Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol and joining me is KAMU student content contributor and senior journalism major Victoria Taylor.

Hey, Victoria.

Hi, Jay.

How are you?

I'm good.

We're back at it again.

Yes we are.

So in, previous episode, we talked about how you, as a now retired member of the Aggie swim team, thought it would be interesting to talk about some of the specialty coaches who helped you and your teammates.

Kind of along the way, and not just how they help our athletes, but also how maybe some of their techniques and their advice could benefit the rest of us.

People like me.

So we decided it would be a three part series.

Talk about part one.

What was that about?

So part one was with my former strength and conditioning coach, Ashley Jackson, and we just kind of talked about the importance that weight lifting can be for anyone.

Then just how nice it is for athletes, especially with weight lifting and how it helps us become stronger.

And that was a great conversation.

So if you missed that, you can go find the Brazos Matters interview on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, or even the KAMU website.

Today's part two is about what today's part is about sports psychology.

So that's the mental side that complements the physical side that athletes are using in their competitions.

And the mental can be for the better or the worse.

And that's what we're trying to train for the better.

And that helped you along the way?

Yes for sure.

Okay, cool.

So let's introduce our guest Lauren Craig is assistant director of counseling and sports psychology services within Texas A&M Athletics.

I know I am extremely interested to understand what you do for athletes like Victoria, but I'm going to be taking notes in case I hear ways to improve my own quality of life.

So, Victoria, take it away.

Hello, Lauren.

How are you?

Oh, I'm doing great.

Thanks so much for having me.

Of course.

Glad to.

Good to see you again.

So if we could just start kind of explaining your background, kind of how you got into sports psychology and how you ended up at A&M.

Yeah, yeah, that's always one of my favorite parts of of my, of my own kind of career story is, you know, I grew up playing sports, came from a sport family and just loved it.

And I knew pretty early on, that I also fell in love with psychology and got to go through all of my undergrad, doing psychology.

And I knew, you know, obviously kind of being a student athlete, you know, that no matter what level you go to, at some point the sport's going to stop, right?

And you have to kind of move on to to other parts of your identity and get to explore that.

And so I knew I always wanted to stay connected to athletics and working with athletes.

It was such an important part of I feel like my development, my, my own personal values and how I live my life.

And so, I had some really, really great mentors.

Going into like my master's degree who were fellow, you know, supporters of college athletics especially, and I was just really grateful for them.

They helped get me connected to, doctoral programs that allowed for me to get my degree, my doctoral degree in counseling psychology, but also in an environment that allowed for some specialized training options with with student athletes and specifically collegiate student athletes.

And so, I went and did my doctoral program at the University of Oklahoma, spent about six years out in between Moore and Norman.

And then, kind of your last year, once you're finishing up your doctoral program, you have, kind of like a residency.

And in medical school you have a doctoral internship.

And for me, it was really important that I find an internship where I could have some specialized training opportunities and Texas A&M was actually one of those internship sites that offered that.

And so I was lucky enough to match to my top site, here at A&M and did my internship here and got to be, supervised by our director, doctor Ryan Pittsinger.

And toward the end of internship, he said, hey, you know, we're really wanting to grow the sport psychology services here.

Would you be interested in staying?

And I said, absolutely.

And I haven't looked back and going on about ten years now.

So, it's been a dream.

I consider this a dream environment, a dream job, and I've just really loved it.

Now, where are you from originally?

So all over Texas kind of started off in deep south Texas and then, lived in about the like the North Dallas area, Frisco, McKinney.

Like tell in of high school and then did my undergraduate at Midwestern State to kind of moved a little bit further.

Yeah.

North Texas kind of right on that border.

God's country.

There you go.

That's what my family always says.

And, and then went up to Oklahoma for all of graduate school.

And then when I came back, that was exactly what my family said, coming back to God's country.

And I was like, I hear you for sure.

Yes.

Yep.

What all sports do you work with?

Right now?

So we kind of we kind of split it up.

So I work, most closely with both the, swimming and diving program, the men's and women's tennis programs, and then softball.

Okay.

And but we also, are available I meet with any of the student athletes.

So we kind of divide in terms of, like our performanc the liaison when things come up with these.

But the sports that I just listed, but really any of the student athletes who want to meet with me are able to, okay.

Yeah.

So that's a lot of athletes that you potentially work with.

Do you proactively approach and assess every athlete, or do you only work with those who kind of come to you and ask for help?

And a great question.

So what we'll do is the NCAA actually in their best practices have developed, just the recommendation that people are that student athletes, when they first get here, have an interaction with, a mental health provider or at least know how to get those services if they need.

And so what we do with within our office is we meet with every student athlete, once they're either a freshman or when they transfer in and we meet with them during their pre participation physicals.

And we'll do a brief mental health screening during that time period.

And also it's just a good opportunity to introduce ourselves, remind them of the services that we have available for them, and then talk a little bit about how they're just doing when they first get here.

And so we never mandate or require counseling, but we really try to catch, you know, at least 3 or 4 times when they first get here, just to put the names to the faces and remind them that we're here to support them no matter what comes up for them during their time here.

Can you give me a little deeper idea of what that assessment is really like?

What how you approach that.

Yeah.

So in our screening we will typically screen for some of the main symptoms of things like depression.

Academic stress, anxiety, any sleep concerns that may come up or any like eating difficulty or potential like body image concerns.

And so between those areas we really get a feel for again, how they're doing at the front end and, and then can follow up with them as needed while they're here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Working with different teams like swimming and equestrian and tennis and any individual from any team, how do you kind of change the things you're teaching us or going about for our day to day, like how to mentally work further in our sport?

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, I think that, the principles or the different skills that we tend to emphasize or focus on tend to be pretty generalized and can kind of, you know, transfer from sport to sport or are the same across sports, right?

Things like being able to stay focused, being able to manage our emotions.

Right, manage stressors or the pressure that can come with being a high level competitor, having confidence in ourselves.

Right.

All of those things are things that I think don't vary from sport to sport, but the timing and maybe, the rhythms of how we, address those topics or how we talk about them, that is what might be unique.

And so what I mean by that is, you know, some teams compete on a weekly basis.

Right?

And so if every single meet or match or game has the same level of intensity, then we might have to focus on, hey, there's a quick reset period.

So I might need to evaluate, hey, what went well?

What do we need to grow from.

And then how do I reset before my game this week.

Right.

Versus maybe some other sports like swim and dive, right.

Like, yes, you have dual meets, but the goal really is to, get to a peak during Championship season.

Yes.

Right.

And so the thing that we would still focus on the same topics, but how we time that out and how we build up to that skill may be a little bit different.

Just depending on when we need to be at our peak.

Right.

For sure.

Could you kind of explain for swimming, for example, how you kind of go about a regular week and then if you were coming to talk to us and then going into our bigger competitions, what you would prepare us with that week.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So, you know, I think, one of the things that I always try to encourage any athlete I'm working with is that, hey, every performance that we do, whether it's a practice, it's a game, it's a dual meet, right?

Every time we have an opportunity to perform, it's also an opportunity for us to get information and to learn from it.

Right.

And so that's kind of the foundation that I work with.

But when they are, say, the week to week meets, I would say that maybe our focus is on executing my race strategy, practicing that, resetting my mindset in between events, and focusing on really learning, gathering information and kind of doing small tweaks here and there.

Right?

Yeah, I think that would help me if we had, say like three weeks of dual meets on Friday.

Just doing the first me and kind of evaluating how the meet went mentally and physically and mentally, seeing if there was anything I needed to change.

And that would be good.

When you would come to our weekly meetings and kind of tell us, right, give us some advice on what to do.

Right?

And as you probably remember too, right, when we get then to kind of the championship meets or that postseason mentality.

Right?

I think that and again, I think this is probably something, not just swim and dive that I think can transfer among all sports.

I think sometimes when we put the term postseason or championship, it can automatically bring, like a higher feeling of pressure.

Right.

And we can have sometimes this feeling of, oh, I need to go and do more, or I have to perform differently in order to meet these bigger goals that I have for myself.

Right.

And so I think a big focus during those meetings or during that time period is really on, hey, how can I narrow my focus, right?

How can I remind myself that I don't have to go and do more or be different?

I have to stay consistent in the things that have helped me be successful to this point.

Right.

And so our focus may narrow into coming back to trusting my training, being able to manage the energy that comes with high intensity, high energy, adrenaline moments.

Right.

And also managing that pressure that we sometimes feel right and, and so, you know, I like to remind athletes not only in championship, championship season, but I feel like it does come up a bit more of like, hey, those nerves are aren't a bad thing, right?

Yes.

That always a good reminder.

Yes.

It just means they're normal.

And it also just means that what I'm doing is important to me and I care about it.

Right.

And so I can also start to have that relationship with my nerves that, hey, this is kind of preparing my body to succeed and, and do the things that I've trained it to do.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Non-athletes, you're asking this question.

I mean, let me give myself some credit.

I did go to state in golf 3 in 1987.

So I was an elite athlete.

It would go, oh, come on now, what are some traits that you see in sort of top athletes really at the top of their sport that you know, that you can build upon to boost their performance?

For sure, for sure.

And I think it's a great question.

I think the biggest thing that I try to help people focus on is that the most successful athletes are the most confident athletes.

They're still not perfect athletes.

Right?

It's not that they don't make mistakes.

What they do have is that they're consistent.

They have an ability to be consistent, whether that's their routines and their daily life or their performance routines, the way that they train, prioritizing their recovery, being able to have short memories for setbacks or mistakes, not letting those linger and carry on into their future performances.

And I think again, overall, just this a growth mindset, right, of like, hey, I've never fully master I can always be getting 1% better.

And I think that being able to focus on those pieces, as well as staying focused on the things that are in my control and being able to stay composed under moments of pressure, those are what I've found kind of separate out the athletes who are able to maintain that sense of confidence.

So, for instance, let's pretend I was actually a golfer.

If I tend to have that consistency on the golf course, then maybe I would tend to have similar consistency in my daily life.

Is that right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

And that's, you know, one of the things that I hope the athletes that I work get to work with take away is that the skills we're talking about, we don't just leave them in at the field or in the pool or in the arenas, their life skills, right?

Being able to be resilient, being able to manage pressure and manage stress, and and stay confident in my ability to do things to the things that are important to me.

Those are things that are going to help make us successful in life.

And I think that's why we try to remind athletes, like, when you do graduate from here, you you already have a really good foundation because you've learned what it's like to be a team player, to advocate for yourself, to have delayed gratification and not have these instant rewards.

You have a really good set of skills that you've had to do in order to be successful as an athlete, and now that's going to help you kind of thrive as just a human.

So let's reset things quickly.

If you are just tuning in.

I'm Jay Socol.

And our guest today is Lauren Craig, assistant director of counseling and sports psychology services at Texas A&M Athletics.

And we were talking about how her work with Aggie athletes help them, and what the rest of us can learn from that.

Okay, Victoria, back to you.

So like we kind of previously talked about before our mid-season meets and conference championships, you definitely are encouraged a lot more to come and give us some tips and we work on some visualization.

Could you kind of go more in depth on what you kind of help us with leading up to the major competitions?

Yeah for sure.

So, you know, like we mentioned a little bit ago, and when we get to those bigger meets, it's how do I come back to trusting my training and how can I narrow my focus onto the things that are fully within my control?

Right.

And so some of the main skills that we know are really helpful are things like visualization, which is basically our ability to picture in detail me, myself performing successfully.

Right.

And I won't jump into I know we don't have enough time on this, this time today, but visualization is a really cool skill because our brain actually can't tell the difference.

Between imagining ourselves carrying out a behavior and actually carrying that out.

And so really using visualization, we're able to kind of get extra reps and without tiring our bodies out.

And so I think it also then allows us to kind of calm anxieties that may come up right, of, you know, worrying about, oh, this might go wrong during a competition.

Okay.

Well, now I can visualize that.

Let's say it does.

How would I like to respond.

Right.

And so we're preparing ourselves so that if that situation does pop up, we've already kind of thought about it.

And now I can be more confident that I know how to address it.

Right.

So that's one skill area.

But I think another big skill area is our self-talk.

Right?

And, I say a lot of times that our brain is designed to protect us, but sometimes our brain can also default to maybe having negative thoughts or the what ifs or those worrisome thoughts.

Right.

And definitely experience that.

Yes.

And so if we're able to remind ourselves that, hey, I may not always control the thought that pops into my head, but what I can control is how much attention I give that thought, or where do I want to actually direct my attention and instead, right.

And so preparing ahead of time, the the statements or the self-talk, or those thoughts that are going to be directed toward, hey, this is actually going to be helpful in meeting my goals, and it's going to remind me that I have trained for this, I've prepared for this, and I'm ready.

Right.

I think that can help kind of commerce in those moments.

Okay.

Okay.

So that kind of, relates to what I was going to ask you, which was, you know, what are some things that you could teach the rest of us, the general public, and that we could use to make our daily lives a little bit better?

You just mentioned visualization and self-talk or the other things that, that come to mind that might be useful for, for us to put into practice.

For sure.

For sure.

Yeah.

And, you know, like, what I always mention is like, are before we're athletes, like athletes is what we do, but like we're humans first.

Right?

And so it's like, hey, the things that I'm working on here that are going to help me be successful are things that I can practice in my daily life.

And so when I do get out of my competition environment, it is still important that I'm focusing on, you know, directing my attention to things that are going to be helpful or productive for me.

But some of those other strategies or approaches could be, how do I approach goal setting?

Right.

I know that's a big one of we do a good job of maybe setting goals, but am I doing it in a way that's going to be helpful?

Right?

Am I writing a goal down and then kind of set it and forget it?

Or am I breaking them down of, okay, hey, this is a specific goal I have.

This is how I'm going to measure it.

And these are the smaller steps that are going to help me get from A to B, right.

And do I have a timeline built in where I can come back and check in of how's the progress going?

Do you have a real example?

Do you're thinking of, lots of lots of examples.

So right now I'm on this, like, journey where I'm trying to get back into, like, running in 5Ks.

So this is kind of random.

I'm thinking off off the cuff here, but really thinking about, you know, if I haven't been doing running for a while, right?

Like, I'm not going to go 0 to 100, right?

And so can I build up and say, okay, hey, for these first two weeks, I'm going to build up, you know, a minute or two at a time with these rest intervals, and then maybe by week three and four I'm running a couple more minutes before I rest.

But I have these shorter periods versus, oh, hey, I just want to get to the 5K by, you know, this date.

Instead.

I'm breaking that down into smaller goals.

Okay, that makes sense.

So one thing you talked to us about was growth and fixed mindsets.

Could you kind of explain just what these are and how having one is better than the other?

Oh for sure.

Yes yes yes yes.

So I think growth in fixed mindset is just a really good foundation for us to have of like how we can approach anything.

Right.

So really when we think of a fixed mindset, kind of the, the biggest pieces that go into a fixed mindset are this belief that my abilities are static or unchanging.

And so whatever talent or skill I bring to the table is there, and I have to just be as successful as I can with what I have.

Right.

Sorry about that.

Y'all.

And so when that's the case, I may get really frustrated if I feel like my natural talent isn't getting me the results that I want, right?

Whereas a growth mindset still understands and still acknowledges.

Yes, our talent, our skill, those are important parts of the equation.

But we also know that my ability to learn the my attitude, the level of effort that I'm willing to bring to making changes and improving, are also important parts of the equation.

Right?

And so with a growth mindset, we tend to recognize that, hey, like, I can always be getting better, right?

That I'm never going to be perfect, but there's always 1% that I could be improving on.

Right?

And so when that is the case, I tend to it tends to take a little bit of that pressure off.

Right.

Yeah a little bit.

And so what we found, what the research shows is that again, both in our sport in a competition setting, but also just in life, people who are able to adopt a growth mindset are able to be a little bit more resilient, right, to persist and, you know, bounce back from setbacks.

They're able to stick with the task longer.

They might be willing to take more risks and put themselves out there more.

Right.

And so all of these things over time, when I'm able to do that consistently, is going to lead to better success.

It's going to make me more likely to reach those long term goals that aren't simple to just kind of check off.

Yeah.

Right.

And then it's also just going to improve my overall well-being.

Right.

And I think that a lot of times, what I try to stress not only to the athletes that I get to work with, but also have to remind myself, is that none of us are all or nothing.

None of us have either all a fixed mindset or all a growth mindset.

Every, situation that we're in, we have an opportunity to adopt either a fix or a growth mindset.

And so there may be moments where my head's not in the right spot, and I maybe am a little bit more of a fixed mindset.

But that's a reminder to me of I can kind of catch myself in that.

Yeah.

And then how can I shift that?

Yeah.

For sure.

When I was competing at meets, I would have a very specific routine, which you touched on.

How does that kind of ease the mind of athletes?

For sure, for sure.

And I would even go a little bit further with, again, I think it is the mind for us to, just as humans.

Right.

Like I think that routines, what they can do is they can help reduce uncertainty and they can help us signal our brain that it's time to perform.

Right.

There's so much of our day and so much of our time.

There's so much mental energy that goes into trying to make decisions and trying to figure out like, what the next best step is and what routines allow us to do is where we can execute in a way where we can kind of reduce that mental load so that we can focus on the things that are most important.

Right.

We're able to I, I know what to expect.

I know that this sequence of events is going to help me prepare for my performance.

Right?

Or prepare for a test I have coming up or a presentation that I have at work.

And so when I get consistent in those routines, then it allows me to take that mental load off.

I've, I'm just executing those and then my attention can then be focused on the things that are maybe more important in that moment.

Okay.

Victoria, what was your routine before you stepped up to start to swim?

I well, obviously a warm up and more elongated regular things, but I had a few superstitions and one was eating three Sour Patch watermelons before every one of my races.

And then I would do like seven jumps before, but just a few little things, fun things.

I love that.

And so we have, about a minute to 90s left.

Do you have any, like, any superstitions from, an athlete that stick in your mind, like, oh, that's weird.

But you kind of let it go because it works for them.

I can speak to myself because I know that, like, I, I was an athlete myself, and my family still, to this day, will still give me such a hard time.

So I, I played softball, and, I had a pack in when the, Livestrong bracelets were really, really popular.

We were going into playoff season and my Livestrong bracelet broke, and I would staple it every game and ward under my batting gloves.

And it would come apart and I would just restart it.

So by the end of the season, we had like probably 13 or 14 staples in it, which is probably not the healthiest thing, that I've ever done.

But, you know, it was for me.

It helped ground me.

It was, again, a good luck charm in my mind.

But I also had pretty extensive, in between pitch routines as well.

In terms of batting.

Well, you might consider, for your 5Ks to incorporate Sour Patch, candies three, because apparently it works.

I'm never going to turn that down.

I wish we had another half hour to talk to you.

This has been great.

So, Lauren, Craig, thanks so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you all so much for having me.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggielands Public Radio 90.9 KAMU FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

All Brazos Matters episodes are available on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.

Also on the NPR app and the KAMU website for Victoria Taylor.

I am Jay Socol.

We thank you very much for watching and for listening, and we wish you a great day.