Performance psychology: being the best, the best you can be, or just a little better?

Abstract

It’s getting pretty crowded on the performance psychology bandwagon as more and more practitioners jump on board. For many psychologists looking from the outside, however, the basic questions about the field remain very pertinent and perhaps largely unanswered. What is performance psychology and what do performance psychologists do? Where did it come from and where is it heading? As I sat down to write a supposedly authoritative paper on this specialist area of our profession, I was immediately struck by just how difficult it is to establish the boundaries of performance psychology. Reflecting on my own experiences as a performance specialist over the past 25 years, mainly in the world of international sport, I realised that although the field is ostensibly about the study of factors that either contribute to or impede performance, the list of variables relevant to performance is almost endless. Therefore, to help bring such a diffuse and multi-faceted area into sharper focus I turned to those operating in the field on a daily basis, canvassing the opinions of several prominent Australian and overseas practitioners, which I sought to weave into my own commentary.