Drey Ricks “High-level athletes are consistently using mantras for preparation, relaxation, and imaging to optimize their performance.” The Sports Performance Analyst Drey Ricks believes this permits the development of concentration and motivation, managing emotions, and game-day stress.
It is possible to define having the proper mindset as one of the best techniques that athletes learn and then apply automatically to develop and optimize their game-day performance.
Anticipating performance or competition can be a source of stress for an unprepared athlete. In sports psychology, many studies have explored emotional states as a determining condition of athletic performance.
According to Drey Ricks “The “proper mindset” includes the effective management of positive achievements, emotions, relationships, commitment and optimal mental state.”
This concept becomes very important because it focuses athletes’ attention on what is positive in each situation. Drey Ricks promotes the development of these positive elements, control, and use at critical moments in the athlete’s competition, which is a real challenge in realizing sports performances. The main interest of the “right mindset” for the athlete is to focus on the elements that would make it possible to achieve athletic performance and not focus on the aspects that would disturb it.
Most athletes who perform poorly get caught in the vicious cycle of low confidence and performance. Once you slip into that downward spiral, you rarely can get out of it in the short term. In contrast, “athletes with prime confidence maintain their confidence and seek out ways to return to their previous level.”, Drey Ricks.
Drey Ricks believes all athletes will go through periods where they don’t perform well. The skill is not getting caught in the vicious cycle and being able to get out of the down periods quickly.