Developing a Personalized Mental Skills Plan for a Sport or Exercise Activity

Throughout the term, students will develop a personalized Mental Skills Plan (MSP) applied to a sport or exercise activity of their choice. The student must be actively participating in the sport or activity during the term and apply three mental skills to the activity.

Students will use knowledge acquired and personal reflections/insights from in-class experiential labs, course lecture notes, course textbook and academic research articles. The goal of this project is for students to design a mental skills program for themselves and actively implement it throughout the term.

1. Introduction (10 marks)

a. Background about the subject (i.e. who are you? Age?)

b. Sport experience – how long have you been participating in your sport or activity? Include any details about your experience.

c. What is your prior experience with mental skills? Have you taken workshops? Utilized mental skills prior to this MSP? Explain.

d. Define Mental Skills – use an academic definition

e. Define Mental Skills programs – use an academic definition

f. State the purpose of this paper. What is your goal for your Mental Skills Plan? How long was your program?

2. Rationale (10 marks)

a. What is the purpose of an MSP broadly? (use academic articles that explain the purpose of an MSP for athletes)

b. Explain what an MSP is. What does academic literature suggest?

c. Explain how your MSP was developed (i.e. the 3 Global Assessments – Muscat Spider, TOPS, Performance Profile)

d. Why did you choose your 3 mental skills? Explain in relation to assessments and your sport or activity.

e. Include a theoretical model (traditional or mindfulness) that was adapted to your program.

f. Explain each element of the model and how it relates to your 3 chosen mental skills

3. Mental Skills sections (10 marks x 3 = 30 marks total)

a. Define the mental skill and explain any relevant literature and/or theories.

b. Explain all assessments relevant to the chosen mental skill. Explain what the assessment is and interpret results.

c. Explain the chosen intervention. Justify the intervention.

d. Explain how you tracked progress (i.e. journaling, reflections, worksheet, etc.). Students must include some evidence of tracking in the  Appendices of the paper. If tracking is explained but there is not evidence, students will not receive full marks.

4. Evaluation (10 marks)

a. Explain how each individual mental skill was monitored, tracked and evaluated. Evidence must be included in the paper that exemplifies this.

b. Include in-depth reflection of your experience with the implementation of each intervention.

c. Limitations of your program (ex. Short length of time, no sport psychologist assisting you, time of season, etc.)

5. Conclusion (5 marks)

a. What were the strengths of your MSP?

b. What were the challenges that you encountered?

c. What would you do differently if you were to implement this program again?

d. What improvements would you make?