LaKeitha Poole, LPC-S, CMPC, is the assistant athletic director at Louisiana State University, where she has worked since 2010. She owns a private practice, Small Talk Counseling & Consulting, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she works with everyone from athletes to working professionals. She has served as a sport psychology and mental health consultant for teams like the 2022 NBA champion Golden State Warriors, and is on the NFL’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Wellness Committee.
When LSU’s gymnastics team began the school year last August, they set a theme for the season: “The climb.” It took on a meaning no one could have expected when the athletes faced injury after injury, challenge after challenge. By the time the season really got underway in January, it wasn’t the same team they’d started with. But they made it all the way to the postseason, reached the Final Four, and were just steps away from another national championship. They may have come up short, but it was still a victory. And their mental health was a critical piece of it along the way.
It feels like there’s a little bit of magic sitting on campus at LSU this year, from the women’s basketball team’s first national championship win, to the track and field team’s strong showing at the Southeastern Conference championships. As LSU’s assistant athletic director in charge of the school’s Sport Psychology and Counseling unit, my job is to design performance plans for our teams to help our 500 athletes reach the top of their game—especially when it comes to their mental health.
After all, being a student-athlete is hard. You not only have all the typical developmental changes, but then on top of that, you’re an athlete at a Division I institution in the SEC in a college town where you drive around and see your face on billboards. And that’s a lot of pressure, especially when life is still happening in between. I think people forget about those challenges when they talk about the athletic experience, because we just see the end result of a win or a loss rather than the individual that’s competing.
At the start of every season, I create a mental performance playbook for my teams—and you can use it too.
I have conversations with the coaches about their goals for the year, their fears and their worries, and the affirmation they’ve decided on as a theme for the season. Then I get private time with the team—just me and them, no coaches, no other support staff—and we do activities related to a model or theory in sport psychology.
For example, this season, I gave the gymnastics team printouts of the outline of a house. We talked about the concept of “defending the house” and how that relates to being motivated and self-determined, which are concepts we learn and practice as clinicians. I shared stories from my experience with the Warriors during their championship run and showed them what that self-determination theory looks like in action. And then I told them, “This is your chance, go take it.”
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The goal is to help them learn how to tap into the science of sport both individually, on their own time, but also collectively, when they need to rally each other. It makes a difference when the athletes and staff embrace this mental performance work as being a part of the team environment as much as the athletic trainer, the strength and conditioning coach, or the dietitian.
Here are five of the tactics I’ve shared with the top-level athletes I work with—and that I use myself!—that can help you stay cool amidst the pressure of achieving your dreams, and remain true to yourself along the way.
1. Have a championship mentality.
Create a mindset that’s centered around winning at whatever it is that you do. That starts with having a plan. Figure out what it is that you are interested in achieving, whether that’s related to sports, fitness, your health, your education, job advancement, or anything else. Have a vision of what you really want to do. It can always be changed and it may need to be flexible, but why not give yourself space to dream a little bit?
From there, you can decide what it is you truly value, so that you’re not spending extra energy collecting things that don’t serve you. Go into your goals with a well-rounded strategy so that when life throws you curveballs, you have something to fall back on. Remember that you are more than what you’re trying to accomplish.
2. Zero in on your why.
You have to tap into who and what you’re really doing this for. That’s something I always talk with my athletes about, both individually and collectively. It takes a lot of effort and work and energy to be a collegiate athlete—they don’t get a lot of sleep, they have to eat certain things, and they don’t have the traditional college experience. They could choose to be a regular college student at any time. It’s important to make sure that they’re playing their sport for a reason beyond just being able to say, “Oh, yeah, I’m an athlete,” because one day that chapter will end.
As people, our jobs and commitments become a part of our identity, and we can sometimes lose sight of who and what it’s actually about. What’s the thing that’s going to get you up and out of bed every day? Focus on that.
3. Do a “hard reset” in the challenging moments.
You know when your phone is being funky and you turn it off and turn it back on, but it’s still not working? So you do a hard reset, where you have to press two buttons down to restart the device. Sometimes we have to press two buttons down in our everyday life.
For me, that might look like taking a few days away from work or making time to decompress throughout the day, like going outside to eat my lunch versus sitting at my desk. Even small actions can reboot your entire system.
4. Let yourself grieve when it doesn’t work out.
When we lose people, we have to grieve. It’s no different when you lose an opportunity. It’s okay to go through the frustrations, the denials, the bargaining of time. But then it’s time to go back and do a little bit of self-exploration to understand who you are beneath it all and what’s next.
That’s often a question that comes up with athletes when they get injured or when they lose a title: “Who am I outside of my sport?” I always encourage them to make that their starting point. The athletes that come out of those experiences with the strongest mindset have an idea of who they are and what they want to do next. Give yourself time to grieve, and then figure out where to click back in.
5. Stay grounded.
Many of LSU’s athletes have reached what feels like the pinnacle of their careers. Their faces are everywhere, and they’re part of a university that’s known for winning. It’s a lot of pressure. But at their core, they’re still 18 to 22 years old. When they have time off from the season, I encourage them to go home and sleep in their bed from high school, spend time with loved ones, and get into the space of what brings them joy in its purest form.
Reminding yourself of who you are deep down is helpful at any stage of your career or your life. What music do you like? What makes you laugh? What nicknames do your friends and family call you back home? On the tough days, having that in the back of your mind is soothing. A little bit doesn’t fix everything, but it definitely can help.
