Game Ready Mindset™ Articles
Practical writing on mental readiness, pressure, confidence and team culture for athletes, coaches and parents, by Scott K. Wilder.
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Pressure and ResetsMental Toughness and ReadinessConfidence and FocusBreathing and the Nervous SystemFor CoachesTeam CultureYoung Athletes and ParentsBaseball and SoftballSoccer
Pressure and Resets
- Your Brain Has a Background App Problem
- The Fence Reset: Leaving Distractions Outside the Lines
- Practice the Emergency Before It's Real
- The Tighter You Grip, the Worse You Perform
- What Did You Do With It? Reframing Performance Nerves
Mental Toughness and Readiness
- The Brittle Player
- "Control the Controllables" Isn't Enough
- What W. Edwards Deming Would Say About Mental Readiness
- Why Players Quit Mentally: What the Science of Perception and Effort Reveals
- Know Thyself on the Pitch
- Mental Toughness Was Built for the 2%. Readiness Is Built for Everyone Else.
- The Mental Edge: What Research Tells Us About Elite Performance
- Mental Training Isn’t a Fire Extinguisher
- Your Brain Rewires Itself Every Time You Train
- The Shock Absorber: Why Mental Toughness Is Built, Not Born
- What Ted Lasso Taught Me About Sports Mental Readiness
Confidence and Focus
- Backward Thinkers: Gaining the RPM Advantage
- Confidence Isn't a Mood. It's a Receipt.
- Confidence Starts with Trusting Your Game
- The Play You Couldn’t Control (And the Part You Could)
- A Little Out of Your Depth: The Nine Dimensions of Flow
- Seeing It First: The Science of Visualization in Sport
Breathing and the Nervous System
For Coaches
- Coaching to Temperament: One Intensity Script Doesn't Fit Every Player
- Reading Your Players' Body Language: What Athletes Are Broadcasting
- Compliance vs. Commitment: Why Fear-Based Coaching Has Limits
- The Mental Load of Coaching Soccer
- The Three Pillars of Team Success
- The Impact of Cell Phones and Social Media on Athletic Performance
- It's Okay to Be Unsettled: Helping Athletes Who Try Too Hard
- Mental Ball: What Moneyball Got Right About Scouting and the Mental Game
- The Six-Dollar Baseball
- Young Coach, Old-School Mindset
Team Culture
Young Athletes and Parents
- Calming the Young Athlete's Nervous System
- The Coach Who Knew How to Crack the Code
- What Mental Skills Training Does for Your Athlete’s Future
- No Messing Up, Just Leveling Up
- The Soccer Parent's Tryout Playbook
- The Nerves We Don't Talk About: Performance Anxiety in Young Athletes
Baseball and Softball
- Bottom of the Seventh: What a Six-Run Deficit Taught Us About Mental Readiness
- The Cage May Be Training Panic
- Your Body Is Always Talking: What Posture Broadcasts in Baseball
Soccer
- The 7 Psychological Skills of Soccer Excellence
- Athlete Career Transitions in Soccer
- Building a Mental Performance Program: A Research-Based Framework for Soccer Coaches
- Compliance vs. Commitment in Soccer
- Dealing with Scoring Droughts, Form Loss, and Poor Runs in Soccer
- Mental Fitness Is Half the Game: What Soccer Coaches Need to Know
- Soccer, Mental Health, and the Coach's Role
- Fear of Failure in Soccer: Why Fear of Mistakes Costs You Opportunities
- Why Players Quit Mentally Before They Quit Physically
- The Same Penalty Kick, Taken by Two Different Minds
- What Soccer Analytics Can Teach Us About Mental Performance
About the author
Scott K. Wilder is the founder of Game Ready Mindset™, a program and platform for teams and athletic programs, working with players, position groups, and teams in baseball, soccer, softball, and volleyball. He holds a Master’s from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now Sofia University), an MBA from New York University, and a Master’s in International Studies and Conflict Resolution from The Johns Hopkins University, with coaching credentials from Georgetown University, Brian Cain’s MPM Program, the National Federation of High Schools, and FC Barcelona Football Club. He is the author of Millennial Leaders, Find What Energizes You (just published), and Compete in Any Weather.