The Importance Of Mindfulness In Sports

Current research involved in sports psychology does not employ the idea of mindfulness. “Traditional sport psychology interventions, such as imagery, self-talk, and goal setting generally aim to facilitate optimal performance by helping to control the internal, mental factors that can affect athletes. (Weinberg & Gould, 2011) Mindfulness is a practice that requires us to bring our attention into the present moment. Goal setting would therefore be a stark contrast to mindfulness because it has the participant envisioning the future.
The definition of mindfulness that is going to be used for this paper is that “mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future. (Greater Good Foundation, 2013) “Although mindfulness originated as a Buddhist meditation practice (Kabat Zinn, 2003 p 145), its secular adaptations have recently received a great deal of interest in Western empirical phycology
Previous work has only focused on performance enhancement on the professional level, not amateur. Participants would be recruited and asked to take an initial survey assessing their golf performance, satisfaction with said performance, mood while playing, and their personal best round for the previous season. This study will aim to determine which facet of mindfulness has the greatest impact on athletic performance; attention, attitude, self-regulation, or non-attachment.