Esports Library

Mental Skills in Esports

Strategies to achieve optimal performance

Performance in any competitive setting is determined by a combination of three elements: psychological performance (mental skills), technical and tactical mastery and physical health. Specifically, in esports, psychological performance and mental skills play an important role in competitive success and development of players.

Our in-game performance is highly individual and it can vary from day to day. However, everyone aims to gain stability and consistency while performing. That segment is often a key difference between winning and losing a game. Whether you are a professional player or someone who wants to become one, consistency means to always perform at an optimal level rather than having ups and downs all the time. And this is where a performance coach jumps in – we help players and teams control the controllable and be consistent at performing.

Nowadays, there are different ways to train mental skills and psychological performance. This largely depends on what kind of approach and philosophy a performance coach prefers. Despite each model and strategy being different, they all share the same goal – to achieve peak performance.

From an applied perspective our role is to:

• Educate gamers on the mental skills necessary to reach their highest potential;
• Evaluate and help gamers understand their strengths and weaknesses, and how to improve them;
• Educate gamers on why physical health is important for performance;
• Prepare gamers for competitive success.

Teaching mental skills to players and teams has two goals: 1) prepare for competitive success and, 2) improve personal well-being. The first goal of the mental skills training is empowering players and coaches to improve performances in the sporting arena, or in other words prep for competitive success. The second goal is to improve personal well-being and quality of life outside of the sporting arena. At their disposal, performance coaches hold different techniques that players use while training and performing. Characteristics like confidence, concentration and motivation are trainable. Figuring out how to utilize them can have a tremendous impact on results and performance. In the end, everyone aims to perform at the best level possible – to be the best they can be.

Besides the characteristics, it is also important to mention that every player posses, as we like to call them, the foundation skills. Often, these skills are regarded as a basic set of skills that we all share and have in common. Those are motivation, goals and mindset. Without them, we would be doing things without passion and clear aim, and that is why they are considered so vital for our careers. From the psychological perspective, we also have personal, performance and competitive skills. Personal skills are those skills that can influence personal growth and development, such as life skills. Performance skills are the actual in-game mental skills that are essential for competitive success. Competitive success is impossible to achieve on your own, therefore a good set of team building skills is required to be a good team player.

The takeaway message is training mental skills and psychological performance is all about empowering players and coaches in order to improve their performances while also enriching their lives. Pay attention and train them as you would train your in-game technical and tactical abilities. Feel free to reach out and share your experience with us.

© Photos by Michal Konkol – LoL Esports Photos 2019