Why Train Psychological Skills and Abilities?

Every ship at sea needs a direction. To reach any destination, fuel and planning are necessary.
If an athlete, in their pursuit of progress, pays no attention to psychological training — especially at the highest level — then their ship in this sea won't be efficient enough.
Attention won't be given to certain specific details.
For example, the size of the propeller in relation to the ship — as a result, reaching the planned destination becomes difficult.

With this example, I’m trying to illustrate that psychological abilities and their training are something one can go without, because many things happen naturally, and high results can still be achieved. However, at the elite level, every detail matters, and in this case too, the compatibility of the propeller with the specific ship is important.

If you attach a cruise ship’s propeller to a small boat — it will sink. If you do the opposite — the large ship won’t move. In the same way, every athlete has their own specific needs. It wouldn’t be wise to generalize and make everyone work with the same methods.

Even within the same team, it may be that each person needs a completely different program. One might need to work on believing in themselves, another on channelling their aggression, someone else might need to train their focus. Another needs to learn how to communicate in a way others can understand, while someone else needs to learn how to listen.

As I said — it’s possible to go without this, and there are more important things in life. But there are those few who truly want to refine themselves and reach the highest levels of self-realization. For them, it is definitely worth training their psychological skills. These are a part of overall preparation — maybe not the most important part, but those who stand on the highest steps of the podium have, more often than not, also focused on psychological training.

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