Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.”

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

What limitations do you place on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors?

Professional sport is a cutthroat industry. Every athlete is under scrutiny, with enormously high pressure continuously mounting day in, day out. Often, players, officials, and managers concentrate on sportsmen and women’s weaknesses and areas that need fixing. This is often draining on the athlete, it drains energy to consistently look at what’s wrong with them. Energy is depleted, it’s demotivating and creates anxiety and stress. The emotional and mental strain hinders performance which often leads to depression, but what can be done?

You may be able to speak with a welfare officer or sports psychologist, they’re often provided by your club or sporting body, or you may even seek external help. However, there is still a stigma attached to athletes seeking emotional and psychological help. It can be seen as weakness. Besides, do you fear being judged weak by the coaches, officials, and selectors who sign your contracts, pay your salaries and decide whether you have a career?

The solution is to be proactive, not reactive. Focusing on what an athlete is best at is much more productive, and not just physically – psychologically and emotionally. We begin by focusing on strength.

We all have to start somewhere, so whether you’re a junior athlete entering the professional sport, a current player or at the end of your career, it’s time to consider more than just your physical ability. It’s time to focus on more than just the raw talent you were gifted with.

According to Gallup, Inc®, and the Clifton StrengthsFinder ®, talent is your natural patterns of how you think, feel and behave. To prevent, avoid and overcome depression, anxiety, and stress in sport and in life we want to develop all aspects of your talents. Knowing and understanding how to develop your natural talents into strengths is the key. The goal is to grow and maintain self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and the confidence in who you are and who you wish to become – on and off the park. You must learn to manage the highs and lows; overcome adversity and appreciate success to develop your thoughts and feelings as an elite athlete before, during and after your career.

If these are areas of improvement you are looking for as an athlete, then it’s time focus on your strengths. Strengths mindset coaching will open your mind to who you are, how you perceive yourself and how you impact the world. To begin your strengths journey it all begins with a Choose Your Chapter Strengths Profile Analysis (CYCSPA).

Using the Clifton StrengthsFinder ® profiling tool you will identify and uncover your top 5 talent themes out of 34, gaining a greater understanding of how to develop talent into strengths. Simply completing the CSF online assessment is a great start, however similar to many profiling tools, just unearthing your results is not enough.

The CYCSPA is the initial process of gathering greater awareness of how you can become more successful in your sport, outside sport, and after sport. Upon completion, it’s recommended you regularly ‘check-in’ with a qualified strengths coach to continue the development of your talents. The choice is yours, you know how important it is to have a coach to maximize your physical performance, how important is it to develop your emotional and psychological well-being?

Employing a strengths mindset coach is a winning step and a proactive one.

The benefits of a CYCSPA are to enhance your emotional intelligence, self-efficacy and personal growth to live a happy and fulfilled life. You will improve your communication, build stronger relationships and inspire yourself and others to achieve success on and off the field. You will be able to define your purpose, your existence and who you are outside sport. We will assist you with choices in your career, studies, and life to ensure you’re quality of life during and after sport. Gaining an appreciation of your mature strengths is an advantage to living a life of excellence.

You cannot learn to swim by simply reading a book! Similarly developing your talents into strengths involves reading more than reports or watching videos, you need a coach and you need to learn certain aspects not found in books and other resources. By completing the initial CYCSPA you will learn:

  • how each talent theme has a resourceful state (Balcony) and an un-resourceful state (Basement).
  • how to identify when you’re in the Basement and how to shift yourself to the Balcony.
  • when you’re using a talent in a raw state (undeveloped).
  • when you’re successfully using a mature strength (developed).
  • theme dynamics – how talent themes play together.
  • how to “call on” other talent themes when you’re raw or in the Basement of a talent.
  • how to focus on your purpose and identify life outside sport.
  • how your talents are perceived by others and how they land in the world.
  • how to build and develop relationships.
  • how to strategically plan and organize.
  • how to inspire and influence others.
  • how to achieve success and get more done.
  • how to combine the Udemy course and Guide Book to develop your strengths for life.

What’s involved in a CYCSPA?
  1. Clifton StrengthsFinder® online assessment (30-45 minutes)
  2. 1:1 strengths analysis session – Zoom, face to face or phone (90 minutes)
  3. Focus On Your Strengths Udemy Course (Life)
  4. Focus On Your Strengths Top 5 Guide Book (Life)

Simply click on the banner above, click here to schedule your Strengths Profile Analysis. For more information either contact us by email at info@chooseyourchapter.com.au or fill in your details below on the contact form.

Remember, completing the Clifton StrengthsFinder® is an awesome first step and your profile analysis is a huge step toward developing your top 5 talents into mature strengths. However, it is just the beginning. Focusing on your strengths is a paradigm shift for life. What you choose to do from here is up to you. We recommend you focus on your top 5 for at least 3-6 months before unlocking your entire 34. Mastering your top 5 takes time and careful consideration. We offer various programs with a qualified CYC strengths coach to assist you on your strengths journey, or contact us to tailor a program to suit you:

  1. Strengths Starter Pack
  2. Strengths Profile Analysis
  3. The Sporting Mind Program
  4. The Captains Challenge Program
  5. Build Your Own Business

Congratulations on deciding to start your talent to strengths journey as now are the best time to focus on your strengths.

*Disclaimer – The CYCSPA and Focus On Your Strengths concepts are entirely developed by Choose Your Chapter and are NOT products of Gallup®, Inc nor the Clifton StrengthsFinder ®. We would like to acknowledge Gallup and the CSF for their data and research tool which allows us to help spread the word to focus on our strengths. Clifton StrengthsFinder ® and StrengthsFinder ® and each of the Clifton StrengthsFinder theme names are trademarks of Gallup, Inc. Choose Your Chapter are not affiliated with Gallup, Inc or its subsidiaries.

Copyright © 2000, 2006-2012 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.

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