impact on the organisational culture within a sporting, business or work environment. The leadership style of an organisation's leader has huge influence on the type of behaviours that become normalised or 'ok' within that organisation. Their style often sets the tone for how things get done within the organisation and this often influences sub-cultures that are cultivated through the organisation, unfortunately, often for the worse.


One sub-optimal leadership style we know about is an 'old school' autocratic authoritarian style where the leader rules with an iron fist. Here, followers bow to their dictatorial approach and their perceived greater knowledge when very often, those followers are way more qualified than the leader themselves. These types of leaders are mostly inept but trade on fear and coercion to control their followers. They tend surround themselves with and promote followers who are ‘yes men’ - those who will agree with every decision the leader makes irrespective of what it is. Such followers are primarily influenced through inducement of fear and their self-centred intention to get higher up the food chain, even if it comes at huge costs to others around them.

​
Such followers are strategically chosen because the inept dictatorial leader of the organisation sees them as morally weak, and knows they will bow to the leaders demands irrespective of what they are. Middle leaders in such organisations rarely say, or are afraid to say what they actually think – at least to the leader in question. Such middle leaders are often influenced by fear by a leader who is rarely liked, and who tends to get by for so long until those underneath them revolt. Across history, within an international context, we think of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Radovan Karadžić and more recently, Vladimir Putin.

​

On the other hand, Transformational Leadership is a style where a leader espouses strong but likeable characteristics in a way that demonstrates empathy with followers. These leaders have the capacity to bring people with them, garnering support for their decisions because it is for the greater good of the organisation and people involved. They are able to foster autonomy and support of their ‘colleagues’ and generally foster really positive group dynamics among their followers. From a world leader perspective, we think of the reaction in Ukraine to their war-time leader Volodymyr Zelensky, while we might also consider the esteem in which ex New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, is held in globally, having relinquished her role due to the demands of the role and her wish to prioritise spending more time with her young children. For her, her leadership role meant that she was there to serve, and not to massage her own ego. 

​

How followers generally feel about these different types of leaders within different organisations couldn’t be more stark. Let’s just contrast Putin and Zelensky for the purpose of style comparison of an autocratic versus a transformational leader.

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Putin appears to be self obsessed with his own self importance, and is in the role for self gain and the sustenance of his own ego. He trades on fake news and huge volumes of lies to foster a false narrative that everything is great in his country. He invokes fear and resentment within an unsustainable power dynamic that results in high staff turnover, while those at the very bottom of the social hierarchy struggle financially.
​

On a political level, the only way to climb the food chain is to engage positively with existing leaders, irrespective of their values or morals. It will often mean having to accept a culture of bullying, lies and coercive control that is enacted out of vested interests among colleagues and other aspiring leaders. Such behaviours (lies, bullying and coercive control) permeate the culture of how things get done generally. If you are willing to accept this, close your eyes and keep your mouth closed, you will get higher up the food chain. If you are not, you may be pushed down the pecking order, or worse still, you will be removed, jailed, poisoned or killed like many have under Putin’s regime.
​

Just consider for a moment, how Putin’s regime has wound up all free press news entities in Russia so that he can control the media and as a result, control the narrative around both his leadership and the war of terror that he reigns on Ukraine. Putin actively dismisses any threats to his power within the Russian state itself. Consider the unwarranted jailing and attempted poisoning of anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who has long been the most prominent face of Russian opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny, like others who were poisoned with novichok nerve agent (some of whom died), has suffered as Putin has sought to fuel his ego and exert his power to eradicate those that he sees as a threat to his power in the Kremlin.
​

That said, even though Navalny has been unable to challenge the president at the ballot box, his voice retains huge power for millions of Russian followers on social media - many in their early 20s or younger - and his campaign group's anti-corruption videos have reached millions. The people want Navalny, but they are too fearful to say it publicly, such is the control of Putin.

Putin's ego mania does not stop there either. In his personal life, he is rumoured to have fathered children with a mistress and ex Russian Olympic gymnastic medalist Aline Kabaeva while he was married to his wife. Kabaeva, who later entered politics in Russia is more than 20 years younger than Putin and in 2014, became chairperson of a Kremlin controlled news and media organisation that spun false information on the occurrences in Ukraine.
​

Beyond that, Putin is reported to have rigged many elections to suit what he wants. He knows that if he can control those subordinates that hold localised power, he can control the masses. In some countries, these types of leaders surround themselves with friends / sub-ordinates within the middle leaders system at regional levels to help control their power, while some leaders have even infiltrated these middle ranking power levels with members of their own families to exert further control. One such example is the power mechanism of North Korea, where Kim Jong-il surrounded himself with his own family as the power brokers of the state, and even arranged that his son (Kim Jong-Un) would replace him as the country's leader, with Jong-Un unveiled by a state controlled media as the 'Great Successor' to his fathers throne.  

​
Many 'old school' dictatorial leaders are known to eradicate those that remain a threat to their power. In Russia, besides Navalny, Putin is known to have jailed or killed many people that have been shown to be a threat to his ‘democratic’ power', with a high proportion miraculously coming to 'accidental' deaths. A high proportion of aspiring politicians, journalists or intelligence officers who held information that compromised Putin's power have been reported to have died through 'suicide' while others have 'accidentally fallen out of buildings' in recent times.​

Putin's current Russian regime has also changed a significant proportion of both it's political and military leadership group in the last number of months. In fact, significant volumes of politicians and army generals either lost their jobs or have 'been replaced' by other less experienced generals because Putin decided that he had lost their support.


Those promoted in their places will be glad of their promotions in the short term with a likely increase in salary fueling their sense of ego and self-importance. Either way, they will continue to work under a regime that trades on fear and control. For some, at some point in the future however (assuming Putin remains in charge), when they are asked to facilitate something they fundamentally disagree with, the stronger ones will stand up and move on. The weak ones will stay and pander to Putin’s will.
 
​
To reinforce his power, Putin is reported to have used an illegal terror group called the Wagner group to reign further terror on other nations. Reported to be funded by the Russian government, The Wagner Group have recruited and armed poor people from other countries along with Russian criminals and are currently involved in reigning terror in Ukraine among other countries (mostly African), all for power over natural resources and financial gain. 


​

Contrastingly, Zelensky comes across as an open, ‘regular’ guy, who espouses morals that we see as admirable in humankind. He appears to have the capability to connect with his people and has shown and fostered huge resilience among his people against a backdrop of Putin’s bullying regime. Against the odds, his army have remained hugely resilient, and the loyalty being shown to both him and the Ukraine is built on a significant level of unity and a positive motivational climate that has been fostered within those fighting for Ukraine.
​

A transformational leader (Zelensky) is one who can garner the support of his followers for the right reasons; ie because they are doing the right thing in the best interests of the people in general. Their organisations don't lose too many people for the wrong reasons and people want to stay because it is a positive place to be. Such leaders are devoid of ego and are able to delegate and decentralise power, foregoing control, power and manipulation of every situation. This empowerment of followers to also be devoid of ego and be the best that they can be can turn societies and organisations around. This supportive bottom up, rather than top down approach, enables organisations and people to thrive and grow in a way that everybody’s opinion matters and people feel valued. Here, people are made to feel part of something that is bigger than themselves for the greater good, and not feel down-trodden and controlled from those on high
​

Zelensky has inspired a generation to fight for their nation, while also showing the ability to connect with other world leaders. With these capabilities, he has garnered the considerable support and financial aid from the majority of world nations to inspire his army to fend off the Russians. The ironic thing in all of this is that Zelensky has very little experience in politics and was a real outsider when running for election in 2019. In fact, in his early political career, some of his country folk considered him a bit of a joke politician as he had somehow come into politics from a famous acting and comedy background. However, his political campaign to end corruption won him a wide base of support in the presidential election in 2019, where he won comfortably.
 

Putin may have considered Zelensky's inexperience as a leader as a perfect opportunity to forge an attack on Ukraine. However, the mandate that got Zelensky elected in the first place (ending corruption), may be standing to him now as his country folk rally around him. He has stood firm and resolute in dealing with Putin's attacks, and there is no doubt but that his experience in the field of the arts and media has enhanced his capability to effectively send the right messaging to his people. More importantly, his admirable humanistic values and traits that he has been able to display to the world, has stood to him in convincing his people to follow his lead, showing huge resistance against the Russian invasion.


Consider what is happening in the current Russian regime or 1940’s Germany – a fear induced dynamic that is there to serve the needs of the one person at the top of the organisation and the few pawns they surround themselves with until they grow a moral compass. An autocratic leader trading on bullying and coercive control to satisfy their own ego, only has a certain amount of shelf life before the inevitable occurs and the ground level followers and people rise up against it. It has consistently happened across time, truth always wins and the bad guys get shown up for what they are. Consider Hitler, Pol Pot, Mugabe and many other dictators across many other organisations. 
​
# Be more like Zelensky.

Are you interested in learning more about effective leadership, culture or sport psychology? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/
​

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychology consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute and has worked with countless teams and athletes from grass-roots to elite level performance across sport and business.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
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​History yet again has repeated itself. Harry Kane misses a crucial penalty for England football team as they bow out of World Cup 2022 in Qatar. On so many occasions before, similar occurrences have arisen where missed penalties play huge part in England being eliminated from major championships; think back to when Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missed penalties in 1990, Gareth Southgate in Euro 96, Paul Ince and David Batty in France 1998, David Beckham and Darius Vassell in 2004, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in 2006, Ashley Young and Ashley Cole in 2012, and Rashford Sancho and Saka in the European Championship Cup Final shoot-out in 2020 after extra time.

​​A professional footballer puts the ball on the penalty spot to take a penalty for their team to progress to the next round of the European Championship or World Cup. He is 12 meters out with a free shot in a one on one situation. He is expected to score as the nation awaits with all eyes on the moment. The player stands waiting, selecting the target to where they intend to kick the ball. The referee blows the whistle. 

Various thoughts can go through players minds at this key moment – some helpful, some not so helpful. It can go all go great, or so horribly wrong from here in the following seconds. Some execute as they had intended and hit their intended target – it is up to the reaction of the goalkeeper in this instance.
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For others however, like some of those listed above, the outcome may not be the one intended. Some players have reported their minds to race as they stood over the ball in a way it normally wouldn’t and this can have various outcomes. Some stutter on their run up including an extra and unintended shuffle to kick the ball in a way they normally wouldn’t resulting in different outcome than what they had intended. Others kick to opposite side they intended, with no understanding of why they just did that. Others do something erratic that they can’t quite understand and miss the target completely. 

​Sport Psychology research has shown an interesting thing about the way skilled practitioners sometimes make the exact error they are specifically trying to avoid. When a penalty taker places the ball on the penalty spot, they might often tell themselves to aim in a certain direction while being conscious not to miss either left or right or over the cross-bar. In a non-pressurised situation, a skilled player would invariably succeed in executing what they wanted to do with the ball.

However, in a competitive game with high levels of pressure, the daunting task of ‘not missing’ can sometimes become too great (See article on dealing with pressure). Too often, the net result is that the player kicks the ball to exactly where they were trying not to hit it. Since this is the exact thing they set out to not do, we call it the “ironic error”.

So what is happening?
When the brain seeks to make the body perform in a specific manner, it relies on two mental processes – an operating process and a monitoring process.

The operating process is responsible for identifying all the steps that will allow us to achieve a desired outcome. If you are going to kick low to goal-keepers left, this might include picking out your exact target of where you want to hit it, starting your run up from the correct spot, staying over the ball on the strike, and executing the kick as desired. For a seasoned professional, this is simple, right?

Simultaneously, a monitoring process is subconsciously at work. This works like a radar sweeping for information on what could go wrong. In relation to a penalty, that might be missing right or left  or avoiding getting under the ball and kicking it over the bar. It might be avoiding where the goalie is going and making mind up at last fraction of second, based on where the goalkeeper dives. Once the monitoring process has identified these dangers, it informs the operating process to try harder to find key information that will help the athlete execute its desired outcome; ie hit the drive to the intended spot to score the goal. Both processes work under one control system and operate together as part of a feedback loop.

The system normally works reasonably well and provides us with the effective mental control to do what we intend. It means that a player taking a penalty under zero pressure will generally succeed in putting the ball very accurately to the desired target and will be generally satisfied that the ball went exactly where it was intended.

What can go wrong?
However, in a high stakes competition where a player feels pressure; eg any major competitive scenario, a player may succumb to pressure induced by performance anxiety at key moments. When a player is on the cusp of eternal glory or crushing defeat, the mental space required in their brain for the operating process to function can often be consumed by the mental load or anxiety from feeling under pressure. When this happens, the operating process (“I know what I need to do”) and anxiety (“I am worried”) compete for the same limited mental space. When this occurs, the operating process becomes much less effective at making the player aware of the desired result.

Concurrently, the monitoring process remains largely unaffected under pressure. This is because it works on a subconscious level and it doesn’t take up any cognitive space. This means that by being anxious and feeling under pressure, the monitoring process becomes more prevalent than the operating process. When it carries out a sweep for information on what could go wrong under pressure – and here’s the irony in all this – it brings what could go wrong to the forefront of the person’s consciousness.

In other words, the very mental process that should help the player not to hit the ball off target or to where the goal-keeper is going can be the very reason that he ends up being more likely to hit it to where he had not intended – ie wide or over the bar or straight at the goal-keeper. By attempting to avoid the error, the mind is drawn ever closer to focusing on it.

Recent research has found that more neurotic players are more prone to such ironic errors. However, those most susceptible of the incidence of ironic error are those who mask their performance anxiety under pressure while trying to look nonchalant or “cool”. The reason is that their brains are overloaded by statements that limit their behaviour, such as “be cool” and “don’t show that you’re anxious”.
 

The fix
How can players avoid poor skill execution due to incidence of ironic errors? Anxiety control is central to alleviating the pressure and this may be addressed by using specific relaxation strategies. Reducing the anxiety increases the scope of the operating process to be more in control!

A player could use techniques to control breathing (during competition)  or “progressive muscle relaxation” (ideally pre-competition), which involves a series of muscle tensing exercises followed by intervals of relaxation at short intervals allowing the body to feel relaxed. 

An additional strategy might be to boost ones confidence with use of positive self talk to buffer the level at which the anxiety might have such an impact. An alternative might be to rephrase negative instructions in a positive way. Instead of a player telling himself “don’t hit the ball over the bar” he should be instructing himself to pick the precise point where he wants to hit the ball and focus on that.

It may also be purely ironic (or maybe not) that Harry Kane's practiced a missed penalty in a comedy skit with ex Rugby international Jonny Wilkinson only months before the World Cup and this may have come back to haunt him when the pressure was at it's greatest. See video clip below

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/
​​

Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychology consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @Keith Begley
​https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-begley-69755850?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile
​

As we get older, it can be harder to recognize the things we need to change to improve our lives. You may find yourself stuck in a loop of work and other responsibilities, which keeps you from exercising as much as you’d like. Or, you might realize that stress from outside factors is affecting your ability to be the parent or friend you’d like to be. Whether your concerns are physical, mental, or emotional, there are things that can affect your ability to live your best life.
 

Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do to make positive change happen. Think about actions that you’ve been putting off, or what you can do to ensure that your future is all you want it to be. You may want to make financial goals or start planning years in advance to give yourself peace of mind when it comes to your children and loved ones. Write down a few ideas so you can do a little research and figure out exactly which direction you want to go in.
 
Here are a few tips from performancepsychology.ie to help you get started.
 
Don’t Forget Your Vitamins
 
Many adults don’t have a regular multivitamin regimen, but even if you work out every day and eat well, that might not be enough. Baze magazine notes that the right vitamin can help boost your energy levels and even improve your skin and gut health. So, make sure you find one that fits all your needs, and if you’re unsure of where to begin, talk to your doctor for a suggestion. Keep in mind that a good multivitamin can also replace nutrients that your diet is lacking in. It’s true that vitamins and supplements can be expensive, but quality is important, and you can easily use coupons to cut costs.
 
Stop Saying “Yes” to Everything
 
Many of us agree to give our time and energy to others far too often, which leaves us feeling overwhelmed or unable to focus on our own needs. If you find yourself taking on too much, keep in mind that learning to say “no” once in a while can work wonders for your mental health. It’s possible to do so without guilt; the key is to tell yourself that you’re doing it for your benefit and to remain clear so there’s no confusion. Not only will this help you, but it will help your relationships — whether personal or professional — as everyone will know where they stand.
 
Stop Ignoring Your Needs
 
Self-care is important for everyone, and it doesn’t have to fit a certain mold. The idea is to look for ways to boost your physical and mental health in a way that makes sense for you. That might mean practicing a hobby that you love or just unplugging from technology for a while; whatever makes you feel best, stop putting it off in favor of taking care of everyone else. Another way to boost your health is to keep an organized and clutter-free home. By removing clutter, cleaning, and letting in more natural light, you can put yourself in a more positive frame of mind.
 
Stop Avoiding Important Preparations
 
While no one wants to think about leaving their loved ones behind someday, it’s inevitable that we’ll have to face preparing for our final arrangements and making an end-of-life plan. It may have made you uncomfortable in the past, but if you can put aside your feelings and think about what you’ll need toward the end of your life, you can give yourself peace of mind and take care of your loved ones at the same time.
 
Making changes to your lifestyle can be tricky, so take it slow and remember to take your needs into consideration on a regular basis, not just every once in a while. The more you can do to care for yourself and your future, the more you can banish stress and boost your self-esteem.

This blog article is courtesy of Dorothy Watson @ http://mentalwellnesscenter.info/

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychology consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @Keith Begley

Since then, the All Blacks are different to most other teams. Enoka suggests that the difference lies “in the transference of power from the coaches to the leadership group who set and enforce standards among the players. When aberrations occur, a player is answerable to his team-mates rather than the coaches. Ego has to be left at the door; there is a rigidly enforced “no d—head policy” in the squad."

According to Team Manager at the time Brian Lochore, their aim was to create an environment that would stimulate players and make them want to be part of something great that was bigger than themselves - a breakaway from the pervading ego-centered culture that existed around the team. He came up with 6 words that would epitomise that ethos. The phrase “Better people make better All Blacks” still rings true to this day.

We saw recently where Sonny Bill Williams epitomised that ethos with his generosity and humility in giving his world cup medal to a child after the game. That isn’t the only act of real decency by the All-Blacks this Autumn. A lesser known story is of the generosity of Beauden Barrett – the All-Black super-sub of the time and now established All-Black out half.

Earlier in the World Cup, Barrett went to get his hair cut at a hair salon in London. When there, he met proprietor Katrina Haberfield. To his surprise, there was an All Black jersey hanging on the wall and when asked, he was informed that she was a proud and passionate New Zealander. It was revealed to Barrett that Haberfield had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer and was also undergoing chemotherapy.

Being the gentleman that he is, Barrett, according the New Zealand Herald, asked if he could take the jersey back to the hotel to get the All-Black squad to sign it. Some days later, the jersey was returned signed by every squad member. Accompanying it however was one of Barrett’s signed caps from the tournament and two tickets for the final for herself and her husband.

Haberfield went in for another bout of chemotherapy on the Thursday before the final, but was just about able to attend the final at Twickenham accompanied by her Husband Steve.

No Kiwi was more proud and delighted than Katrina when Barrett chased down a kick in the dying minutes to score the last try. When Dan Carter fulfilled a lifelong ambition by kicking the conversion on his right foot to end the scoring in a 34-17 triumph, Katrina was in her element.

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychology consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @Keith Begley
​
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-begley-69755850?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

​Everybody has anxiety! We just all experience different levels of it with some people  more pre-disposed to it than others. It is a topic we hear a lot about recently - especially with the spread of Covid 19 - a potentially killer virus. And that is the key point - potentially. Of those who get it, the current stats show that 98.3% will survive no problem - and those that do die will have significant underlying health issues and will be primarily in old age. But just because you are old or have health issues does not mean you are going to die. Fear not! You can take actions to ensure that you don't get it and that you don't pass it on by following government guidelines. 

Typically, anxiety can be categorised into 2 levels;
1. Trait Anxiety
2. State anxiety

We all have a natural level of anxiety. We call this our trait anxiety or the level of anxiety at which we are normally predisposed. This can vary between individuals with highly anxious individuals experiencing a high level trait anxiety.
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While this natural level of anxiety varies for many, it can elevate significantly, mostly due to a perceived level of threat in one's environment. We call this fear induced state our level of "state anxiety".

For example, different things trigger different levels of threat for different people. Some are afraid of heights, of water, of rats or snakes or even the dark etc. Others may be unaffected by any of these but could be negatively affected by other things such as enclosed spaces, large crowds, spiders, authoritave people, dictatorial work environments, sporting situations or even awkward social experiences  around people with whom you feel uncomfortable.

Covid 19 is elevating our level of "state anxiety" around normal social interactions due to what people perceive as a very legitimate and serious threat - both to their own health and more importantly, vulnerable loved one's lives. ​Generally, this is due to the hundreds that have died in China, Italy and elsewhere, while it is also reflective of the significant volume of reporting and social media circus following this Covid 19 pandemic. Put simply, our level of exposure to the volume of threat through social media is elevating our levels of anxiety - we can't escape the sense of threat.

Spielberger (1997) defined anxiety as "subjective, consciously perceived feelings of tension and apprehension, associated with the arousal of the autonomic nervous system”
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​The part of the brain that facilitates rational decision making processes in the brain is called the "frontal lobe" or pre-frontal cortex. However, when one finds themselves in a perceived sense of threat, rational decision making or frontal lobe function is reduced as it interacts with the brain's threat detector - the hippocampus!

The hippocampus performs a vital role in our daily lives. Working in tandem with the frontal lobe, it functions as a monitoring process that helps us to react to danger in the environment. The function of the hippocampus ensures that we react  to avoid an oncoming car and other obstacles in our pathway - a lamp-post, a pothole or a flying implement. Without it functioning, we simply would not physically survive.  

These parts of the brain (frontal lobe and hippocampus) work within a circuitry loop in tandem with a tiny element at the centre of the brain - the amygdala. In high stress scenarios (eg: Covid 19 pandemic), elevated threat is detected by the hippocampus, rational thought over-ruled and fear experienced, the amygdala is known to enlarge significantly, driving our anxiety into overdrive. This can result in one of three different responses; fight, flight or freeze as over-arousal of the central nervous system can result in significant worry inducing both physical, psychological and behavioral responses. 

Physical stress responses
Sweaty Palms
Trembling hands 
General Sweating
Hyper-ventilation
Increased need to use toilet
Dry throat
Increased heart rate
Nausea

Psychological stress symptoms
Worrisome thoughts 
Lack of clear thinking
Inability to sleep
Irrational decision making

Behavioural responses
Avoidance
Compliance
Inability to express inner thoughts

Combined at a high level, it can induce mild or moderate panic attacks or what we know as psycho-somatic stress.

My advice is that if the "threat" is having an overbearing ​negative impact on your life, your challenge is to deal with it as best as you can. If there is something that you can do to remove this threat from your daily life, then take action to do just that. In a performance psychology sense, we might say "control the controllables".

Control the Controllable
So if you are worried about contracting and passing on Covid 19 to vulnerable loved ones, take control. Self isolate, maintain social distance and ensure the vulnerable are doing likewise. Arrange that the vulnerable do not have to socially engage to contact people - use online interactions (skype / FaceTime etc) if possible and manage / organise groceries and leave at the door etc. Extricate yourself from overuse of social media which will elevate your levels anxiety and get your accurate information from reputable websites - https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/ as an example. Take away all risks by allowing vulnerable people control their environment and those they interact with. 

Positive self talk may help, as can having somebody to talk to that makes you feel better about the situation - whether that is a friend, a colleague, or a family member.  

Good sleep, nutrition and exercise are central to good mental health and alleviating anxiety. Routine is also important and finding ways of passing the time and alleviating anxiety is cricial. In this sense, relaxation techniques such as mindfulness, yoga, exercise in nature (utilising social distancing) and or progressive muscular relaxation may also help you find that mind/body balance to help you get through the weeks and months ahead. There are tons of videos etc on YouTube on all these areas of physical activity.
​
Everyone is entitled to live an anxiety free life, but sometimes you have just got to empower yourself to take charge of your anxiety and take control of the threats within your environment.

Wash your hands regularly, practice good etiquette around coughing and sneezing, self isolate, maintain social distance and avoid unnecessary travel to areas where you know Covid 19 exists. If others can do it, you can too and we will all be better off! 

See below for a video giving some perspective on what you can do to protect yourself against the virus and a progressive muscular relaxation exercise to alleviate your anxiety.

​Keith Begley is an Irish based performance psychologist, accredited with Sport Ireland Institute.

​Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
Twitter: ​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley

This is why the pros played as kids!

This is why the kids play!

This is some perspective on female involvement in sports
https://20x20.ie/podcast/

and this is what children want from their parents!

Let The Kids Play
He stands there in his jersey,
fulfilling all his dreams,
Representing club and family,
and he is on the team.

The ball thrown in, the game is on,
there is movement all around,
some parents shouting frantically,
​as the ball’s played up and down.

The game is moving quickly,
the boy giving his all,
He is moving into spaces,
but can’t get on the ball,

He stays running and tackling,
he is trying very hard,
Somehow, the ball never falls his way,
for all his running yards
 
Eventually it comes his way,
he sees it coming in.
He’s on his own, a perfect chance,
to score a goal and win.

Oh no, he mis-controls the ball,
it’s now gone from his grasp.
Parents groaning, some giving out
that he's has missed a great goal chance
 
One man pipes up and calls him out,
singles the boy out from the crowd,
“Come on to hell Coach, take him off”,
he hollers from the side.

The boy’s heart sinks, he has done his best,
he thought he was doing well.
Why is this man being so unkind,
he’s just here to play with friends.
 
It’s only a game to be enjoyed,
who cares who wins in the end?
He’s only a kid, just turned ten
and playing under twelve.

Sport, he thinks shouldn’t feel like this,
he plays it just for fun,
But when adults grab a hold of it,
sometimes this is all undone.
 
So just let them play and let them fly,
and let them just enjoy.
Kid’s sport is not for adult's needs,
​for we have had our time!
                                                                                 Keith Begley
​

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychologist with the Sport Ireland Institute under Sport Ireland Institute Professional Accreditation (SIIPA).
​
Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley


​Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/​

Evidence based report's suggest that about 25% of people in Britain (NHS 2008) and Ireland (OECD 2010) are obese with levels of growth estimated at about 1% per annum. It indicates a drastic rise from 1993 levels, when just 13 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women reported to be obese. Scarily, huge volumes of 4-5 year old children (24.5%) in Britain (NHS) reported to be obese in 2008. This does not account for the massive population of children that are just overweight, not yet obese but will be by the time they reach adulthood. If the growth rate continues at the present pace, over 50% of people in these countries will be obese by 2050. 

Simultaneously, there is a huge increase in drop out rate from sport among adolescents. According to recent studies, 45% of ten year old boys participate in sports. By the age of eighteen only 26% of them stay active. An overview of youth sports carried out in the USA showed that dropout is well under way at age ten and peaks at 14-15. Similar results were found across a range of ten different sports. 

Sport England research suggests that in all sports, almost half as many 16 – 24 year old women take part in sport as men of the same age while only 15% of girls aged 15 in the UK meet recommended daily physical activity levels. The research points out that those  who don't drop out of sport say they feel a powerful sense of belonging and list friends, fun and socialisation factor, team spirit, coach and parental support as additional reasons to stay involved in sport.

Some of the reasons given for dropout from sport included

• Loss of interest,
• Lack of fun, enjoyment and playing opportunities
• Failure to learn new skills
• Too much pressure
• Coach was a poor teacher
• Too much time involved
• Coach played favourites
• Over emphasis on winning.

Bearing all of the aforementioned in mind, physical activity, sport and exercise is increasingly important and is emphasised by Twisk et al (1997), who found that long-term exposure to daily physical activity was inversely related to body fatness. Essentially, outdoor fun and games, physical activity and sport offers a lot more than enjoyment value for children given it's potential impact on a nations health. 

As such, the child’s early experience in sport is critical for their ongoing development and retention in physical activity and sport involvement. If the experience is positive, the child will be more likely to continue participating. If the experience is overly negative, the child may drop out and lose interest in the sport or physical activity. 

Therefore, the importance of the role of the parent in helping and facilitating their child's involvement in sport cannot be under-emphasised. It is crucial for both the child's self development and health development that they are supported appropriately so that they continue their involvement in sporting activity for as long as possible. Given the nature of the reduction in out-door free play, a parent's role in sport promotion is now more important than ever. 

However, many parent's often get overly pushy and competitive when it comes to their child's involvement - so much so that some even have to be restrained from remonstrating with referees and sometimes, even their own children, at underage matches. Recently, after some significant incidents at underage soccer matches in Ireland, the head of the football referees association (soccer) said on national radio, that they were struggling to hold on to referees for underage games, such is the level of abuse that some are subjected to on Saturday mornings.

Yet international best practice suggests young players learn more, and perform better, when parents aren’t there at all. Rightly or wrongly, many elite clubs, Manchester United and Chelsea included, ban parents from games until their mid-teens to prevent against this.

Recent initiatives such as "Silent Sideline Weekends" have been tried to try and reduce levels of abuse and create awareness of the value of affording the children the space to freely express themselves on the pitch. The concept has been brought in to replicate similar initiatives in the US and the UK. Parent's screaming and shouting only invades a child’s playtime as adults look to re-live their youth vicariously through their children. A children’s pitch is essentially a playground and sometimes, if adults acted in a similar way in a playground, the guards (police) could be called. The idea with the silent sideline weekend is just to let the kids play, to let them make decisions and mistakes by themselves without parents shouting at them.

Coaches also regularly report incidents of abuse in their direction as parents of their teams seek to remonstrate with them over their selection policies (good bad or indifferent) and this can also cause needless trouble along the Saturday morning sidelines!  

So let's learn from the experts - the kids themselves. Let's see what it is that they want from their sport and us (the parents), as supporters of them in their sport. Let's create awareness of this issue by talking about it, so that they (our children) can enjoy their sport for the right reasons and fulfill their potential in their chosen sports, whatever they may be!

​The following is a recent video developed by the Arsenal academy and is informed by the actual thoughts of young academy players!

Let the Kids Play
He stands there in his jersey,
fulfilling all his dreams,
Representing club and family,
and he is on the team.

The ball thrown in, the game is on,
there is movement all around,
some parents shouting frantically,
​as the ball’s played up and down.

The game is moving quickly,
the boy giving his all,
He is moving into spaces,
but can’t get on the ball,

He stays running and tackling,
he is trying very hard,
Somehow, the ball never falls his way,
for all his running yards
 
Eventually it comes his way,
he sees it coming in.
He’s on his own, a perfect chance,
to score a goal and win.

Oh no, he mis-controls the ball,
it’s now gone from his grasp.
Parents groaning, some giving out
that he's has missed a great goal chance
 
One man pipes up and calls him out,
singles the boy out from the crowd,
“Come on to hell Coach, take him off”,
he hollers from the side.

The boy’s heart sinks, he has done his best,
he thought he was doing well.
Why is this man being so unkind,
he’s just here to play with friends.
 
It’s only a game to be enjoyed,
who cares who wins in the end?
He’s only a kid, just turned ten
and playing under twelve.

Sport, he thinks shouldn’t feel like this,
he plays it just for fun,
But when adults grab a hold of it,
sometimes this is all undone.
 
So just let them play and let them fly,
and let them just enjoy.
Kid’s sport is not for adult's needs,
​for we have had our time!
                                                                                 Keith Begley

Sharon was recently overlooked for promotion in her job after 20 years service. During that time she had taken on numerous extra responsibilities, from voluntary to leadership roles, in a company that is widely regarded among its staff, to be a toxic work environment. When a new employee with limited experience joined the company and was offered promotion after a very short spell, there was a strong sense of revolt among the staff. While the new employee was very nice and obliging, the sense of injustice among the staff towards Sharon was palpable. The new employee had been promoted after developing a strong personal relationship with one of the VPs and had other links within the company. For Sharon, this was the last straw and she felt she had to resign. It was hard for her to leave the company she had shown such loyalty to, but the minute she left, she felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders. The company recruitment process was rotten from top to bottom.
​

 ​Fear Based Leadership
Where such leadership exists, it is common for managers to create a culture of fear and coercive control to get their people to work. Such leaders operate in a fear inducing, authoritive climate that makes the work environment an uncomfortable and threatening place for many. Such an environment can induce feelings of resentment and anxiety among the working community, driven by an outdated dictatorial, autocratic, controlling and negative leadership style.
 
Here, the leader promotes hard working but weak candidates (lets call them a "subordinate power cliques" or "Noddies" for now – they never say no!) so that they can coerce  them towards their manner of thought, irrespective of the best interests of the group or work environment. The subordinates are generally insecure in their own thoughts and too weak to offer their true opinion. They have a tendency to just "go along with the boss" and are rewarded over time for doing so - often through further promotion, financially or otherwise!  

Here, an element of "cronyism" is fostered by the leader, resulting in poor work relations and weak staff morale. Some "Noddies" or subordinates may be promoted because they know little about management and are incapable of ever seeing through the underhand manner of the manager. In essence, they are promoted to these positions because they are either interested in feathering their own nest, are too naive to see through underhand politics or too weak to stand up for what is right and just on behalf of those mistreated.

​According to Liz Ryan, a fearful manager’s greatest fear is not that the business might fail, but that somebody working near them might actually challenge them. An autocratic, controlling manager’s ego is even stronger than the fear of business failure. In a wider topic of discussion, their thought process is similar to that of former world leading dictators that felt they were invincible (ie: Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jung Un etc), albeit at a less life changing level. Recent research has even shown that many leaders of high powered organisations have shown to display psychopathic characteristics where they are more self absorbed with their own ego and control than they are concerned for the good of the group. 

Managers in such environments are often known to engage in various types of underhand behaviour; ie: bullying, undermining gossip, bad-mouthing or negatively influencing worker's perceptions of those the leader may see as a threat to their power. As new recruits are added to the roster, they may also be encouraged to avoid or ignore anyone the manager perceives as a threat to their authority. More calculating leaders may even recruit morally weak employees from within their subordinate power clique to do the same, allowing leaders to exert control, sideline and undermine any perceived threat to their authority.

​

Keith Begley is an Irish based performance psychology consultant, accredited with Sport Ireland Institute.

​Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
Twitter: ​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley

​Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/
​

​Poor mental health is a huge issue among young people across Ireland and at the extreme end of this continuum; we continue to lose too many young people to suicide on a weekly basis – often a permanent solution to a temporary problem. 

While the problem of suicide is vast, this is the end point of a continuum that often begins with stress, anxiety and depression. In young people, these symptoms and presentations are increasing exponentially and this is something that should concern us all. In my opinion, it has reached epidemic proportions with huge proportions of young people feeling inadequate and indulging in self harm. The statistics will support my view.

Recently, a “Young Lives in Ireland” study – a school-based study of mental health and suicide prevention within 17 mainstream schools in Cork and Kerry was carried out by the National Suicide Research Foundation. The study – carried out on over 1,000 children with an average age of 13 – 16 found that 14% of teenagers had depressive symptoms, 24% had anxiety and up to 20% had attempted self-harm.

Scarily, it stated that the rate of attempted suicide among school-age teenagers could be as high as one child per class with findings suggesting that up to 7% of participants having suicidal thoughts. Significantly, in this study, 4% had attempted suicide.

This is not an isolated study and in 2012, similar figures were found by Dr Barbara Dooley of UCD in the “My World Survey” conducted with Irish students between 12 and 25. Here it was found also that 21% had depression and or anxiety and that the suicidal attempt rate was higher at 7%. This suggests that the rate of suicide increases as young people progress through their teens and into their early twenties.

In my current role, I regularly see the pain and anguish this is having on families’. Like many front line workers on too many occasions, I have met with parents distraught with worry over their teenage children’s unhappiness, self harm, suicidal ideation and low self worth while the mental health services are creaking at the seams!

The problem is complex but we must ask ourselves why it is occurring in such huge proportions.

​​Contributory Factors
As we are continually told, we have an obesity epidemic in Ireland and at current rates of growth, are forecast to be the worst in the world by 2030. At exactly the same time, the world has developed social media and young people all over the country are becoming addicted to their technology. No problem here you say? You could not be more wrong!

Comparatively on average, a youth today doesn’t move as much as one used to. Our society of convenience sees that they no longer have to. Communication with friends occurs through a different medium than previous – as social media facilitates communication between youths from the comfort of their own home. Where previously, “hanging out” involved some form of physical contact, effort and memory forming exertion; the development of Wifi, Skype, FaceTime, House-party, Snapchat and other social media communication apps facilitates young people to “hang out” with anyone from anywhere in the world from the comfort of their own bedroom with the click of a button.

Some platforms can even facilitate 3 or four in live screen conversation while Whatsapp, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram among others allow us to communicate with bigger numbers in both private and public conversations!

Video gamers can communicate with friends through the internet headsets from the comfort of their own homes. Worse still, children and adolescents anonymously send picture messages and text each other through social media apps such as Kik and Sarahah - a legal minefield for bullying that in extreme cases, requires laborious manual labour on the part of An Garda Siochana to sort out.

We can travel the world on our phone and meet who we want from the comfort of our own sofa and as a result, children and young people meet less to interact in fun, sweat inducing and memory forming activities or minor games like their predecessors. Social media in it's essence is isolating people from each other - so much so that some mental health professionals have even labeled it anti-social media!

In a recent conversation with youth mental health professionals from the Rutland Centre, I was informed of a new phenomenon of mobile phone / social media addiction / gaming where teenagers stay up most of the night to tend to “snap-chat streaks”, social media group interactions and gaming. With tens and even hundreds of people in some groups, the mobile phone doesn’t stop at night with many teenagers losing out on sleep.

​As we all know, lack of sleep and poor sleep quality leaves people agitated and contributes to elevated levels of anxiety. Even those who do not comment have interrupted sleep through regular alerts and notifications. Social media and gaming devices also emit a blue light that has a different wavelength of Gama rays than regular light. Long exposure to this blue light results in restriction of the release of melatonin – a sleep inducing neuro-transmitter that is naturally released by the brain to help facilitate sleep. As a result, people who use social media or gaming devices late at night struggle to get the quality sleep they once got naturally, adding to levels of anxiety the next day.

The issue with gaming addiction  has become so prevalent that the World Health Organisation (WHO) have categorized it as a mental illness in the same way that they have categorized alcohol and gambling addiction.

These companies are very clever and have sought the expertise of the best psychologists in the world in making their product, games and apps addictive for young people. The more engagement they get, the higher the share price increasing profitability for their angel investors and creators. Who’d have ever thought that they could get young people addicted to sending blank messages to their friends over breakfast to increase their share price - in the way that maintenance of Snapchat “streaks” have become of central importance to young people? It is amazing that it has got to this level but the users are just pawns in a charade that is more about corporate profit than the well-being of it’s users.

Mental health professionals have also reported increases in volumes of separation anxiety when young people are “coming down” off their social media and gaming devices. How often do we see young people become uncontrollable demons as their parents try to “unwire” them from their gaming and social media devices. Some professionals have even suggested that the dopamine hits that young people are subjected to during their use of these devices are more addictive than cocaine.

The impact of technology has had a phenomenal effect on our social and physical landscape – notably, meaningful relationships, communication skills, energy levels, sleep patterns and our average daily release of a neuro-transmitter called serotonin.
 
Reduction in release of serotonin
A natural side effect of the increase of social media app and gaming use is a reduction in exercise participation and physical activity. The reduction of serotonin release (a natural good mood juice released in brain during physical activity) sees that young people do not ever feel as relaxed or as tired as we once did generally as a human race. What many don’t realise is that lack of serotonin release from the brain is one of the major causes of depression and anxiety. We need to move more to feel better!

The computerization of many physical tasks now sees the reduction of physical labour required around the home. The cutting of turf, felling of trees and chopping of wood is now replaced with the pushing of a button while a robot can now hoover the floor and cut the grass where we once sweated our Saturdays away behind our push lawn-mowers. The same can be said for washing of clothes and dinner ware as our convenience society and computerization of tasks takes hold.

The result is often that our young people rarely have the volume of chores we once had and very often fill this time behind some form of screen. Meanwhile, youth mental health services are creaking at the seams as they struggle to contend with the volume of young people – the pawns in the charade – who are struggling to cope as a result.
 
Keith Begley is an Irish based sport psychology consultant, accredited with the Irish Institute of Sport.

​Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland
Twitter: ​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley

​Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture or are you a parent or coach involved with youth sport? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

In 1997, Earl Woods was there to greet his prodigal son when he finally fulfilled his dream to win the Augusta Masters. 22 years later and 14 years since his last, after much controversy in his personal life, a long hiatus from professional golf and four back operations when many thought he was past his best, he was there to win his 5th Masters - this time to be greeted by his son Charlie, daughter Sam and mother, Kultida. How the tide has turned.

After some good recent performances, the bookies odds had shortened on Woods. With a new chiseled look, he had shown himself to be getting back in shape to compete at the top level again but nobody foresaw what would happen at the Masters in 2019!

Francesco Molinari led on -13 heading into the last day of play ahead of Tony Finau on -11. There was a stacked field behind them however that included Tiger Woods among others. Woods picked up a few shots along the front 9 holes in the final round bringing him closer to the overnight leaders. However, Finau lost all sense of his rythm, dropping shots while overnight leader Molinari became tentative and followed with a series of pars.

So what happened Molinari? 
In the words of Tiger Woods, "it all flipped on 12, with Molinari making a mistake", going straight into the water.

It may be that he struggled to keep his composure under the mental strain of competition. Research has shown that when a golfer is nervous, they become more error prone doing exactly what they are specifically trying to avoid. Molinari most likely scanned the terrain and consciously thought – “keep it away from the water”.
​
When a golfer addresses a ball, they would often aim in a certain direction while being conscious not to miss either left or right, short or long due to relevant hazards - water, bunker or otherwise. In a non-pressurised situation, a skilled golfer would invariably succeed in executing what they wanted to do with the ball.

However, in a competitive game with high levels of pressure, the daunting task of avoiding the water can become too great (See article on dealing with pressure). Too often, the net result is that the golfer plays the ball to exactly where he was trying not to hit it. Since this is the thing he set out to not do, we call it the “ironic error”.

So what is happening?
When the brain seeks to make the body perform in a specific manner, it relies on two mental processes – an operating process and a monitoring process.

The operating process is responsible for identifying all the steps that will allow us to achieve a desired outcome. If you are going to hit a drive down the fairway, this might include taking a practice swing, picking out your exact target of where you want to hit it, setting your feet in desired spot in relation to ball, and executing the golf shot as desired. Simple, right?

Simultaneously, a monitoring process is subconsciously at work. This works like a  radar sweeping for information on what could go wrong. In relation to Molinari, that might include looking at the flag while thinking about avoiding the water. Once the monitoring process has identified these dangers, it informs the operating process to try harder to find key information that will help the athlete execute its desired outcome; ie chip onto green. Both processes work under one control system and operate together as part of a feedback loop.

The system normally works reasonably well and provides us with the effective mental control to do what we intend. It would mean that Molinari, playing under zero pressure will generally succeed in putting the ball accurately on the green beside the flag. However, in this instance the pressure was vast and the tension was such that Molinari struggled to execute a simple enough shot when under pressure.

Tiger Woods handling pressure
There was one man that could handle the pressure better than all the rest.  Tiger Woods was on a roll and the crowd were buzzing in anticipation like the good old days. He knew how to react and maintain his composure.   Afterwards in the Butler Cabin, Woods was asked what it was like out there and how he handled the cauldron of an atmosphere that developed when there was a lot of movement on the leader-board with a few holes to play.

​Woods said ​

​
​On the par 5 hole 15, Woods was on the green in 2 shots, leaving an easy up and down for Birdie to take the lead for the first time sending the crowd into overdrive. The crowd erupted again on the par 3 16th hole. Woods hit an immaculate shot, spinning the ball into a 2 foot putt for birdie to take a 2 shot lead at -14. The noise that reverberated around the ground left some of the others awe-struck. Xander Schauffele, a contender on -12 stepped off a drive to regain his composure before hitting his shot, such was the level of the noise.

Woods was on a roll when all around him were failing to contend with the cauldron of an atmosphere that had developed on the final holes. Woods had been here before. He was equipped to deal with it all - the emotion, the thoughts, the fear, the required course management skills.  

With a two shot lead coming down the last, his decision making was outstanding. He said, he just had to "try to make 5 coming down 18". He held his nerve on the tee with a good drive. He kept his second shot short and left to avoid the deep bunkers on the front right of the 18th hole. He chipped on safely and had an easy 2 putts to regain the crown he last won in 2005.

​
As the crowd erupted, he celebrated with joy with the masses reacting to every fist pump. He showed an emotion that we rarely got to see in his earlier years, when perhaps he took his success all for granted. Given what he has endured, maybe he values the moment all the more. He greeted his loved ones and entourage with a sense of joy and level of humanity we have rarely seen from him before in public.

​He name checked his kids and mother when interviewed in the winners enclosure - another first for Tiger Woods! It is probably one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all time and certainly one that will be talked about in golfing circles for a very long time.

Tiger Woods, the champion is back!

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport under the Professional Quality Assurance Programme (PQAP).
​
Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley

The game is moving quickly,
the boy giving his all,
He is moving into spaces,
but can’t get on the ball,

He stays running and tackling,
he is trying very hard,
Somehow, the ball never falls his way,
for all his running yards
 
Eventually it comes his way,
he sees it coming in.
He’s on his own, a perfect chance,
to score a goal and win.

Oh no, he mis-controls the ball,
it’s now gone from his grasp.
Parents groaning, some giving out
that he's has missed a great goal chance
 
One man pipes up and calls him out,
singles the boy out from the crowd,
“Come on to hell Coach, take him off”,
he hollers from the side.

The boy’s heart sinks, he has done his best,
he thought he was doing well.
Why is this man being so unkind,
he’s just here to play with friends.
 
It’s only a game to be enjoyed,
who cares who wins in the end?
He’s only a kid, just turned ten
and playing under twelve.

Sport, he thinks shouldn’t feel like this,
he plays it just for fun,
But when adults grab a hold of it,
sometimes this is all undone.
 
So just let them play and let them fly,
and let them just enjoy.
Kid’s sport is not for adult's needs,
​for we have had our time!

​

​Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport under the Professional Quality Assurance Programme (PQAP).
​
Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley

In fact scientific research has shown that adherence to such programs is difficult to maintain for many with a large decrease in new participants after 3 months and about a 50% drop off after 6 months (Tudor-Locke & Chan, 2006). Additionally, research has indicated that only 8% of people who take up such a programme will still be adhering to that programme 12 months later (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2012)

One must also remember that you cannot lose 3 stone or 5 stone very quickly in a sustainable and healthy way so the goals must be process oriented. You must walk before you can run and the same goes for goal theory.

The first step must be taken before making the 2nd and third step of the ladder. Set yourself a target of losing 2-3 pounds per week and make the goal realistic and achievable. If you can maintain this consistency over a period of time, then you will eventually reach your long term goal.

One should also be cognisant that some people simply have slower metabolisms and as such, find it that little bit harder to lose weight. Others become obsessed with the numbers and forget that muscle weighs a lot more than fat so if you are building some muscle, you may becoming lean and burning fat without losing all that much weight. 

Either way, it is a process that takes time and it wont be an overnight success. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Effective Goal Setting
Effective goal setting is key in helping you to facilitate your intentions. These goals must sit closely with the issues concerning what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.  Setting of what are known as SMART goals (Doran 1981) can prove very effective.
SMART goals is an acronym that stands for goals that need to be
Specific

• What, How, Where, When I will take action?
• What exactly do I want to achieve?
• How exactly I will achieve the goals?
• Where and when will I go about reaching these goals?

 
Measureable

• How much exercise I am going to do?
• How often, many?
• How much weight I intend to lose / body fat percentage am I going to reach?
• Reach my target weight of 10 stone.

 
Achievable
If the goal is unrealistic or out of reach, then there is a greater chance of one giving up on the programme. Trying to lose three stone in a month is unrealistic and unhealthy. Trying to get a non-runner to run a marathon within a few weeks is also unattainable. Is this goal realistic to what you can actually achieve in the set time frame? Small but achievable steps lead to attainable outcomes.

Relevant
Are your goals relevant to you reaching your long term goal. Are they facilitating you to reach your longer term targets?

Time Managed
What kind of time frame are you allowing to reach each aspect of the goal. As stated previously, trying to lose three stone in a month is unrealistic and unhealthy. Trying to get a non-runner to run a marathon within a few weeks is also unattainable.
You must remember also that your exercise will be in vain if you don’t have a good diet

As adherence levels tend to decrease over time, there are factors that may help you influence and maintain your adherence (Flegal et al, 2007)

Enjoyment – People tend only to maintain participation if the experience is enjoyable. Take up a sport you enjoy or make your exercise fun and something you enjoy doing. There are numerous fun classes out there – zumba, aqua-aerobics, spinning, yoga, pilates etc while activities like hill walking, social running and cycling clubs etc have become very popular of late – and they can be FUN!

Motivation – Keep a record of what you are doing and note how you can improve your levels of fitness. Use this self-reflection to monitor your emotions about participation and your beliefs about progress.

Belief and Knowledge -read up and inform yourself of the benefits of what you are doing and eating and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Knowledge is power.

Exercise Plan – Try and set targets to increase your activity levels as you gain in fitness levels. What you find challenging today might not produce the same benefits as you get fitter so look to challenge yourself a little more as you go through the process.

​Social support – One is more likely to maintain a programme if they have the social support of a friend, so get your friends involved in your regime or bring a friend to a class you are taking. It will be a key factor in you achieving your goals.

Other Tips

• Allow yourself a treat every now and then.
• Be prepared for a relapse every now and again and don’t let it discourage you. It will happen from time to time but use it as motivation to spur you on. If you could do it before you can do it again.
• Use reminders – Set reminders on your phone to help organise your time and day.
• You are what you eat so develop healthy habits around food - regarding portion size and nutritional content of your food

Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychology consultant under the Sport Ireland Institute Professional Accreditation (SIIPA) Programme.
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​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley

Manchester United sacked Jose Mourinho recently after two and a half years in charge.​ It was reported that senior figures at the club were unhappy with a lack of progress in form, style of play and development of their younger players. The club felt they had sufficiently backed Mourinho with £358.7million in the transfer market on 11 players during his time in charge and that they expected a greater measure of progress within that time-frame.

He was relieved after a poor performance against Liverpool, where Liverpool had 36 attempts at goal to United's 11. United lay mid-table with a goal difference of 0 almost  halfway through the 2018/2019 Premier League campaign. The United players were believed to have wanted a change of manager as far back as September 18 and were said to have felt very restricted with the rigidity of team structure imposed on them by Mourinho. ​

Some former players with a strong media presence (Roy Keane, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes) had questioned the lack of leadership within the playing staff and the souring of the relationship between manager and players. 

Reports suggest that senior figures at Manchester United were concerned that Mourinho's ego was jeopardising the harmony at the club. He had stripped Paul Pogba of the second captain's role in September and after a recent team meeting, some players reported that they had gone beyond the tipping point in their relationship with Mourinho. 

Incidentally, Manchester United replaced him with fan favourite Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who started his reign with seven comprehensive wins. After an initial 4-1 win against Bournemouth in Dec 2018, Paul Pogba was asked what has changed. He said that "a team needs to enjoy playing football and we are doing that now while working hard for each other to get results"

It isn't the first time that Mourinho's ego has been a cause of discussion around dismissal. 

In 2015, Mourinho sat with an unshaven beard at Chelsea FC's Cobham training ground for the club’s annual Christmas meal just hours before he was sacked. He was in a disheveled state compared to the one we had come to know as the self proclaimed “special one”.

He had taken the club from the top of the pile as champions in May 2015 to relegation strugglers within 6 months. In other articles, we have discussed the importance of key characteristics of an effective coach. These scientifically validated characteristics are ones that a coach MUST maintain to get the most out of a group. They are as follows.

Inspirational Motivation (where leaders inspire followers with their vision for the future), He set the standards for those to follow.
Individual Consideration (where leaders show concern for followers individualistic needs),
Intellectual Stimulation (where leaders challenge followers to assess their methods and how to improve them).
High Performance Expectations (where leaders promote excellence and performance criteria for followers in the attainment of set goals)
Intellectual Stimulation (where coach challenges players to assess their methods and how to improve them) 
​
*Fostering Acceptance of Group Goals* (where leaders incorporate followers in the devising of, accepting of and striving towards a common agreed goal),
*Appropriate Role Modelling* (where leaders lead by example in the way they conduct themselves and live their lives in the manner that they would like their followers to do).
​
Jose Mourinho has exuded charisma throughout his coaching career. This was always backed up with being ultra prepared. However, towards the end of his Chelsea reign, he sold commanding dressing room leaders in Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Peter Cech, leaving the leadership qualities of the group diluted from the team that won the title the previous May. 

In the leadership vacuum left behind, Mourinho's was the dominant voice! By all accounts there was little done to Foster Acceptance of Group Goals in a managerial climate where the coach's voice was the dominant one - there appeared only room for one true leader - the self proclaimed “special one”.

Throughout his successful years, Mourinho rarely had to work with a group of  leaderless players. This is where he found himself at both Man United in 2018 and Chelsea in 2015 at the end of both reigns. One little discussed issue is that within the player leadership vacuum, his autocratic managerial style failed to empower his new recruits to have or develop those necessary leadership skills that he needed them to have.

​Sport psychology is often used as a support within a high-performance sporting structure. As its benefits and merits are ever more recognised and respected, some amateur clubs are on the lookout for ways in which they can use such support – often in an ad-hoc capacity. With little knowledge or helpful information available, many are unsure where to go or who to look for to provide such a service.

In fairness, there is very little regulation of the area presently and it is a little bit of a minefield in finding someone that can add value to your team or organisation. This article is written in the context of an Irish sport psychology setting.

Presently, there are many looking to work in the area – under the guise of a “Mental Coach / Mind Coach”, “Executive Coach”, “Leadership or Performance Expert” or other such title. Others might fall into the area as a “Well-being Coach”, “Counsellor” or “NLP practitioner”. Some, but not all may have some form of qualification that has a minor link to sport and performance psychology with some belonging to a long list of what we know in the trade as the “motivational brigade”.

Here, self-titled “experts” trade on a personal story of triumph where their inspiring tales of overcoming the odds to achieve a huge personal feat is sold as sport psychology - often leaving you or your group in a state of momentary boost. While your athlete’s may be boosted by their inspiring tale, they are rarely if ever left with a skill-set or action plan to tackle their own performance impediments.  
 
Would you ask somebody who has got a knee operation to perform surgery on your knee?
 
Just because one has personal experience or has overcome adversity to achieve a significant feat does not mean they are equipped to impart knowledge around best practice in performance psychology.

Many do the rounds in the corporate sector getting very well paid for delivery of little substance. Unfortunately, some will also chance their arm in the realm of high performance and or amateur sport.

While some may have a shallow understanding of some of the science behind some of the aspects within sport psychology, many are "chancers" purporting to be established in the field. Some will be to the forefront in national media within the sport psychology space and some will name drop teams and individuals they have some form of link to -  purporting to have inspired them to greatness!

A doctor or any professional of standing doesn’t go around name dropping about private consultations with their clients and a professional sport or performance psychologist doesn’t either.

Most of these people who some might deem as “fraudsters” will offer a lot and leave you with very little. Coaches, who know no better, bring them in to their team for a “talk” to “psych them up”. There is a science to how the brain facilitates and monitors control of the neuro-muscular system and anxiety within it and psyching somebody up when there are issues at play may actually be extremely debilitating for athletes. You, your athletes and your team in essence can and will be sold short.

Before ever paying for a service, you should ensure that they are appropriately qualified to give you a service that will be beneficial.

The following questions should help you find somebody that can help.

What are the qualifications required to be a qualified sport psychologist?

Effectively, A qualified professional sport psychology qualification will take between six and eight years to ascertain.

A qualified service provider will hold three of the following that can easily checked on online registers.

1 – An undergraduate degree in psychology or sport science
2 -  A master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology from a reputable University
3 – A two year’ accreditation process with one or more of the following bodies

• Sport Ireland Institute (SII)
• British Association of Sport & Exercise Psychology (BASES)
• Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI)
• British Psychological Society (BPS)

If they do not hold one or any of the qualifications listed above, they are not professionally qualified to work in the field. In fact, they could do untold harm while making off with a large portion of a clubs hard earned finance.

A list of approved performance psychology providers under the Professional Quality Assurance Programme (PQAP) with the Sport Ireland Institute is attached at the bottom of this article.

Any other tips?
​It would be preferable to use somebody with reputable experience – somebody that you know has qualifications listed above and that has been involved in genuinely improving other athletes and teams. Significant experience isn’t everything but it is important!

It would also be preferable if the person you use has a sound understanding of the nature of your sport or discipline. In interventions, applied sport psychologists may use “attentional focus cues” for use in real time skill execution. If they do not have a fundamental understanding of your sport, then getting optimal value within this particular area of support could be an issue.


What can they do?
Generally, a sport psychologist would provide an array of services around athlete or coach support in helping them to perform at their optimum. Some of these areas would include various services to improve the following.

• Sport & Athletic Performance 
• ​Coach & Leadership Development
• Athlete Lifestyle & Transition
• Well-being & Mental Health
• Corporate Sector Support - Leadership / Well-being
• Lifestyle and Weight Management.

Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

​
Keith Begley is an accredited performance psychology provider with the Irish Institute of Sport under the Professional Quality Assurance Programme (PQAP).

Contact below if you or your team is looking to take your performance to the next level.

International rugby place kickers Jonny Sexton and Beauden Barrett place the ball, set themselves, say something to themselves and mostly go about their business and put the ball between the posts.
​

So what exactly should they be saying and why?

Research has shown that the use of psychological techniques, cognitive strategies or mental training has been commonly used by high performance athletes for many years and have been shown to enhance sporting performance (Krane & Williams, 2006). Aided by the growth and development of sport psychology research in recent times, systematic cognitive strategies have become even more common-place as athletes seek out ways to improve performance and gain advantages over opponents. One mental strategy frequently used by athletes is self-talk!


Self-talk has been shown to be beneficial for the learning of motor skills (Hardy, 2006). It can be defined as verbalisations or statements athletes repeat to themselves prior to or during skill execution. These verbalisations may be designed to affect motivation, attentional control, concentration and information processing. Landin (1994) suggested that the use of appropriate cue words may aid task focus by increasing focus on task relevant stimuli. Hardy (2006) suggests that the use of cue words may help athletes adjust their focus of attention towards a more appropriate attentional focus for completion of tasks.


Much empirical research has been carried out investigating the impact of such statements and a lot of this has examined the effect of motivational and instructional self talk on performance. Motivational self talk tends to boost confidence and belief in one’s ability, helping to raise performance, while instructional tends to divert focus of attention on to certain elements of a movement to increase attentional focus and help task execution accordingly.


Additionally, a lot of research made a distinction between two types of focus - internal and external focus. Wulf et al's work showed that for skilled athletes, an external focus is better than an internal focus of attention. This may be because an internal focus of attention draws attention towards little pieces of movement, thus reducing automaticity of that same movement while an external focus draws the focus towards the intended target.


Until recently, very little empirical research has differentiated between the different types of self-talk for skilled or elite athletes in sporting tasks. Of such investigations, mostly power based motor tasks have been utilised. Two examples (Todd and McGuigan (2008) in a rugby power jump task & Goudas, Hatzidimitriou and Kikidi (2006) in a shot putt task) found that motivational self-talk was best when strength or power based movements were concerned.


Until recently, it was never fully investigated which type of "self-talk" is best for use by elite level performers in closed skill accuracy based tasks.  New research (Begley, Hardy & Blanchfield, (2014), Journal of Applied Sport Psychology) distinguishes that the most appropriate type of attentional focus will be dependent on the skill level of the performer.


The study utilised 40 inter-county level Gaelic Football free takers, many of whom are now household names in GAA. Our research investigated the differences between externally focused instructional self-talk (EFIST) and motivational self-talk (MST).

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12 kicks were taken from a 22m distance at 4 standardised angles from the centre of the goal. The study was fully counter-balanced between starting point and nature of self talk.

• Points were awarded as follows with a maximum score of 24 (12 x 2)
• 2 points for successful kick
• 1 for hitting post or crossbar and being unsuccessful
• 0 for miss

​Findings
A two way ANOVA of data shows significant results favouring “Motivational Self Talk” over “Externally Focused Instructional Self Talk” for skilled players. The “Motivational Self Talk” condition (Mean of 19.93) significantly exceeded the “Externally Focused Instructional Self Talk” condition (Mean of 18.75) proving that motivational self talk proved best for elite level players.


As this accuracy based study and all of the existing power based task research using skilled athletes (Edwards et al (2008) and Goudas et al, (2006)) replicate each other’s findings, it may be that motivational self-talk may exceed all types of instructional self-talk in all tasks for skilled athletes by boosting athletes’ confidence and reinforcing belief in natural movement processes and well-honed skills. This research should inform the next wave of thinking when it comes to skill execution and skills coaching of elite performing athletes in closed skill sporting tasks; ie rugby place kicking, GAA free taking, soccer free kicks, golf snooker etc

​
Conversely, in another aspect of the investigation in an unskilled condition, “Externally Focused Instructional Self Talk” (Mean of 14.13) exceeded “Motivational Self Talk” (Mean of 13.23) correlating with results shown in other studies and will have relevance to those learning a skill.

Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited sport psychology consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute. 

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley

​It is generally considered not politically correct to say that a child is fat. I am going to be controversial! Maybe we are doing them a disservice! Maybe we are failing to identify them as overweight and putting measures in place to address this health issue. Besides, the fact that they might be overweight is hardly their fault – more a byproduct of what they are given by their parents to eat. The kids don’t know any different but the parents should.

We are now looking at a situation in the Western world where obesity is becoming an epidemic. Reports suggest that over 35% of people in the USA (National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES)) in 2010. Reports also suggested that about 25% of people in Britain (NHS 2008) and Ireland (OECD 2010) are reported to be obese with growth estimated at about 1% per annum. This suggests a drastic rise in obesity from 1993 when just 13 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women reported to be obese. The importance of sport and physical activity is emphasised by Twisk et al (1997) who found that long-term exposure to daily physical activity was inversely related to body fatness.

If the growth rate continues at the present pace, over 50% of people in these countries will be obese by 2050 with significant cost to the exchequer in respective countries through their health bill. Scarily, huge volumes of 4-5 year old children (24.5%) in Britain (NHS) reported to be obese in 2008. This does not account for the massive population of children that are overweight, not yet obese but will be by the time they reach adulthood.

Bearing this in mind, physical activity, sport and exercise is going to be ever more important going forward, not just for the enjoyment value but the state of the nations health. Therefore, the importance of the sports coach and the role that they play will be infinitely more important.

The child’s experience in sport is critical for the ongoing development of any athlete. However due to various reasons including increased pressure to succeed, children’s sport is often now a negative experience due to pressure placed by coaches to win. According to recent studies, 45% of ten year old boys participate in sports. By the age of eighteen only 26% of them stay active. An overview of youth sports carried out in America showed that dropout is well under way at age ten and peaks at 14-15. This was found across a range of ten different sports. Presently, there is a huge drop out from sport among adolescents. In all sports, almost half as many 16 – 24 year old women take part in sport as men of the same age while only 15% of girls aged 15 in the UK meet recommended daily physical activity levels, and are contributing hugely to the high levels of obesity among our youth.This contrasts strongly with Australia, who who have a huge emphasis in youth sport for the health of their nation. In fact, just recently (Summer 2014), a government minister came out strongly in an address to the nation that the problem of physical inactivity in youth sport among 16 year old girls is getting to dangerous levels as recent metrics showed that participation rates had dipped below 60% – the first time below 60% since metrics were taken.

So they are the facts but are there other contributory reasons for the obesity epidemic?
These may be generalisations in certain cases, though many of these societal and socio-economic reasons will ring true for many people. Through the noughties in Ireland, there existed a building boom that overpriced land, resulting in houses being being squashed together at the expense of play space for children. Had planners been more informed with forward thinking from a societal perspective, would it have been conceivable to put minimal requirements for play space and areas for children in built up suburban areas. If such thought processes were in place, would there be so much concern among parents about letting their children out to play; a genuine concern among many parents due to the speed of traffic on roads in such areas with minimal green space. In such an environment and with the growth of technology and children’s entertainment through social media and computers, occupational sitting time for young children has increased starkly in the past 15 years due to ease of access and reduction in cost.

The huge increase in land and property prices in the mid noughties may also have had an indirect effect on the diets of our children. As house prices increased, it became more of a requirement to have both parents out at work to pay for mortgages and living costs. As a result, fast food became the norm with Chinese, Indian and fast food take away food shops springing up overnight often replacing what was previously a nutritious meal prepared by one of the parents. The major supermarkets even got in on the take away food concept and is now a huge part of their revenue generation with a full aisle often dedicated to high calorie ready made take away meals. Convenience was everything as nobody had time to look after the health of our youth.

The net effect is that now, a cohort of teenagers cannot organise their own games as they never learned how to play in a group setting. How often do you drive through a housing estate and see children playing football, hurling, soccer or any sport for that matter on the green. It doesn’t happen, often because there is no green big enough to play on.

So now as we count the cost of our Celtic tiger greed, it is rarely that we look at the deeper underlying issues we have caused, that without urgent attention, have contributed hugely to the obesity epidemic that will strangle our nation to early death.
​
Keith Begley is an accredited sport psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

​https://twitter.com/KeithBegley    @Keith Begley
​

In what is considered to be one of the greatest acts of sporting humility, Sonny Bill Williams gave his winners medal to a young child after he was tackled by a steward when he ran onto the pitch to greet his heroes after the Rugby World Cup in 2015.
People all over the world were mesmerised by the act.

When the All-Blacks come together, high standards are expected. There was a period when becoming an All-Black granted poster boy status for the newcomers. That was a time when the All-Blacks couldn’t win the world cup despite having the talent to do so. Gilbert Enoka has been their mental skills coach for a number of years. Enoka’s influence extends far beyond his job title as mental skills coach and Wyatt Crockett, the loosehead prop, says the squad view Enoka as the custodian of their culture and a huge part of their winning culture. 

This culture came about after a meeting in 2004 to address the All Blacks malaise. Senior management and players met to lay the ground rules and set expectations under which the All-Blacks would prosper. The meeting would last 3 days after which, a significant cultural overhaul would take place.

According to Team Manager at the time Brian Lochore, their aim was to create an environment that would stimulate players and make them want to be part of. He came up with 6 words that would epitomise that ethos. The phrase “Better people make better All Blacks” still rings true to this day.

Gilbert Enoka felt that by taking a more holistic approach by developing an overall team character template and code of values for the squad, it would garner more emphasis on the importance of team. On the generation of the concept, former coach Graeme Henry said that “The management always felt we had to transfer the leadership from the senior managers to the players...... to play the game you need leadership on the field.”

As such, all players at the time were involved in the identification of the required values and characteristics required of an All-Black. As a result, all players were more invested in the process and to this day every member of the team lives those values to a man, regardless of their status in the squad.

Enoka reinforces this and argues that mental strength is impossible without a strong culture. “To deal with pressure you need to make sure that landscape that everyone lives in and on is solid and sound and has got a blood flow through it that nourishes everyone powerfully. If you neglect nourishing who you are, where you come from and what you are about then you just become a team that operates skin deep; we have to be a team that operates bone deep.”

The All Blacks are unique compared to other teams. Enoka suggests that the difference lies “in the transference of power from the coaches to the leadership group who set and enforce standards among the players. When aberrations occur, a player is answerable to his team-mates rather than the coaches. Ego has to be left at the door; there is a rigidly enforced “no d*ckhead policy” in the squad.”

In an outstanding book about the All Blacks called Legacy, author James Kerr discusses one of their core values that epitomizes the selfless attitude.

It’s called “Sweep the Shed.”

While the goal of every All Blacks player is to leave the national team shirt in a better place than when he got it, his goal is also to contribute to the legacy by doing his part to grow the game and keep the team progressing every single day. In order to do so, the players realize that you must remain humble, and that no one is too big or too famous to do the little things required each and every day to get better. You must eat right. You must sleep well. You must take care of yourself on and off the field. You must train hard. You must sacrifice your own goals for the greater good and a higher purpose.

You must sweep the shed.

After each match, after the camera crews have left, and the coaches are done speaking, there is still a locker room to be cleaned and believe it or not, it is done by none other than the players! All Blacks leading players take turns sweeping the locker room of every last piece of grass, tape, and mud. In the words of Kerr:“Sweeping the shed is all about doing it properly so no one else has to”.

Why?

“Because no one looks after the All Blacks. The All Blacks look after themselves.”

They leave the locker room in a better place than they got it. They leave the shirt in a better place than they got it. They are not there to get. They are there to give and leave a legacy that goes beyond them and the present moment.

Everybody has anxiety! We just all experience different levels of it with some people  more pre-disposed to it than others. It is a topic we hear a lot about recently - a mental health issue that often went undisclosed and unspoken of in times of yore. 

Typically, anxiety can be categorised into 2 levels;
1. Trait Anxiety
2. State anxiety

We all have a natural level of anxiety. We call this our trait anxiety or the level of anxiety that we are normally predisposed to. This can vary between individuals with highly anxious individuals experiencing a high level trait anxiety.

While this natural level of anxiety varies for many, it can elevate significantly, mostly due to a perceived level of threat in one's environment. We call this fear induced state our level of "state anxiety".  

For example, different things trigger different levels of threat for different people. Some are afraid of heights, of water, of rats or snakes or even the dark etc. Others may be unaffected by any of these but could be negatively affected by other things such as enclosed spaces, large crowds, spiders, authoritave people, dictatorial work environments, sporting situations, certain fabrics or even awkward social experiences  around people with whom you feel uncomfortable. These are just some of numerous possible examples.

​This elevated level of "state anxiety" is usually higher than one's "trait" level of anxiety.  Generally, this is specific to certain situations as outlined in the examples above and can  also vary between situations and between individuals. Put simply, ones resting level of anxiety (trait level) is generally significantly less than the level at which they are predisposed to in an uncomfortable situation.
​
Spielberger (1997) defined anxiety as "subjective, consciously perceived feelings of tension and apprehension, associated with the arousal of the autonomic nervous system”
​
​The part of the brain that facilitates rational decision making processes in the brain is called the "frontal lobe" or pre-frontal cortex. However, when one finds themselves in a perceived uncomfortable situation as the brain detects threat, rational decision making or frontal lobe function is reduced as it interacts with the brain's threat detector!

​It is reduced due to the triggering of the part of the brain that helps us detect threat - the hippocampus. The hippocampus performs a vital role in our daily lives. Working in tandem with the frontal lobe, it functions as a monitoring process that helps us to react to danger in the environment. The function of the hippocampus ensures that we react  to avoid an oncoming car, that we react to negotiate obstacles in our pathway - a lamp-post, a pothole or a flying implement. Without it functioning, we simply would not physically survive.  

These parts of the brain (frontal lobe and hippocampus) work within a circuitry loop in tandem with a tiny element at the centre of the brain - the amygdala. In high stress scenarios when elevated threat is detected by the hippocampus, rational thought over-ruled and fear or self doubt experienced, the amygdala is known to enlarge significantly. In high stress scenario's, this triggers the onset of the arousal of the nervous system, resulting in one of three different responses; fight, flight or freeze. In such instances of elevated perceived threat, irrational thinking sees that one's mind can go into overdrive, stimulating over-arousal of the central nervous system, often resulting in needless worry - inducing both physical, psychological and behavioral responses. 

Physical stress responses
Sweaty Palms
Trembling hands 
General Sweating
Hyper-ventilation
Increased need to use toilet
Dry throat
Increased heart rate
Nausea

Psychological stress symptoms
Worrisome thoughts 
Lack of clear thinking
Inability to sleep
Irrational decision making

Behavioural responses
Avoidance
Compliance
Inability to express inner thoughts

Combined at a high level, it can induce mild or moderate panic attacks or what we know as psycho-somatic stress.

These feelings of anxiety may be experienced in any amount of domains - work, business, education, sport or in general life and are generally experienced within a threatening environment.

A recent Gallup Report suggests that anxiety is very prevalent in work environments and that anxiety is one of the main reasons for work absenteeism. Work-place bullying, poor leadership practice, unfair treatment and other undesirable behaviors within a work environment often evoke such feelings in others to a degree that they no longer feel comfortable within a threatening work environment. In such an environment, employees in a fear based climate become less interested in the success of the company, the quality of the product or service, or the customer experience. Their priority often takes the form of just getting to the end of the day without experiencing that anxiety and or sense of threat. 

In such instances, the work-place represents nothing but resentment for employees and they become more concerned with compliance and keeping their jobs, while often feeling inhibited in expressing themselves within the work environment. Many even plan out their day to avoid contact with the aggressor - the person who undermines them or the person they perceive as the threat to their well-being.

As such, work-place leadership plays a major role in the creation of a positive group dynamic and leaders must ensure that all employees are treated fairly and with respect to engender a positive motivational climate within the work environment. Where this does not exist, work-place leaders are duty bound to ensure that any cliques or bullying behaviour is stopped and a sense of fairness and respect is afforded to all.

So my advice is that if the "threat" is having an overbearing ​negative impact on your life, your challenge is to deal with it as best as you can. If there is something that you can do to remove this threat from your daily life, then take action to do just that.

If it isn't something you can remove fully or even immediately, then equipping yourself to be better able to handle it is a good start. Positive self talk may help, as can having somebody to talk to that makes you feel better about yourself - whether that is a friend, a colleague, a family member or a mental health professional. 

​Relaxation techniques such as mindfulness, exercise and or progressive muscular relaxation may also help you find that mind/body balance to help you get through the day.

​
Everyone is entitled to live an anxiety free life, but sometimes you have just got to empower yourself to take charge of your own life and take control of the threats within your environment.

Doubt your doubts and not your beliefs. Back yourself. If others can do it, then you can too! 

​Numerous accounts of high profile athlete's suffering from depression have surfaced in recent times. This openness and honesty is both refreshing and healthy as it normalises issues that affects the majority of families at some level in some shape or form. Previously, people suffered in silence, almost ashamed to reveal their reality to the people around them. Truth be told, it is extremely common, normal and most importantly, very treatable! Unfortunately, some still choose to keep their struggles to themselves due to a perceived stigma around mental health and some unfortunately take it to the next level - often a permanent solution to a temporary problem. 

The NHS (2010) have diagnosed depression as having at least four of the following feelings for over two weeks.

• Suicidal thoughts
• Poor concentration
• Significant weight loss or gain
• Sadness and irritability
• Depressed mood
• Low energy
• Loss of interest or pleasure
• Feelings of guilt or low self worth
• Disturbed sleep or appetite

These problems can become chronic or recurrent and lead to substantial impairments in an individual’s ability to take care of his or her everyday responsibilities as they fall into a place of dis-satisfaction they might never have experienced previously. 

Former USA Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps revealed his mental health struggles after retirement while many former premiership footballers have reported to struggle in life since leaving football due to a sense of emptiness and lack of purpose. As we all know, some former well known players ended it all through suicide.

Numerous former greats turn to alcohol and drugs to replace the natural highs they once received off the adulation, adrenalin and dopamine release they received from competing  in front of big crowds. When high performance athletes retire, they often struggle with the monotony of regular daily life, as their sense of self worth and identity is tied too tightly to their athletic identity. Everybody wanted a piece of the athlete but the goldfish bowl doesn't last forever and many ex premier league soccer players report to be financially broke within 5 years of finishing their playing career. In fact a study has recently revealed that up to 40% of them get divorced within five years of retiring, further adding to their difficulties.

Neil Ruddock revealed his struggles in a recent TV documentary while Irish Internationals, Jason McAteer and Paul McGrath in particular revealed struggles with depression and coping through it all in their respective autobiographies. Former 400m Irish athlete David Gillic also revealed his struggles recently after retiring, while an ex-Arsenal star of the early nineties was reported recently to have fallen on hard times - struggling with addiction and homelessness in London. 

The stark reality is that many of these athletes live in a goldfish bowl for much of their adult lives. They are mostly considered to have a high status in society and most would have developed a significantly high level of self esteem through their mastery of sport as they grew through their adolescent years. In professional football,  many are flush with cash and with clubs providing people to service their every whim, (from laundry to buying car insurance), many do not develop the life skills to survive once they leave their sport.

​"Joe Public" tends to be all about "Alan" the athlete but once you are released, you are on your own as "Joe Public" pays homage to the next wave of stars! The ex-player can sometimes feel left out and on their own, often trying to find a new identity outside of sport where they realise that things will never again be like they used to be. Many struggle with this sense of loss of not being involved in sport!

While I would acknowledge that clubs are now more aware of this area, many club chairmen do not fully understand the mental anguish that can develop in elite level athletes that are ill-equipped to deal with the strain of daily life post retirement. 

​German goalkeeper Robert Enke ended it all a few years ago as he struggled to cope with depression. Numerous former superstar boxers have died in tragic circumstances as they struggle to live a life without the fame and adulation they received during their careers. We don't need to look too far in Ireland either as one of our former Olympic medalist boxers died in tragic circumstances while struggling with the black dog. Tyson Fury (Former World Heavy-Weight Champion) also revealed recently that he has had his struggles. He went into a deep spell of depression after losing his world title, gaining a significant amount of weight. He now speaks openly about his experience regularly and now advocates for positive mental health for others like him! 

​So how is this linked and what is happening?

There is a very strong link between exercise and depression. In fact causes of depression are known to come from

• Low serotonin levels (Stockmeier, 1997)
• Past experiences
• Mourning
• Underactive or overactive thyroid (Awad, 2000)

​Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter, of which low levels are linked to depression. When the body is engaged in exercise, serotonin is slowly released from the brain and into the body to help muscles relax. Think of how you feel after a long swim!

As sports people transition through their career into a non playing phase either through retirement or injury, they can move from being extremely active to doing very little in a short space of time. They go from releasing significant levels of serotonin regularly to releasing very little and as a result, can become quite depressed. 

This release of serotonin also affects the workings of the thyroid gland. If the balance is not right, the thyroid gland may become under-active or over-active. The thyroid gland controls metabolic rate and if it is not working properly, can cause you to experience various symptoms.

If your thyroid gland is overactive, one could feel very speeded up, lose weight and have symptoms similar to mania. If a thyroid is under-active, one might feel sluggish and lethargic, while some can struggle with their weight as diets might not necessarily adjust or align with the reduction in calories burned - many continue to eat like they did when they were training. Some struggle with their appearance, lose their general zest for daily life, much of which can be influenced by poor lifestyle choices. Either way, many just slowly fall into a state of depression and neglect their bodies as they move away from an active lifestyle. In fact, Simon et al (2006) suggested that you have a 25% greater chance of suffering from anxiety or depression if you get to the stage where you become obese. 

Of course, this isn't exclusive to the famed and rich sporting stars of the past and present and the exercise / serotonin / depression relationship can be a huge factor for any athlete transitioning through their sporting career - through injury or otherwise. 

Generally, we know that if exercise is maintained, then there is a much lower risk. In fact one meta-analysis study (Biddle, 2009) revealed that at least 33 clinical studies have identified that regular physical activity has a positive effect on mood and subjective well-being . Stathopoulou & Powers (2006) and Chaouloff (1997) showed that exercise improved psychological and emotional health as it

• Reduces/alleviates depression, stress and anxiety.
• Reduces negative mood and enhances positive mood.
• Enhances self-esteem, confidence and sleep
• Improves quality of life.
• Improves social relationships.
• Increase serotonin levels in the brain

For others, the depression is nothing to do with serotonin. Mourning of a lost loved one or traumatic past experience can also be a significant factor. Some may struggle with the pressure to perform and the constant scrutiny that goes with the nature of social media. Unfortunately, anonymous blogs slating athlete performances are a regular occurrence and some athletes leave themselves open to such scrutiny by engaging with negative fans through their Twitter and Instagram accounts. 

Others struggle with the perception that everyone else is having a blast and enjoying the party scene as old friends and acquaintances post aspects of their social lives online. The nature of a sporting career doesn't allow as much for such engagement and some athletes struggle with a perceived "fear of missing out" (FOMO) with many wishing they could just live a normal life without the adulation and attention that their sporting success brings. 
 
So what is the moral of the story?

• Value the fact that your training made you feel good so find a form of exercise you enjoy even if you are not training to be an elite athlete.
• There are issues that exercise and serotonin release cannot fix. Such issues can normally be alleviated through use of talk therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.  
• No man is an island. Seek help with a professional or talk openly to somebody you trust about how you feel, no matter how bad it is. A problem shared is a problem halved.
• Educate yourself and prepare yourself as best you can for post career transition. 
• Don’t believe the lie that everybody including your friends is fantastically happy from their posts and pictures in social media - many are just putting on a front!

Please “Share” or “Like” if you find this article interesting………

​It may have an impact on one of your friends that is suffering in silence…….

​​Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport.

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The nervousness started the night before the game. A former team-mate, with whom he shared a room in the early stages of his career, once called his attention to it. "He said he did everything he could to try to fall asleep before me. Before games, my right foot would twitch so hard that the entire duvet would rustle. It drove him crazy. I never noticed until he said it to me" 
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Then there's the diarrhea he got on the mornings of matches - looking back, he says it happened on more than 500 days of his life. "I had to go to the bathroom right after getting up, right after breakfast, again after lunch and again at the stadium. Everything I ate just passed right on through."

For a while, all he could eat were noodles with a little olive oil. He couldn't eat any later than four hours before a game to ensure that his stomach was guaranteed to be totally empty when the nausea started. Everything surrounding the prospect of playing the games just made him want to puke.

The nausea came four to five seconds before kickoff. Once he took his position on the pitch, surrounded by roaring fans, he knew that it was coming. Every time, once again, he had to give it his all for 90 minutes. The sum total of the value of his being would be reduced to the level of his performance for the 90 minutes of the game. The stress and anxiety this brought was excruciating!

The tension, he says, became almost unbearable. "My stomach started churning and I felt like I was going to throw up. Then I had to choke so hard that I teared up." He always turned his head to the side with his chin facing his shoulder so that no one could see what was happening - no TV cameras, no coaches, no teammates; so that nobody would ever ask what was wrong. 

Per Mertesacker, the quiet, confident defender - didn't want anybody to know what was wrong with him - a member of the 2014 World Cup-winning German national team and former captain of Arsenal. 
(adapted from http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-with-mertesacker-about-exit-from-arsenal-football-a-1198260-amp.html)

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​In 1996 in Atlanta, Sonia O' Sullivan was set to win Olympic gold for Ireland on the track as the red hot favourite. The nerves got the better of her. She left the track, distraught with anxiety with many laps remaining.

We have often heard the difficulties of players struggling to sleep on the night before an All-Ireland final as they struggle to contend with the possibility that they might become part of history the following day! ​These are the feelings than some high performing sports stars experience prior to or during sporting performances in highly charged stadiums.

Much of this is influenced by the debilitating fear of failure where athletes struggle to maintain normal levels of anxiety often resulting in the inability to perform readily doable skills under their perceived feelings of extreme pressure. 

All Black psychologist Gilbert Enoka suggests that the brain delivers three types of response when challenged in a stressful environment – instinct, emotional and thought response. When anxiety increases, the part of the brain responsible for rational thought (pre-frontal cortex) is lessened as the part detecting threat (hippocampus) takes over.  When this occurs, it fires an even smaller part of our brain (amygdala) to enlarge, increasing our emotional and instinctive response while reducing our rational thought and ability to think clearly under pressure.

​Dr Steve Peters (a psychiatrist that has worked with elite athletes eg: Team SKY, Liverpool FC and England football) termed this the "Chimp Paradox". The body always does what the brain tells it to do but if the brain is controlled by instinct and emotion and not rational thought, then we have lost control.

Emotional and instinctive decisions can be somewhat erratic and often incorrect ones. For the 2011 Rugby World Cup, The All-Blacks sought to address this area as it had scuppered their World Cup attempts previously. They needed needed their players to steer towards decisions that are thought induced, made by clear and rational minds and that aren’t overwhelmed by the stress and pressure of the occasion. For that to happen they needed them to be calm under pressure.

They worked on control of attention to alleviate anxiety in pressure situations - a preventative intervention to reduce the chances of their minds becoming over-heated, tense and frustrated.

With the help of Gazing Performance Systems, they described the All-Blacks to be H.O.T when under pressure in tight games.

• Heated
• Over-whelmed
• Tense

They called this “Red Head” – where one is no longer in control.

Other unhelpful characteristics of having a “Red Head” might be

• Tight
• inhibited
• results oriented
• anxious
• aggressive
• over-compensating
• desperate

They required the players to have a “Blue Head” – one of calmness that can maintain clarity of consciousness, situational awareness, accurate analysis and have the ability to make good decisions under pressure.

Typically, a “Blue Head” would have the following characteristics.

• Loose
• Expressive
• In the Moment
• Calm
• Clear
• Accurate
• On task

Such a state of consciousness allows you to see the bigger picture, remain on task, and attend to relevant stimuli. Put simply, it allows the players to process the information at hand and make correct decisions.

While some have tricks to try and alleviate it, some prefer to just hope for the best and  travel on the morning of the game having slept in their own beds. Some bring their own pillows with them while others have been known to sleep in an empty bath tub to try and avoid the snores of a sleeping room-mate!

Distraction can also work well! Kerry football legend Jack O'Shea was famous for playing a few rounds of pitch and putt on the morning of every All-Ireland final. Others are known to arrange to meet friends with no interest in sport or switch off by watching a DVD or film. The Dublin footballers hang out in the Gibson hotel and have access to pool tables, table tennis and other amusements on the morning of an All-Ireland final and most big games - anything to take your mind off the game can be helpful. 

​While it wouldn't be recommended now, GAA folklore is full of stories of players taking a "shot" of brandy to settle the nerves before going out to play a county final. Some of the Kerry footballers of the 1980's and a few of the Offaly hurlers of the 1990's were known to have a few "quiet drinks" on the night before a big game to help them sleep better! 

Some just don't play to their potential or struggle to deal with performing on the big day! 
​
Any performance psychologist worth their salt should be adept in advice around anxiety management and mental preparation for big day scenarios whether that is attentional focus strategies, distraction, relaxation or breathing techniques.
​

​​Are you interested in learning more about sport psychology, leadership and winning culture? Take a look at my new online course where you can learn how effective use of sport psychology can enhance your coaching and athlete performance. Course link here:  www.udemy.com/course/applied-sport-psychology-and-leadership-in-sport/

Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @Keith Begley
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​At the football World Cup 2018 in Russia, the president of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović flew to Russia economy class. She took a regular seat with her fans in the stadium at all of the matches bar the semi-final with England where she was busy at a NATO conference. At the final, she is spotted in the crowd with her people and invited to the VIP section. She is told she can't wear her jersey or nation's colours in this section. She wears them anyway - supporting her team all the way!

​After the narrow loss, she is invited to the presentation podium with national leaders of both Russia and France. While other leaders stand under umbrellas, she greets her team and the opposition with pride in the spilling rain getting drowned wet! She embraces each player at the end, both winners and runners alike like long lost sons! Social media takes it viral! The people of Croatia are ultra proud!

Leadership is something that is difficult to quantify. There are those that are naturally good leaders and there are those that can develop into good leaders over a period of time. There is huge value from an economic standpoint to having good leadership in a business or any organisation.

​As we all know, there is a cost to poor leadership or management in any company or organisation! The cost can be financial and occur through needless hemorrhaging of staff due to poor people management / leadership. The company can experience financial costs through training new staff and reduction in output of front line people. The cost can also be an asset loss or people capital cost as strong experienced staff with much experience, positive customer relations and know how are needlessly disenfranchised and leave the organisation. 

From an employee perspective, poor leadership can have more serious personal costs. It can go as far as to cause mental health issues within individuals in a given organisation due to work related stress, depression and or anxiety. In fact, research has shown employee days lost due to mental ill-health costs approximately 500 million euro in revenue per annum in Ireland. An even bigger cost is that of "presenteeism" a state of being present at work but disengaged due to poor leadership. In fact, research has shown "presenteeism" to cost up to 3.5 billion euro to businesses in Ireland.

Given such figures, leadership and leadership development is important and might be worth investing in! However, we can only invest in it if we actually know what it is!

Some years ago, a research team at Google set out on a study to figure out what good leadership looked like and what makes teams successful. They called the study Project Aristotle, a tribute to the philosopher's famous quote: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." 

They analysed various teams within their company, interviewing hundreds of executives, team leaders and team members in the process. They discovered that a number of factors contributed to a team's effectiveness. However one factor more than any was considered the single greatest influence on a team's effectiveness - a factor  described as "psychological safety." 

"In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members," wrote the researchers. "They feel confident that no one on the team will ridicule, embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea." 

In essence, trust is a central feature of an effective, high performing team!

Business is mostly about people and positive relationships and trust is a central element of a positive relationships. We all know the saying, "Buy cheap, buy twice"! Customers want to trust their suppliers or the relationship will break down.

Equally, employees want to trust their leaders or bosses or the relationship will break down! Employees want to trust that leaders have their best interest at heart and if they do, they will do a lot for the said leader.

So how do we build that trust and a sense of purpose in a work environment? 

What we know from psychology research is that employees generally will work hard if they are “emotionally engaged” in a process. They will only get to this point if they feel valued by their peers and leaders! A leader can help followers be emotionally engaged by showing them high levels of fairness and that they care. Care you ask?

Followers will remember if they felt valued by a leader. They will also remember if they felt let down, disrespected, under-valued etc. Sir Alex Ferguson made a special effort to get to know all members of staff at Manchester United. He made it his business to know their spouses names and always showed interest in what was going on in their lives and encourage his players to do the same. He did the same for his players and got the best out of them as a result. He was a people manager. Manage your people and the results will look after themselves!

There is plenty of research on leadership and leadership style and its effect on group success. "Transformational Leadership" - a phrase first coined by James Downtown in 1973  has been proven scientifically to be the best and most effective type of leadership across business, education and sport. Transformational Leadership is known to empower rather than control followers. Such leaders inspire, develop and challenge followers (Yukl, 2006) by acting as role models, showing concern for followers and transcending their own self interest for the overall betterment of the group.

Such leaders are known to inspire, through formulating a vision, challenging followers to reach realistic goals, encouraging ownership and involvement by stimulating them intellectually to solve old problems in new ways. Such leadership has been shown to be associated with increases in motivation and performance (Charbonneau, Barling & Kelloway, 2001; Ruwold 2006) and group cohesion (Callow, Smith, Hardy, Arthur & Hardy 2009).

A scientifically validated measure (Transformation Leadership Inventory (TLI) identifies six leadership behaviours which are considered transformational in nature. 

Inspirational Motivation (where leaders inspire followers with their vision for the future).

Leaders sharing their vision for the company with followers can give employees a sense of ownership of the development of the company and take pride in their work as a result. Inspiring them by regularly getting "down and dirty" with the front line staff can generate a sense of empathy and shared experience with your followers and will help to negate an "us versus them" hierarchical feeling among employees.
​

​Appropriate Role Modelling (where leaders lead by example in the way they conduct themselves and live their lives in the manner that they would like their followers to do)

Michael O'Leary (CEO of Ryanair - while not hugely popular at times with certain unions) is known to often help out with check in and baggage handling when needs be. He is a no nonsense positive sort of influence who "mucks in" when the time is required! Again such a dynamic mindset is one that will build trust and sense of "shared experience" with his employees. 

Fostering Acceptance of Group Goals (where leaders incorporate followers in the devising of, accepting of and striving towards a common agreed goal)

Including followers in the development of their own targets and goals incorporates a sense of ownership among a group of followers where they are more likely feel a greater sense of control and autonomy over their own development. 

Individual Consideration (where leaders show concern for followers individualistic needs)

There will be times where individuals specific cases and needs will need to be factored in. A one size fits all approach can often be debilitating. Bending the "rules" at times to facilitate an individual's personal need or requirement can lend a follower in having even greater respect for you as a leader. This will result in a build in trust and increase in effort levels on the followers part. 

Showing concern for your followers everyday lives, interests and important events is crucial for them feeling valued, listened to and connected within the organisation. This alone can have a significant impact on their level of loyalty, likelihood to stay and effort levels over future periods. If they feel valued they are more likely to stay!

High Performance Expectations (where leaders promote excellence and performance criteria for followers in the attainment of set goals) 

Somebody has to set standards. While external forces setting performance criteria occurs mostly in a production or sales setting, involvement of key members of staff throughout the organisation is crucial in engendering a sense of ownership throughout the organisation and avoiding a perceived hierarchical top down approach which can be debilitating to an organisation.

Intellectual Stimulation (where coach challenges players to assess their methods and how to improve them) 

Despite management or leaders and followers having a sense that there is a hierarchy, the expertise of the front line tasks generally lies with front line workers. Tapping into such expertise, taking the time to find out how they think a task could be done better can prove invaluable in giving followers a sense of ownership, while it can also be helpful in the build up of trust between leaders and followers. Give them scope to explore new ideas. A simple thing like a suggestion box or a knowledge sharing "power hour" once a month could prove very beneficial to an organisation in streamlining services or actions for the benefit of the organisation. It gives front line workers a voice and a sense of value that what they think matters and that their thoughts are being listened to! 

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte won over the hearts and minds of a group of cleaners at a subway station recently. After spilling his coffee going through the turn-style, he proceeded to mop up his mess to the bemusement and appreciation of the cleaning staff. See below.

Keith Begley is a member of BASES and an accredited performance psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport.

Find us on Facebook: Performance Psychology Ireland

https://twitter.com/KeithBegley       @KeithBegley
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