This week’s guest blogger is Tracy Donachie, a qualified performance psychologist. She tells us about her passion to help athletes in the field of sport psychology and how she believes sports psychologists can support young female athletes in their performance.
Tracy gained a full football scholarship to play in the USA before returning to Scotland to continue her studies, play football in the Premier League and work with athletes within the field of performance psychology. She currently works with Edinburgh Leisure as the Looked After & Active Project Officer where her aim is to increase the physical activity levels of looked after children within Edinburgh.
Tracy has worked with various sports teams within Edinburgh and provides performance psychology for the Scotland National Women’s football team, (A Squad, Under 15s, Under 17s, and Under 19s).
If you listen to athletes competing in the Olympics, Wimbledon etc, they will mention the things like “effort, dealing with pressure, motivation”, but how often do we actually consciously train those things? When I teach performance psychology skills, I aim to give athletes strategies to help them improve performance but also self-awareness, skills to self-evaluate and to build confidence. Mental preparation is vital to success and I think sometimes the stigma attached to “psychology” stops people seeking help to be ready in the mind.
Scottish Women In Sport 