Mental coach says mistakes provide information for growth
Friday 14th August 2026 on 11:00 in
Estonia
Professional athletes’ mental performance coach Kerdu Lenear told ERR’s R2 Hommik programme that mental training helps athletes maintain focus and avoid becoming mentally stuck on the field after major mistakes.
Lenear, who works with basketball and football players, said athletes can train their mindset because mistakes, errors and failures provide the information needed for real development.
“No ball game is perfect,” Lenear said. “The mistake is when an athlete tries to be perfect in a game that is inherently imperfect, becomes stuck in their mistakes and leaves the match feeling that everything went wrong.”
She said athletes who only win and perform well can remain at the same level because successful performances do not reveal which skills still need to be developed. “Every mistake is information for us,” Lenear said.
According to Lenear, the brain’s primary goal is not to play sport but to protect people from danger. When an athlete makes a critical mistake during a game, the brain may interpret it as a threat and trigger a defensive response, leading to uncertainty and a decline in performance.
Mental coaches teach athletes to consciously direct their thoughts in such situations. Lenear gives them a simple principle: “What I think, I feel; what I feel, I do; what I do, I get.” By learning to manage their thoughts more consciously, athletes can change the feelings created by a situation and make different decisions, she said.
Lenear said mental preparation is crucial, estimating that mental readiness accounts for 90 percent of sports performance.
Athletes typically approach a mental performance coach saying they want to become more confident. During the process, however, other issues often emerge. Athletes learn to manage themselves and understand that emotions are a normal part of sport, Lenear said. They cannot eliminate emotions, but they can decide whether to give them power when they need to perform at their best or notice them and deal with them after the competition.