Becoming mentally tough in sports requires more than physical ability—it demands mental strength. Athletes face common challenges like managing stress and anxiety, building mental toughness, leading with confidence, and navigating adversity. Mental performance coaching focuses on developing these critical skills, such as emotional control, effective performance routines, and leadership. By mastering these tools, you’ll enhance not only become mentally tough and enhance your athletic performance but also gain lifelong skills applicable to any challenge. Whether you’re striving for consistency, confidence, or composure, mental performance coaching empowers you to thrive in both sports and life.
You may be physically prepared for competition, but setbacks or perceived failures can still shake your confidence. Mental toughness is the key to turning these challenges into fuel for growth. Success is learned through failure, and building mental toughness is an essential part of unlocking your true potential.
If you want to develop lasting mental toughness habits, the right tools, strategies, and accountability can make all the difference. This program provides the guidance and resources needed to train your mind for peak performance, break down complex goals into achievable steps, and maintain focus and resilience in any situation. Whether in competition or beyond, you’ll gain the skills to become mentally tough and achieve your goals with confidence.
“You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.”
Babe Ruth
Do you feel overwhelmed, nervous, or anxious before competition, especially in the days leading up to it? Does this anxiety impact your confidence, performance, and enjoyment of your sport? Many athletes struggle with sports performance anxiety, which can make the difference between feeling successful or defeated.
The good news is that anxiety can be managed. By identifying its causes and learning strategies tailored to your needs, you can take control of your mindset and perform at your best. Feeling some nerves before competition is normal—it shows you care—but finding the optimal balance between nerves and excitement is key to peak performance.
This program provides proven techniques to help athletes reduce anxiety, build confidence, and develop a strong mental state. With consistent training, you’ll see significant improvements and rediscover your love for competing. Start today and unlock your potential with strategies designed to keep you calm, focused, and ready to win.
“It’s not about reducing pressure it’s about building the capacity to embrace more.”
Jonah Oliver
Learning to lead is a key goal for athletes, helping them become confident decision-makers, inspire teammates, and excel in pressure situations. Our athlete leadership coaching focuses on developing essential skills such as collaboration, communication, confidence-building, and problem-solving, while empowering athletes to lift others up with these same skills.
With our program, athletes can develop leadership abilities that extend far beyond their athletic careers, equipping them to face life’s challenges. Learn how to lead with confidence, motivate teammates, and guide your team to success. If you’re ready to unlock your potential and become the authentic leader your team needs, get started today and take control of the game with our coaching.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, than you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
Coping with adversity can be challenging, often leading to increased anxiety, self-doubt, and feelings of failure. However, with the right mindset, athletes can overcome any obstacle and turn challenges into opportunities for growth and success. By developing an elite athlete mentality, you can shift your perspective, embrace adversity, and view it as a stepping stone rather than a setback.
Through consistent coaching, athletes learn to share their daily struggles and receive tailored strategies to improve how they handle obstacles. With the right tools, athletes develop a structured routine to stay mentally strong, maintain a positive attitude, and turn setbacks into motivation. Our coaching provides proven methods to help you stay motivated under pressure and use past experiences to fuel future success.
Adversity is inevitable, but with our support, you’ll gain the resilience to stay focused and positive, no matter the challenges you face. Let us help you become mentally tough and succeed when it matters most.
"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it".
Maya Angelou
Emotions can either propel athletes forward or hold them back in sports, but the key is understanding that emotional control is within your power. Athletes face a wide range of emotions every day—happiness, fear, anxiety, anger, excitement, and more—which can impact performance. Without understanding and managing these emotions, athletes may struggle to grow or reach their full potential.
Emotional control begins with understanding who you are as an athlete. Through personalized coaching, you can learn to recognize how emotions affect your performance and develop strategies to channel them effectively. With the right tools, athletes can create an elite mindset, control their emotions, and transform adversity into opportunities for growth.
This program equips athletes with the skills to regulate their emotions, stay focused under pressure, and build confidence. By mastering emotional control, you can turn challenges into motivation and reach your highest potential. Let us help you take your game to the next level by empowering you to control your emotions and elevate your performance.
You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go… Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Having a go-to routine can decrease anxiety, improve focus, and prepare you for competition. Every athlete should have a routine, and if you don’t, let’s work together to create one. Through personalized coaching, we’ll help you develop habits and rituals tailored to your needs, creating the structure and consistency required for success.
Imagine transforming your performance by harnessing the power of consistent routines. With the right strategies in place, you’ll unlock your full potential and see significant improvements in training and competition. Let us guide you to create an optimal routine that boosts your confidence and leads to consistent success.
Consistency beats intensity. Consistency beats volume. Consistency beats passion. Consistency dictates results. Consistency is what defines character.
Rich Roll
Personalized mental performance coaching helps you become mentally tough and develop lifelong skills, including:
Rebounding from losses and overcoming obstacles with resilience and courage
Handling pressure and expectations with psychological strength
Using personalized stress and anxiety management strategies
Setting goals, training intentionally, and recognizing small wins for a winning mindset
EXCELLENT Based on 23 reviews Devon NickelJanuary 3, 2025 Ashley was so great with my daughter! Shes very positive and enthusiastic and gave practical tools to help her mindset. My daughter was skeptical about talking to someone, but she really enjoyed her time with Ashley. I would definitely recommend working with her! Emma LeppertDecember 31, 2024 I can only say good things about Ashley at Great Athletes Think Elite. Being a collegiate athlete you have to be on physically and mentally. Ashley helped me so much and provided me with techniques to help change my mindset and perspective which are applicable to sports and life beyond. I would absolutely recommend her services to anyone looking to level up their play! Amy BrownDecember 22, 2024 We can’t thank Ashley enough for the difference she’s made for our son. She helped him rebuild his confidence and provided him with practical tools to manage his nerves during games. One of the most impactful strategies she introduced was establishing a daily routine of gratitude and goal-setting, which has improved not only his performance but also his overall mindset. Thanks to her guidance, he’s back to playing the sport he loves with renewed passion and giving his highest effort every time he steps onto the field. We highly recommend Ashley to any athlete struggling with confidence or mental blocks—her expertise and approach truly work! Sally AndersenOctober 24, 2024 I had been struggling with confidence and identity after switching from powerlifting to CrossFit, and it was tough mentally to make the transition. After 8 years as a powerlifter, I didn’t know how to redefine myself as an athlete in this new space. Ashley was a game-changer! She helped me rebuild my confidence and guided me through the mindset shift I needed to thrive as a CrossFitter. Now, I feel stronger mentally and more secure in my athletic identity than ever before. Highly recommend her for anyone needing a mindset reset or performance boost! Trisha DuffieSeptember 9, 2024 I have had the privilege of knowing Ashley for 4 years. She is an amazing resource and coach in countless aspects of life and sports. She always creates a welcoming and positive atmosphere and is able to create conversations that open new ways of interpreting situations. My family always felt open and honest in discussions with Ashley and always ended meetings with a positive outlook. Ashley was able to implement goals and ways to take personal accountability for progress without making it feel like work! She was able to help redirect and refocus thoughts and goals to keep us on track. Ashley truly was a game changer and much needed part of our team in order keep us going in the right direction. Highly recommended a million times! Lisa McGinnitySeptember 4, 2024 I had the fortunate opportunity to observe Ashley conduct a workshop with a group of high school athletes. I was beyond impressed listening to her powerful insights and guidance for stepping up an athlete’s mental game. She has a way of breaking down and simplifying the steps and strategies needed to be successful to perform at a high level, making it feel more manageable, less overwhelming, and highly attainable. The way she commands a room and can engage people is remarkable. I cannot recommend Ashley enough if you have a student athlete who needs to overcome mental performance barriers, or in general, just wants to excel in their sport. She really is quite impressive! John ShalloMay 18, 2024 Amazing experience, really helped and very thoughtful with every meeting. Nicole WoodroofMay 4, 2024 We cannot say enough great things about Ashley and the work she has done with our son. When we started with her, his confidence regarding his sport was at an all-time low. He had been beaten down mentally by old-school coaches that don’t have any idea how to get what they really want out of kids. At almost sixteen, this had been going on for years. The focus she gave all of us, not just him, has made all the difference. She has helped my son refocus on what creates results to help him reach his goals, instead of being in his head about every tiny mistake he makes. As a high-level competitor herself, a high school counselor, and a coach, she has the trifecta of perfect skills for what it takes to work with kids and athletes. She understands kids in a way that even as parents we haven’t at times. In fact, we have asked her on several occasions to help us, and she partnered with us in a way that gave him the support he needed to meet his goals. Sometimes, although well-intentioned, we would say things that were reinforcing the thoughts that weren’t serving him well, but Ashley was patient with us too, and was able to help us help him. She has helped change our mindset as well as my son’s. She is an incredible, caring, wise mentor and we only wish we found her sooner! I highly recommend hiring Ashley Ainsworth!