Case Studies
Below are some of examples of a small section of work I have worked with to give you an idea about how I work with my clients and a little bit about the process. I have deliberately not gone into technical details as I find most of my clients aren’t really interested in the how I do it but more in the results. I can promise you I don’t do anything scary and all of my clients love the results they get. As with any of the information on this site if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask. I am only an email, video call or call away and I am not as scary as I look I promise you! Just for your information as I value all of my client’s confidentiality I have changed the names on the case studies.
If you want to see some testimonials of people I've worked with
Elaine - Show Jumping Confidence
Elaine came to me for help because she was struggling jumping. Before making her decision to work with me, we had a few chats over the phone to discuss how we could work together. Elaine was living and working on the other side of the country so all our work was done via video conferencing calls. It was agreed we would chat once a week with Elaine sending me a training journal and videos daily.
In our first session I discovered Elaine had purchased an extremely talented warmblood to show jump, she already owned two other horses and was competing on one already. The problem was that she had totally lost her confidence and had gone from jumping 90cm jumps to really struggling to get over 50 cm. Her new horse had the scope to jump over 1.40 metres. We had established that it wasn’t a lack of skill or technique that was holding her back but a complete lack of self-belief and confidence.
During our sessions, I discovered several things that had affected Elaine’s confidence. Some personal issues had happened around the time she had started to lose her nerve, it was obvious that these issues had really affected her, not only in her show jumping but also in her everyday life but it wasn’t the only thing that was affecting her. At one of the shows, she had attended she had struggled on her new horse and overheard someone saying she should get rid of it as she was never going to ride her to its full potential. These two things had a huge effect on her confidence, motivation, and drive.
The first thing I did was to set a stretched goal for Elaine, we agreed on a goal that would really push her limits but would get her excited about achieving it. So the goal was set that we would get her out competing at 1.20m, this was twice the height she was working at home. We drew up a responsibility contract which is something I ask all my clients to do, the contract agrees that my clients will work with me and take responsibility for their results. Over subsequent weeks we worked on Elaine’s belief system, self-esteem, and confidence. We also used other techniques to help her improve her technique and confidence. Every day Elaine would send over videos and updates and after a short period, the jumps started to get bigger and bigger until she was jumping 1.20m at home. The big day came for her first competition and she totally smashed it with 1st and a 3rd. She is now very happily jumping 1.30m which was a feat she never thought was possible.
Tracey - Getting over a fall
Tracey is a young, up and coming showjumper who came to see me after spending many months working with another sports psychologist but not making much progress. She was out jumping but nowhere near to the standards she was used to. After seeing Tracey for her first appointment she explained 12 months previous she had an accident, which she blamed herself for at a major tournament this resulted in Tracey sustaining a broken bone. It wasn’t the injury that bothered Tracey, it was the whole drama of having to have a screen pulled around her laying on the floor at a major event with everyone looking that bothered her most. In other words, it was the embarrassment of the situation.
During our sessions, it became apparent that this wasn’t the only issue that was holding her back, after much discussion and a little bit of digging it became apparent Tracey was suffering from low self-esteem and low self-worth (having good self-esteem and self-worth are imperative to performing at you best in sport).
After working with Tracey for a few sessions working on her confidence, self-esteem, and the trauma of having an accident in front of hundreds of people she started to feel better about herself, not only in the showjumping arena but also in her personal life too. Her relationships began to improve along with her results.
Beverley - Dressage Confidence
Beverley was a dressage rider who has had her very talented dressage horse for about 4 years and was eager to go out to competition yet kept putting it off. Every time she would say this is the date she will be competing, yet she would make every excuse under the sun to make sure she didn’t go or she would say she wasn’t ready. There was nothing wrong with Beverley’s riding or her horse, they were both very capable. Beverley would often say she had to be foot perfect at home before she would risk taking her horse out for a test. When people tell me this I always suspect underlying reasons for such procrastination. After we had talked for a while and did a little digging the reasons started to become obvious.
Beverley like many other riders I have worked with was in awe of her horse and thought she wasn’t good enough for him. Due to her buying a very talented horse she was always trying to not the let the horse down in competition, she also thought that everyone was watching her when she went out and there was an expectation to do well. On top of all this Beverley admitted to me that she suffered from poor self-image, low confidence, low self-esteem, and a belief of not being good enough.
Over the weeks, we managed to improve her confidence, self-esteem and poor self-image using hypnosis, cognitive behavioural therapy, and NLP. Each week we both agreed on a plan of action to help push Beverley out of her comfort zone, I would often furnish her with tools to help make this process easier. We used lots of metaphors for her to practice at home, including acting like a peacock, being a little bit of a show-off. I asked her to experiment each week, write in her journal how it felt and any improvements she felt. We looked at some of the limiting beliefs she was carrying around with her, challenged them, and then installed new positive beliefs. I am pleased to say Beverley is now out there strutting her stuff and enjoying every minute of it.
Jane - Showjumping - Overcoming Blocks
Jane was a very promising show jumper that was competing at 1.20 m on two horses that were quite talented. Horses and show jumping was Jane and her family’s whole life. They all spent every day working with the horses, taking lessons once a week and then out competing every weekend. Jane had been competing for a number of years with reasonable results. Her parents had bought her two very talented horses with lots of scope to be very, very good. Jane came to me because no matter how hard she was trying results weren’t going her way. There were plenty of 2nd and 3rd places but no first places. The horses were good enough and so was Jane to be able to 1st on a consistent basis but for some reason she wasn’t on the winning podium. Something was obviously stopping her.
After a couple of sessions and some sensitive digging using a number of tools in the toolbox we found the reasons for Jane not doing as well as she should. There we a couple of real big ones. The first one was something I have come across many times in the last 13 years. Jane didn’t believe she deserved to win and the second was that she had a fear of public speaking. She knew if she was first she would have to stand up and make a speech and this terrified her so much so she was holding herself back from actually fulfilling her potential.
Jane wasn’t consciously aware of this reasons and so couldn’t do anything about them. They were unconscious beliefs. Sometimes the mind works in strange ways and it takes a little detective work to uncover these things.
Now that we had found out what was stopping Jane we then did some work together over the next few sessions to increase her confidence, self-esteem and changed some of the beliefs she had about herself.
As soon as we had finished our work together Jane’s results got better and better. She began to land more and more first places.
Tennis Player - Improving Their Overall Game
Bob came to me to improve his overall game and in particular his serve.
One of the first things we did in our first session as I do with all my clients is to find out what Bob’s ultimate goals where. I like to set stretched goals with my clients. These goals have to be realistic but also a ‘stretch’ for them to achieve. Bob decided his goals was to be in the top 5 tennis players in his club and to compete at county level. There was also a particular player at the club Bob wanted to play against and this would give him a benchmark on how much he had improved because in previous matches this particular opponent had beaten him quite comprehensively on a number of occasions.
The next step was to make a plan on how to improve and get Bob the results he desired. We looked at areas of his game where he felt he could improve and make the most impact. I think its important when working with a client to try to get to start making meaningful impact as soon as possible as success can breed success and it improves their confidence and motivation once they start to make significant improvements. Having looked at Bob’s game we both decided that the first area to work on would be his serve and his belief in himself that he could but up there in the top 5 of his particular tennis club.
We then made a simple plan for the following sessions in order for him to know what progress we were making and give us both a measurement of how well we are progressing. During the first session a number of questions were asked including if his style of tennis was similar to anyone he admired in the game and who if anybody’s serve would he like to model. Bob came up with Roger Federer so I asked him to watch lots of videos on You Tube and become really familiar with how Federer served, his stance etc. I also watched hundreds of videos of Federer’s serve from almost every conceivable angle to become very familiar with Federer’s style. I knew we couldn’t make Bob into the next Roger Federer as there are many things that make up a supreme athlete such as Federer but I also knew we could make improvements to Bob’s game that would make an overall improvement in the long term.
Over the weeks, we worked together Bob would send videos of his serve, with comments on how he believed he could improve and in our sessions we used a number of sports mind tools to install new behaviours and a new mindset. Bob made an improvement each week. After each session we would review the week previous, make the ‘tweaks’ necessary to his serve and sometimes we would use hypnosis. Bob was a weary at first because he had heard so many misconceptions about hypnosis but I explained I couldn’t make him dance like a chicken or make him do anything he didn’t want to do and it is one of the most powerful tools for change I have in my large tool box and he agreed. A lot of top sportsmen and women have used hypnosis in their game.
Over the weeks Bob had begun to enjoy his tennis again. He found himself practicing more and more. He looked forward to sending me his videos and showing me the improvements he had made. After a number of weeks he had plucked up the courage to enter the County Championships and had also set up a number of matches with fellow tennis players at this club, including the opponent that had beaten him so comprehensively previously. Such was Bob’s improvement he began to climb the Tennis Clubs ranking system, he learned from each game he played where he needed to improve and we would work on those parts in our sessions and between sessions. Bob was now on par with the opponent that had beaten him so comprehensively previously, the now play regular matches and are quite evenly matched. The end result of our time together was Bob had entered the County Championship and is now ranked within the top ten. We still see each other on a regular basis and our next aim is for the top 5. So watch this space
Throughout our sessions together we worked on the following
- Confidence
- Self-Belief
- Removing what was in the way of him achieving his goals
- Continuous improvement
- Using Feedback as a positive
- Improving technique
- Staying in control
- Remaining Focused
- Goal setting and task management
- Getting over setbacks
- Working smarter not harder
A Swimmer - Overcoming Pre-Competition Nerves
Debbie was a 15 year old very talented swimmer who was competing on a regular basis at a local level but she wanted to go further. She had aspirations of swimming for her county and then for her country however, there were two major things stopping her. Once in the water Debbie certainly had the speed, her turns were amazing and extremely well executed but Debbie suffered from pre competition nerves, a lack of time and because of the pre competition nerves she almost always messed up her start and couldn’t learn the correct technique.
One of the very first things Debbie and I worked together on were the reasons for the precompetition nerves, sometimes these were so bad she would be physically sick in the changing rooms before hand. There were quite a few things that came out in those sessions.
- She didn’t believe she was good enough even though her results told her differently
- She was afraid of making a fool of herself
- She was afraid of letting everyone down
- She believed she had to be perfect every single time she swam
By delving into my metaphorical tool box and a couple of poolside visits at different venuse we managed to ease and even eliminate most of these reasons and Debbie began to feel a lot better going into competitions. A lot of the nervous energy she used up before the competition was now used in the pool and results started to improve.
The next step was to improve Debbie’s start, until the nerves had stop Debbie couldn’t focus on her start because her mind was always directed on keeping her nerve. Over a couple of sessions we developed a number tools Debbie could use along with perfecting her style using different techniques.
After our time together Debbie’s performance increased dramatically so much so she now swims both for the city and her county. She comes to visit on a regular basis to maintain her progress and keep her on track for ultimate goal of swimming for her country.
Marathon Runner - Overcoming Mental Blocks and Increasing Mental Toughness
Paul who was in his late 40’s had come to me for help with his running. He had been running competitively for over 20 years and had been progressively increasing his distances over the years and now was competing regularly in Marathons and half marathons nationally. Running was a huge part of Paul’s life along with training regularly he also ran a local running club.
Over the previous months Paul’s enjoyment of his running had becoming less and less where it had now become a real problem for him to even train short distances and he would often give up one mile or so into a training run. Previously he would easily run 4 to 5 miles 3 or 4 times a week. During our discussion it was very apparent that Paul was extremely frustrated and I could tell he was still very passionate about his running.
In the first session we talked about why he wanted to run and what he wanted to achieve along with a number of other things. Paul had a very stressful job and running was how he liked to unwind but he also had a fierce competitive streak in him and up until a few months ago could still out run a lot of the younger members of the club. During our conversation a number of things came out which became a couple of strong threads we could work with. Paul was becoming very conscious of his age and held the belief that he should slow down with age even though he was still running some pretty impressive times. Paul was also focusing more on the times, etc than the actual reason he was running in the first place. There was one other ‘biggy’; Paul had a got a place in this years London Marathon. It was something he had wanted to do for the past 10 years and this was the only year he had been given a place. It was now February and the Marathon is run early April so we were up against the clock.
Over the coming weeks, we used a variety of tools and techniques to change his running Mindset including getting Paul to be more in the moment and focus on the here and now rather than the end result. I ask Paul to keep a training journal and write down his thoughts, feelings and his progress. We changed his focus from setting a time to enjoying the feelings he got from running. We worked with changing his beliefs about slowing down and I taught him how important it is to change what we say to ourselves when we are struggling with different situations. After a few sessions Paul was making tremendous progress and felt confident (this was something else we had worked on) that he would finish the Marathon and at a reasonable result.
Paul came back to visit me on a less frequent basis over the next couple of months just to check in on his progress and tweak things where necessary.
The end result was a very reasonable 3 hour 20 minute marathon run, with an average pace was around the 8 minute mile mark.
Windsurfer - Learning A New Technique
Dave was a 35 year old professional windsurfer who came to me to perfect a trick he had trouble performing. Dave had been trying to master this particular move for months but for some reason no matter how hard he tried Dave just simply couldn’t get it right. The trick entailed catching a wave at just the right moment to get enough lift from the wave and do a perfect 360 degree somersault and land back on the water without losing his balance. His footing, his balance, his hands and his timing had to be perfect for him to be able to perform this manoeuvre. It was an extremely technical trick to perform. Dave brought in a video of other people performing the same stunt and as we studied the video together and discussed it became apparent that although consciously Dave wanted to perfect and perform this trick there was something at the back of his mind stopping him and before we could set about teaching his mind to perform and perfect this trick we had to investigate what was blocking him and resolve the block.
For the first couple of sessions we worked on finding and resolving the thing in his mind that was blocking Dave from giving his all to performing and perfecting this trick. The next stage was to increase Dave’s confidence in his own abilities and erase any doubts he had about him not being able to do this trick. After that we worked on training Dave’s mind to be able to perform the manoeuvre. We both watched video after video and broke the techniques down into bite sized pieces and trained Dave’s mind and body to remember each step sequentially, eventually we sped everything up and Dave was able to perform the technique not only in his mind but also in real life.
Dave then videoed each attempt and we would review and make small tweaks to his thinking and his position until he was happy with performing this technique to a standard he felt confident with. When our sessions were over Dave was not only able to perform the somersault manoeuvre he also learned a number of other valuable tools which he could use in the future.
Golfer - Overcoming a Bogey Hole
Tom was a very good golfer whom had been playing the game for a number of years with quite a low handicap and often played in local tournaments but by his own admission he could do a lot better but at a particular golf course there was always a hole that he dropped shots on even though the hole was well within his capabilities to at least go one under or at least par it. No matter how many times he practiced or played this hole it was always a disaster for him and would go at least 2 or 3 over. After Tom had played this hole his performance dropped, he lost his concentration, his confidence and his self-belief and things got gradually worse and worse.
The human brain has a habit of making links between things, we often look for similarities and if we do one thing badly once we often get worried each and every time we do that thing again in case we do it badly again. This all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so every time Tom came to this particular hole he would make bad images in his head about doing things wrong and he would then tense up and think about what he didn’t want. For example he would concentrate on not hitting the ball on the rough, when we think about not doing something we end up doing that thing we wanted not to do. Try to not think about a pink elephant! You did it didn’t you!
Over the next few weeks we delved into my box of tools to change the way Tom thought about that particular hole on the golf course. We trained his mind to think differently about his own talent on the golf course and he gradually he learned to relax more and more on this particular course. After a few sessions Tom’s score on the course got better and better until eventually he could consistently score that one hole one under or often two under par. However, we weren’t finished there. Tom was so pleased with the results of our sessions together he decided he wanted to improve his overall game. We worked on his concentration and his consistency over the course of the season and he reduced his overall handicap and his placing in the club