Sport Psychology success-Louis' journey

Hello everyone and welcome to the next edition of the Pathways to Psychology blog. Today we hear from Louis Ross, HCPC Registered Sport Psychologist. Louis reflects on the complexity in this burgeoning field of Psychology and how he had found his way to success. He also shares excellent ideas to start up and thrive as a Practitioner. Happy reading!

                 Louis Ross

            HCPC Registered Sport                         Psychologist

“Make sure that you love it” is what I remember vividly from my MSc, “because it’s a long road”… and the course lecturers that reminded us of that several times weren’t wrong! My journey was a little different due to a BSc in the states + an Open University conversion course, but however you choose to pursue your accreditation just know it certainly is a long and demanding route. I’ll keep it short-ish and provide 5 key reflections from my trainee journey.

             You’re on your own  

Not totally, but it often feels that way. Your supervisor isn’t there to prepare you for every client or to debrief after every call, you may find yourself in roles where you are the only Sport Psych, and outside of individual / group supervision time you are left to research, formulate, and plan by yourself which can be daunting!

I’d encourage you to engage with your peers as much as possible. Schedule regular peer supervision sessions where you can vent, bounce ideas off of one another, discuss cases, and everything in between (even better if there’s a few of you who are at different stages of the journey). 

           

               The early months

Make use of the early months 

During the first few months clients were hard to come by whilst I was finding my feet and reaching out to prospective clients. My supervisor suggested that I make the most of that time to engage with as many resources as possible in key areas that related to my submission portfolio. I found it useful to read up on different therapeutic approaches, practice philosophies, and case studies because it started to give me a strong idea of the type of practitioner that I wanted to be when I did start to see more clients. 

                        CPD

Some extras that I wish I did more of are… seeking out free CPD (continuous professional development), watching recorded sessions and / or role play sessions from practitioners online (YouTube is a great resource for this). If you look, there is plenty of good cheap or free CPD as well as great chances to watch sessions from practitioners (look outside of Sport Psych as well) online. I found that this bridges the gap from reading about things to actually seeing them in action. 

                  Multiple roles

Get ready to wear many hats 

You’re more than likely going to have to upskill yourself in:

Business management – contracts, ethics, chasing invoices, doing your tax return, all of the background stuff that comes with running your own consultancy (which you are more than likely going to have to do at some point!)

        Marketing and selling your                           services  

Get used to reaching out to people and not hearing back amongst many other things like creating social media content, posting on LinkedIn, and much more. 

Placements aren’t commonplace in the Sport Psych world so being able to demonstrate value / impact and sell yourself in an authentic way will be vital! 

                Opportunities

Being resourceful – Bit of a rogue one but you’ll spend a LOT of time scouring search engine sites for PDFs of research articles (or like me you might owe a lot of favours to those in research and academia roles who share them!). What else do I mean here… I think I also mean leveraging all contacts that may be able to help you advance your career or provide opportunities. I also mean finding opportunities in fields / sports that you never thought to look before, and this might mean long days / weeks, free work, and lots of learning on the job, but this is the reality of the field I would say!

          Imposter syndrome

Be ready for the comparisons to others, the doubt surrounding your ability as a Practitioner or whether you are ready to support a particular athlete, step into a new sport, or be in rooms that you weren’t in ‘x’ amount of months ago. This stuff comes and goes and certainly isn’t limited to your training pathway and I don’t really have a solution for this one but I do see a lot of peers speaking about this more openly which can only be a good thing. 

          Training to be a Sport                            Psychologist

This training isn’t easy and it requires you to demonstrate (and continue demonstrating) a high level of commitment to your own development which I hope can act as a source of confidence for you that you are indeed ready for the variety of experiences along the training pathway and beyond. 

                    Reflection

I’d encourage all trainees to set time aside each week / month to reflect, catch up on notes and admin, add to / tweak your practice philosophy (keep a running live document!!), engage with CPD, plus anything else! 

These are all usually the first things to go once your client load / applied work becomes busy so get into good habits that (in my opinion) provide you with a solid foundation and hopefully reassurance that you’re doing things right!

                Back yourself

Apply for the job you might not be ready for, reach out to the person on LinkedIn, make the social media post, collect case studies, short videos & snippets of your work (if others consent for this to happen) to post / demonstrate impact etc… You are coming into a fairly young field at a time that is kind of strange; it’s post-COVID, it’s a very tech and social media heavy world, and you’re striving to provide human connection which I think is something that people crave! Get yourself in front of people, offer to buy a contact a coffee and meet them to learn more, think of ways where you can build connections that might pay off in 6-9 months time. 

It might not feel like the work you are putting into your career is paying off right away but by doing good work & building connections you’ll put yourself in a good position. 

It was really nice to write this piece and I’ve reminded myself of a few lessons to keep in mind for myself as well. I’m always happy for further questions so you can find me at @connectsportpsych on Instagram and if you’re looking for a community to join where other trainees and aspiring Sport Psychs are connecting, drop @training_and_beyond a follow on socials and we can tell you more about what we do. 

Louis

Thank you so much Louis, it is lovely to read about practical suggestions for anyone new to the field. I love how you talk of backing yourself, taking on opportunities you might not feel 100% ready for. Often it is these steps that build a successful career. We wish you every success moving forward!

Maybe reading about Louis reminded you of your own training journey. Get in touch to add your blog entry.

Kind regards,

The Pathways Team