Sports Psychology Skills in the Workplace

Performance psychology plays a role in the workplace. Top business people understand the need for performance psychology and see the use for sports psychology in the workplace, they strive for success as do top athletes and notice the need to develop the mental side of their performance. Sports Psychology is transferable into the workplace environment, research in a sports environment can be applied to the business world (Woods, 2014). Due to the emphasis on performance output in the corporate environment, it is believed that by adopting the principles of sport psychology, employees can learn how to use mental skills, not only to enhance their performance in the work place, but also to deal with daily life stressors. (Gagne, 2014)

The instances which primarily transfer include pressure, rewards, challenge and competition these situation are normal referred to in a sporting world but are found in the workplace.

There are common instances where the psychological skills adopted by top sports people translate and positively affect top business people and companies as a whole. Mental skills targets areas of performance such as motivation, attitude, self-confidence and team cohesion all of which work towards positively effecting stress, relaxation and vision while controlling emotion a contributing factor towards consistent focus. Top athletes have proven that the mental edge is a contributing factors towards success, with the proven link between sports and business in terms of psychology the same is true in the business world (Hallett & Hoffman, 2014)

1. Motivation, although it is obvious motivation in a sports context can be broadly referred to as an athlete’s long term journey towards success and motivation is the driving factor behind daily goals. Transfer this into a business context motivation is the driving force behind a person getting up every day and actively engaging in their work in order to progress over a long term. Not only is this beneficial for the worker but for the company as a whole the optimal performance will increase (Hallett & Hoffman, 2014).

2. Energy, not just in the physical sense but in terms of their mental energy to focus on a task until completion and not the stray from their goals. The overall energy if maintained through proper nutrition, emotions physical fitness and mental skills adaptation. Sports psychology in the workplace looks to work on these skills over time and with proper implementation as with an athlete can lead to a more consistent overall performance (Gagne, 2014).

Benefits of adopting Sport Psychology not only work for the workplace as a whole but for the individuals involved in the workplace. For the individual it can create consistency in workplace performance while under pressure as with athletes competing in sports. Sports Psychology can save costs due to increased motivation from satisfaction in the workplace through improving the atmosphere and the creativity of solutions with workers becoming fully engaged in their work. These are just some of the many benefits exhibited by workers through the proper implementations of sports psychology in the workplace (Hallett & Hoffman, 2014).