Tom Evans Performance Psychology

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Tom Evans Performance Psychology

London based Performance Psychologist Tom Evans. Tom specialises in the development of an athlete's mental skills, with an athlete focused approach.

01/04/2022

Really happy to finally become a Chartered Scientist, and a BASES Accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist. It’s been an excellent experience working towards this, and I’ve learnt so much along the way.
Thank for her patience, knowledge and guidance as my supervisor.

24/03/2021

Really enjoyed delivering this “Perfecting your pre-competition routines: Returning to play” webinar to the clients this evening.

A really engaging audience with some excellent questions. I look forward to hearing from you on how impactful your new pre-competition routines are in a few weeks!

15/03/2021

“Safety net mindset”

A long distance athlete I work with had been trying to remove the “safety net mindset” he has in his performances by not focusing on what times he wants to achieve.

The idea is that trying to obtain a set time actually limits our performance potential. As we always hear how important goal setting (and it is!) this may seem like a counterproductive approach.

However, I feel my Strava posts demonstrate the “safety net mindset” in action. I’ve been working for a while to try and get under 20 minutes in 5km, and have narrowly missed out a couple of times recently. If I just ran 5km as fast as I could without thinking of a arbitrary time I want to achieve then I think I’d run quicker.

I’m not saying don’t set goals.
Goal setting is really powerful for development and training, but does setting goals on performances actually limit our performance potential rather than enhance it? When you’re goal setting in your training, are you challenging yourself or limiting yourself?

10/03/2021

I’m thrilled that have asked me to join them in providing support to their football players.

RDA coaching offer 1-1 coaching, coach mentoring, and physical performance training. I’m excited to offer performance psychology support to their players going forward and be apart of their multidisciplinary team.

05/02/2021

Like a lot of people I’m fed up of working from home, but it does have it’s advantages...

I’ve thought for a while that test cricket is one of the most difficult sports to prepare for physically and psychologically.

For the batsman and fielders, you require incredible levels of concentration for prolonged periods, that I don’t think any other sport really replicates.
Alongside that the physical demands of being out that there for long periods, which we know impacts the mental side of the game.

For the batsman in the pavilion you have to be switched on physically and psychologically all day as you don’t know when you’ll be called upon.

On top of that you have the strategy and tactics that are being implemented, as well as having to executing a wide range of fine and gross technical skills 😅

You often see cricket players being used in sport psychology research, and you can see why!

12/01/2021

🚨 A new testimony on my website www.tomevansperform.com 🚨

I really enjoyed working with the West Ham United Women’s U16 players throughout October and November last year. This programme was 5 sessions delivered remotely covering topics like confidence, reflection, goal setting and preparation.

The aim of these sessions was to increase the player’s self awareness of their mental skills, and provide them with simple and practical things they could implement into their practice.

01/12/2020

In her book ‘Grit’ Angela Duckworth talks about ‘The Hard Thing Rule’ which she implements with her family to develop resilience.

The Hard Thing Rule has three parts:
1) Everyone in the family has to do something that's hard.
2) You have to finish what you start.
3) No one gets to pick the hard rule for anyone else.

For a lot of people the hard thing we do each day can be our jobs. However, during the multiple forms of Lockdown my hard thing has been running. If you want to be ‘grittier’, implement the hard thing rule in your life, find your own hard thing and follow it through to the end.

01/09/2020

During September I will be completing the British Red Cross "Miles for refugees" challenge. For this you pick 1 of 6 distances to aim for, each distance reflects part of the journey a refugee might be forced to take just to reach safety. I will be running 108 miles, which is the distance from Calais to London.

The British Red Cross stands for humanity, and believe that people who seek protection and safety in the UK should be treated fairly and humanely. That’s why Red Cross teams support refugees at every stage of their journey: from helping reunite families torn apart by war, to giving young refugees advice on careers and mental health support, to providing vital food and hygiene packs for families left vulnerable in the UK asylum system.

It's been heartbreaking to see the lengths some people are forced to go to keep themselves and their families safe. People in desperation need to be supported, not condemned. Any amount of money donated would help and be appreciated.

https://miles-for-refugees-2020.everydayhero.com/uk/thomas-9

15/06/2020

Fall seven, rise eight.⁣
⁣
I’m currently reading ‘Grit - why passion and resilience are the secrets to success’ by Angela Duckworth, and she writes about an old Japanese proverb I’d never heard before: “Fall down seven, stand up eight”.⁣
⁣
From my time working in elite sport and studying the industry, the reoccurring trait that I see in all successful athletes is perseverance. ⁣
⁣
You’ll find countless stories of elite athlete’s overcoming adversity in their careers, whether you’re looking at Jamie Vardy’s road from being released by Sheffield Wednesday at 16 years old, to becoming a premier league champion. Or, Djibril Cissé suffering a career threatening injury, which he recovered from remarkably quickly and continued to have a career at the top level. ⁣
⁣
This time of year in football there’s a lot of players facing critical moments in their careers. Be it an academy player not being offered a pro contract, or a senior player being released. ⁣
⁣
It’s the mentality of the top athletes to respond to these critical moments, and to own their development to ensure that they’re successful next time which sets them apart from others. ⁣
⁣
If you experience a setback then have an honest reflection on your approach to the task. From this, map out how you’re going to control your development for when the same or similar task occurs in the future. Fall seven, rise eight.

@ London, United Kingdom

05/05/2020

Yesterday I was discussing the challenges of working from home with some friends, so thought I’d share some ideas on not only how to be effective when working from home, but also to maintain your mental wellbeing.

• Create a ‘work space’, if living arrangements allow this then have this separate to the space you spend most your leisure time in.
Ideally, you want an area you can leave your work behind in when your working day is over. One of the biggest issues with working from home is that the lines get blurred between work and home life and you end up carrying work stress into your home life even more so than usual. So if possible making sure you stay off of emails/work calls outside of your working hours.

• This is cliché and I’ve seen it a hundred times since lockdown began, but create goals or a list of things you want to achieve that working day and/or week. I use the notes app on my phone and tend to have ongoing bigger project/goal that I keep at the top of a note, and then will add smaller tasks/goals below that, deleting them once they’re complete.
(Creating a post about working from home was one of my tasks to do today…)

• Target your most productive part of the day. When working from home, I feel there’s an unrealistic expectation we place on ourselves to be highly productive all day, which can lead to guilt when these expectations aren’t reached.
People’s energy/concentration levels peak at different points in the day, therefore target those times to complete a lot of your daily tasks. I work most productively in the morning so I try and complete the majority of my daily tasks in this period.

• If on top of working from home you’re also looking after children then I can only commend you and recommend the hypnotic ability of Peppa Pig..

01/04/2020

My lockdown viewing so far has been The Test: Australia’s team on .

I love these sort of sports series, where you get to a peak behind the curtain and see how top class sports teams operate on a day to day basis.

The series focuses on the Australian cricket team as Justin Langer takes over as head coach, and the subsequent competitions. Langer displays fierce leadership throughout and drives home the Aussie cricket DNA that’s dominated the sport in the past.

A message the Australia cricket team mention a lot in the series is “the next ball”, as in a batter or bowler just focus on the next delivery. This philosophy lends itself well to sports like cricket, which are stop-start in nature. However, the message can be used in all sports. Not dwelling on what’s happened previously in the contest whether it’s good or bad but instead channeling all your concentration and energy on the next task.

04/03/2020

Yesterday evening I had a group meeting via Skype. I’m lucky enough to have a supervisor who has multiple supervisees, which means on occasion we have group sessions. I was not expecting these group sessions when I started my supervised experience but find them one of the most rewarding aspects of it. They allow me not only to learn and be guided through the process by my supervisor , but also to bounce ideas and discuss with the other supervisees.

Yesterday’s session was looking into the importance of reflecting for a practitioner. Reflecting on performances and sessions is something we are always encouraging our athletes to do, however we should make sure we practice what we preach and go through the same process.

Since starting supervised experience I have always reflected on my sessions, but this was a great opportunity to look at how I currently do it and how I could improve this process to get the most benefit from it. Using a simple model such as Gibbs’ reflective cycle provide you with a simple framework to maximise the benefit of your reflection, however there are other models out there which are just as effective and you should find the one that suits you the most.

@ London, United Kingdom

Address

Southwark

Website

http://www.tomevansperform.com/

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