My name is Ástvaldur Heiðarsson, a sports psychology consultant and a sports scientist. I finished my Bachelor´s degree in Sports Science from Laugarvatn 2003 where I had my first introduction to sports psychology. In my very first sports psychology class I knew that this was for me and that I would want to work in the field after graduation. It is at that time that I knew that I couldn´t get my masters degree in sports psychology in Iceland and that I had to study abroad. I decided to go to the University of Copenhagen for my Masters. That turned out to be a great decision because I met and studied with some of the greatest sports psychology minds in Europe during my time in Copenhagen.

The title of the masters degree was „European Masters In Sport And Exercise Psychology“ and was (and still is) a collaboration between 12 european universities. Among the subjects we studied was how athletes can best prepair for competitions, manage stress and anxiety so that they can perform their absolute best when they need to.

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I have always had a passion for exercise and sports, as a kid I tried just about every sport under the sun before I found a sport that I really connected with. In my teens I was training pretty much every single day and competing every weekend so it consumed my life those years. But it was at this time, when my training began to get more serious and I started to move up in class (from group B to group A and from group A to „Elite“ group) that I first started to experience getting nervous before competitions. I was no longer just going with the flow, having fun in the sport that I loved so much, now expectations started to show their ugly face. I started to dread having to compete because I hated getting nervous days even a full week before a competition. Before this I only knew the joy of moving and the pleasure of losing myself in play. So it is fair to say that I can elate to kids and teenagers who are going through similar feelings.

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Around the age of 16-17, I „graduate“ to the top group and then the pressure started to mount (all self-inflicted I might add). It was in those years that my inner critic showed up planting seeds of doubt about upcoming competitions, about if I really was good enough to not get humiliated in the next tournament, thoughts like „what if I lose the very first match and be sent home humiliated?“, „what if everyone will laugh at me?“ etc. began to manifest themselves before every tournament. So as you can imagine, I can relate to individuals who are having these kinds of thoughts, who feel really nervous and insecure about their abilities before competitions.

Every athlete experiences negative self-talk and/or negative thoughts, especially young athletes who have less experience in dealing with stress and anxiety. Therefore it is even more important for these young individuals to learn how to deal with pressure, expectation, anxiety and stress so that they can realize their full potential. The pressure of being in competitive sports is immense but it affects us all differently but none is immune to its negative consequenses. So many kids and teens drop out of sports because of these pressures simply because they have no idea how to deal with the mental aspects of competitive sports. My hope is that by helping them develop coping strategies it will not only keep them training and competing in the sport they love but also make them stronger individuals in life in general. What I teach are scientifically proven methods that have been used for decades all over the world and aim to maximize the potential of every athlete.

 

In my opinion, there is a serious lack of sports psychology awareness in Iceland and that is one of the reasons I took my masters, so that athletes could get premium sport psychology counseling at affordable prices.