by Arthur L. Popp, Ph.D.

Mindfulness is causing quite a stir lately.  What’s worth knowing? First, a common understanding of mindfulness is being present with attention and curiosity such that our biases and feelings don’t interfere. We can improve our mindfulness through practice, often known as meditation, focusing or grounding.

So far, so good.  To be mindful calls for related skills.  A very important one is managing the thoughts and emotions in our heads.  In western cultures many of us were raised to interact politely and effectively with people and organizations that were part of our daily lives.  We weren’t trained to “put a lid on”  what went on in our heads as well as mindfulness calls for.

Thoughts and feelings can “…kind of hook us, and reel us in, … jerk us around, and …pull us all over the place.”(Harris, p. 11). Certainly, managing emotions is a very big part of performance in sports. So controlling emotions and their related cognitions is key.

Grasping what we can and cannot control is a second related skill. A lot can fill our heads and lead to anxiety and stress. In much of life, especially sports, it helps to attend to what we can control and put aside, and preferably out of mind, what we can’t. We can put together a football game plan based on film and scouting reports.  But, come game day, we’re best off doing the basics well and staying with the plan, especially at the high school level. There are simply limits to how much we can control the opposition.

This leads to the last and very central skill often associated with mindfulness. That skill  is working on the process and minimizing the disruptive influence of thinking about outcomes, especially the final score. Rob Polishook made the distinction quite well for tennis, at least for a brief overview:

Outcome goals focus on  …the end result, while process goals focus on the steps a player must take to have the best chance  to achieve … (an) outcome goal. For example, an outcome goal might be to win a tournament, while a process goal could be to improve serving accuracy, third shot drops, or staying calm … between points.(2025).

Building the skill of working with  process goals calls for a workshop all by itself! It’s not an easy skill to acquire. However, the Process formed the cornerstone of the strategy of one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, Nick Saban who won 7 national championships, 6 at Alabama and one at L.S.U. .(Burke, 131-133).   A further component for Saban’s approach is  the educational principle of breaking the parts of a skill into manageable sub-skills for teaching and learning.

So, there’s certainly more to mindfulness than first meets the eye.

References

• Burke, Monte.(2015). Saban, the making of a coach.
• Harris, Russ. (2019). ACT made simple, (2nd ed.)
• Polishook, Rob. Goal Setting: How to Plan Your Success? Long Island Tennis. May/June 2025. p. 15.