Coaching for Athletes & Coaches
Sport can bring discipline, vitality, connection, identity, joy, and meaning. It can also bring pressure, comparison, injury, burnout, fear of mistakes, difficult transitions, and the feeling that every training session or competition becomes another test.
ACT-informed coaching offers athletes and coaches a space to work with the psychological and values-based side of sport: how to stay present under pressure, respond to mistakes, recover from setbacks, communicate more clearly, and remain connected to what matters beyond results alone.
If this sounds familiar, you can begin with a free introductory conversation.
ACT-Informed Coaching for Athletes and Coaches
ACT and related mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches have been used in sport psychology for many years. One important example is the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment approach, often called MAC, which was developed specifically for athletic performance contexts. Rather than asking athletes to eliminate pressure, doubt, or difficult emotions before they perform, these approaches help athletes build present-moment attention, acceptance, values-based action, and psychological flexibility under pressure.
Research on ACT and MAC in sport is promising, especially around sport mindfulness, emotion regulation, perceived performance, competition anxiety, and the ability to keep acting effectively while difficult internal experiences are present.
Sport has also been part of my life for many years: first as a competitive athlete, later as a long-time observer of many sports, and eventually as a researcher of women’s basketball. This background helps me follow the language, rhythm, and context athletes and coaches bring into the conversation, while keeping the coaching focused on the psychological and values-based side of sport — not on replacing technical coaching, tactical instruction, physical training, therapy, or medical care.
For Athletes
Athletes live in a world shaped by pressure, expectations, identity, comparison, and constant evaluation. Performance is never only physical. It is also emotional, relational, and cultural: the fear of mistakes, the weight of potential, the locker-room atmosphere, the relationship with a coach, and the quieter struggles that often remain unseen.
Coaching may support athletes who are trying to stay present under pressure, recover after mistakes, relate differently to self-criticism, or rebuild confidence when motivation drops and the sport stops feeling like home. It can also help during moments of injury, reduced playing time, loss of form, difficult transitions, career decisions, or uncertainty around training and competition.
The work is not about pretending that setbacks do not hurt, or separating the athlete from the person. It is about creating enough space to respond with more openness, awareness, and direction — reconnecting with values, movement, and the meaning of playing even when the circumstances are difficult.
For Coaches
Coaching is never only about tactics, drills, or game plans. It is also about people: how athletes respond to pressure, how trust is built, how feedback is received, how teams handle mistakes, and how a shared culture holds together during difficult moments.
ACT-informed coaching can support coaches who want to expand their toolbox for working with pressure, doubt, frustration, mistakes, motivation, communication, and emotional overload. It can help create more space around conflict, disconnection, loss of confidence, difficult feedback, halftime conversations, post-game reflection, and moments when blame, panic, or over-analysis begin to take over.
This work can also support coaches in clarifying the values they want their team to live by, translating those values into daily behaviors, and caring for their own well-being under pressure from management, parents, fans, players, results, and internal expectations. The aim is not to tell coaches what to do technically or tactically, but to help them see more clearly, respond more wisely, and lead in a way that supports both performance and humanity.
Book an Appointment
To begin, you can book a brief introductory conversation. In that first meeting, we can understand what brings you here, whether this space fits your needs, and what the next step might be.
If you are contacting us on behalf of a team, club, or organization, you are also welcome to write first so we can discuss the context and format before scheduling.