The mental skills report card is a self assessment of mental skills that individuals complete at the end of a game, match or important situation where they “should” have used one or more mental skills to help them perform to their potential.
Mental coaches and cognitive behavioral therapists use self monitoring tools to help individuals stay focused on training and evaluating new mental skills that are taught and then incorporated into the individual’s life.
Typical mental skills to enhance performance of all kinds include: confidence, concentration, calmness, communication, managing mistakes, performing well in pressure situations, recovering from adversity, etc.
Depending on the needs and goals of the individual, the psychologist teaches strategies to develop each of the mental skills. Once learned, the individual starts to incorporate them into their personal circumstances, then self rates their implementation of the mental skills and how effective they felt they were in using them.
Self recording of mental skills helps the individual and the mental coach evaluate the effectiveness of the mental skills training program and fine tune things as needed.
Regularly recording one’s mental skills reinforces the important of using mental skills and provides a more accurate evaluation as to their usefulness.
A mental skills report card can be a simple index card with the skills written on them and a checklist or rating scale that looks at frequency of use and effectiveness of use or it can have individual questions such as:
- I remembered to breathe slowly and deeply for up to 5 minutes before giving my presentation (or at the beginning of my game).
- When I missed a shot I immediately forgot about it and pictured hitting it successfully the next time.
By regularly reviewing and recording your mental skills progress, the skills eventually become a habit and you find yourself using them without even thinking about it.
