One of our clients recently shared their experience on how their child went from being an anxious athlete who couldn't perform well in games to a confident athlete who consistently performs at their best. They explain the process so well, I put the entire review below: “As parents of a young athlete with high aspirations, we couldn't be more thrilled with the transformative experience our daughter has had with CEP and her mental performance coach, Natasha Habert. Natasha's expertise in sport psychology and her genuine passion for helping athletes excel have made a profound impact on our daughter's athletic journey and personal growth. Before working with Natasha, our daughter faced challenges common to many young athletes: managing anxiety, translating her practice performance into games, building confidence, and handling the pressures of high-stakes competition. These struggles didn't just stay on the field—they affected her schooling and overall well-being. Natasha's personalized coaching approach addressed these issues head-on. She introduced our daughter to powerful concepts like focusing on controllables, embracing challenges with resilience, and shifting from reacting emotionally to responding thoughtfully. Natasha helped our daughter recognize that avoiding difficult thoughts and situations only causes them to resurface later. Instead, she learned to address these challenges directly—sitting with them, accepting them, and then moving through them. This approach has enabled her to gain perspective in high-pressure situations and develop tools to stay composed and focused. The results have been nothing short of remarkable. We've seen a significant boost in her confidence and a newfound ability to perform consistently at her best. She now approaches both sports and life challenges with a resilient mindset, viewing obstacles as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks. This positive shift has also improved her sleep and overall health, breaking the negative cycle she previously struggled with. One of the most rewarding aspects has been watching the strong rapport that has developed between our daughter and Natasha. Natasha's supportive and understanding nature has made her not just a coach but a trusted mentor. Our daughter feels genuinely heard and valued, which has empowered her to take ownership of her development both on and off the soccer field. We wholeheartedly recommend CEP and Natasha Habert to any athlete looking to elevate their performance and mindset. Their program has exceeded our expectations, providing our daughter with lifelong skills that extend far beyond sports. The investment in her mental game has proven invaluable, and we are grateful for the positive influence Natasha has had on her life.” As Mental Performance Coaches our primary goal is to deliver results like this to our clients. We strictly focus on 1-on-1 coaching because it is the most powerful way to transform your mindset. So if you are interested in learning more about our services or working 1-on-1 with our great team of coaches then click here to book a free intro session.

Parents play a huge role in the youth sporting experience, as such, Dr. Cassidy Preston has created these expectations for parents to strongly consider (watch the video above to find out more about Cassidy & why he made this resource). These expectations are based on applied experience and academic research. They set a standard for parents to help avoid common mistakes and follow best practices to optimize the impact on your child, the team, and the organization as a whole. These expectations will help to: Decrease unnecessary stress, conflict, and issues around sport. Increase satisfaction and healthy relationships between your child, parents, coaches, referees etc. Increase your child's well-being, mindset, and performance as well as life skills (e.g. confidence, focus, resilience). These expectations have been categorized into 3 main categories: 1. Parent Expectations Away from the Field of Play The Car Ride to Their, the Car Ride Home, & Anytime Talking About Your Child's Sport A common mistake is parents don’t let their child own the experience and process. When you over-coach and over share your opinion your child misses the opportunity to take ownership of their journey. In the car ride home, don’t talk first and share how you felt the game went — instead, let them self-reflect and share their opinion. This allows them to develop confidence in their own self-perception instead of always worrying about what everyone else thinks. The goal is NOT for them to chase your approval, rather the goal is about them being proud of themselves, owning their capabilities, and enjoying the experience. Confidence does NOT come from praise. If you repeatedly tell your child how great they are doing it won’t develop confidence. In fact, it can undermine it. Constant praise will make your child feel they need to constantly seek your approval, instead of focusing on how they feel about their experience, their progress, and their capabilities. Western culture has fallen into a trap where confidence is based on results and external validation. But that is a terrible definition that makes confidence dependent on external results. Which leads to athletes having yo-yo confidence that goes up and down with the results. Instead, true confidence is about owning one's capabilities based on the work they have put in. When athletes learn to own their capabilities day-in and day-out regardless of the variance in results, that is how they develop unshakeable confidence. Think of confidence as being grounded and centered. If you try to pump up and inflate your child they will naturally want to put themselves down. And if you are too hard on them and deflate them - they will tune you out. This is why 1a is about letting your child take the lead - without that step true confidence will not be achieved. One of the best life skills your child can learn through sports is resilience and grit. Which is all about developing a mindset that embraces challenges and views failure as a growing opportunity. [...]

  My (Coach Nicholas) favourite idea to work on with athletes is what I call the Vending Machine vs Slot Machine Mentality (shoutout to Ryder McIntyre on his support with building out this idea). Having a Vending Machine Mentality is all about exchange. You put something in, you expect something out. And that's when you lose your confidence. You feel like you’re doing well, but your coach isn't playing you as much as you want, you aren’t getting as many points as you expected, or people aren’t giving you the praise you think you deserve. Either way, you’re caught up in the game of guarantees, exchange, and absolute certainty. It’s extremely valuable for each and every one of us to build certainty in our ability to perform. The problem is when we try to create absolute certainty. This is when things go wrong. Instead, I find that a Slot Machine Mentality works much better. This is the idea that you need to have an input. You need to show up. You need to put your money in. You need to pull that lever. But then, you need to embrace the uncertainty between doing all that hard work and getting a certain result. The Slot Machine Mentality is much more in line with how life truly works. As an athlete, you must show up to work consistently. You must put in maximum effort. You must be willing to do what others are not. This is how you maximize your probabilities. But once you do everything you can to maximize your probability of success, you must also be able to embrace the uncertainty of your sport and life in general. In this Slot Machine Mentality you will experience uncertainty, this can be an unpleasant and painful experience. But, with that uncertainty comes hope. The problem with having a Vending Machine Mentality is that you’re so caught up in having absolute certainty that you forget that with all that certainty - comes the removal of any hope. Why have hope if you’re living in a world of guarantees? We all know absolute certainty is impossible to obtain…and that's why I love the Slot Machine Mentality. It’s all about maximizing your probabilities of success, embracing the unpleasant feelings of uncertainty, and leaning into the nerves and excitement of hope. Make sure you keep Pulling Your Slot Machine Every Single Day! Please share this with anyone you think would be interested.

Here is a dangerous idea that I think many athletes and people subconsciously fall into (I know I have in my life multiple times) — that the more successful you are in your sport or work means you are a better person. We live in a culture that constantly judges, compares, and ranks us. Who is the best player? Who is going to make it to the next level? Who played well? And who played bad? There is a place for this - one can get helpful feedback by using healthy comparison. But there are also a lot of problems that come from the constant judgment and the chase of results. The problem gets much worse when we take this one step further and start comparing people and life as whole. Our minds can wander into the realm of: who is a better person? Who is more successful? Who is winning at the game of life? Because of the constant judging and comparison in sport, why not do it in life in general? Well this is an even more dangerous game to play. If someone is the best hockey player in the world - does that make them a better person than someone else? Does that mean they are winning at life and others are losing? When you look at it with a critical lens, the idea of this should be ridiculous, yet have you fallen into this trap? Have you felt the weight of your performance be so heavy because in the back of your mind a part of you feels that you will be a better person if you succeed in your sport? If so - don’t worry - I think this is incredibly common and understandable based on how our culture operates. The good news is that it can be a simple shift to get out of that trap. The shift starts by drawing a clear line that success and failure in your sport does NOT dictate your worth as a person. In fact, I’d encourage you to embrace the idea of not playing the who is winning at life game at all. Instead, view each person’s journey in life as unique to them — because it is. There really isn’t a point in judging one person’s journey as better or worse than another person’s journey. So focus on your race, make the most out of your life, and enjoy your journey.

Athletes typically start a program with me (Coach Nicholas) because they’re overly focused on results, which leads them to overthink and worry - accumulating to the overarching feeling of doubting themself and lacking confidence. Why is this the case? Athletes usually notice these feelings during a transition period in their sport. An athlete is either trying to make it to the next level (or they just got there) and are trying to figure out how to thrive in this new environment. Having doubt and lacking confidence makes sense, and it's an appropriate response - but we need to find a way to manage this difficult experience. The way I like to address it is to grab the word ‘confidence’ and kick it out - we get rid of it completely - I really don’t love that word. I think confidence is a mystical experience for most athletes where they become obsessed with avoiding the feelings of doubt and chasing the feelings of robust confidence. This obsession forms a powerful emotional charge - creating the extreme highs and lows that athletes often feel. Instead, I think we need to have a system to break confidence into a more practical and user-friendly form. The first way I help athletes do this is to replace the word confidence with self-belief. This doesn’t seem like the most drastic change - and it isn’t - but it is a fantastic first step! Confidence is truly an umbrella term. Everytime an athlete tells me they want to be more confident, I ask the simple question “what does it feel like when you’re more confident.” More often than not, athletes take quite a while to respond. They really have to sit back and think about what it means for them to feel confident. This is a problem - it’s a problem because athletes rarely spend the time defining what that confidence actually feels like. So, what do we replace it with? Self-Belief. Self-belief is a much more tangible and powerful way to build certainty in your game. I lean on Alfred Bandura’s work, where the sense of self-belief arises from four major categories of experiences: Previous Mastery Experiences: Going out into the world, doing it, doing it well, and doing it consistently Vicarious Experiences: Believing you can do something because you’re part of a community/team/group and you can compare your current ability to theirs. Knowing you are peers makes you believe that even if other people are better than you, that you can clearly develop that as well. The power of community! Physical & Emotional State: Having energy, being strong, mobile etc. This is all about your current physical and emotional feelings. Persuasion (Social & Personal): Being around people who will be supportive when needed while providing constructive feedback when necessary AND having a mental toolbox that allows you to become aware of, accept and influence yourself - AKA Personal Persuasion Where athletes go wrong is that they usually just pull from the first category - [...]

Looking back at the Paris Olympics, it shocks me that more athletes aren’t catching on. In a post online asking golfers what their main goal was for the Olympics almost every player said to either win a medal or win gold. And then you have Scottie Scheffler, who says the main goal is to “Have fun.” Instead of being fixated on results and chasing the gold medal, Scheffler’s priority is about enjoying the game. The result - he wins gold! When are people going to catch on? When are people going to realize that prioritizing your enjoyment of the game optimizes your probability of success? It’s important to note that Scheffler still wanted to win gold, it was obviously a goal, but it was NOT the priority. This subtle difference enables him to play more free, be in the moment, and perform when it matters most. Kudos to Scottie Scheffler for prioritizing enjoyment over results. Here’s to hoping his example will help inspire more to follow suit! Click on the image below to listen to my full breakdown.

Disclaimer: This post was written by Coach Louie and is not meant to downplay anyone experiencing anxiety or offer any form of clinical advice. Rather, his intent is to share his opinions and offer perspectives that might help people and athletes in particular to better regulate their emotions. We hope you find it helpful. ___________________________________________________________________ Without looking too far you’ll hear the word anxiety mentioned. It’s become a buzz word in the mental health world. This psychological and physiological diagnosis is everywhere and we attach it to everything. It doesn't seem too long ago when anxiety was rarely mentioned–if at all— and surprisingly people seemed less anxious. I have no doubt that anxiety exists, having experienced it myself – but has the rate of anxiety increased over the years? Or, have we looped too many thoughts and feelings under the umbrella of anxiety? Is there too much attention on the topic? In the mental health world it is always safer to go the route of over expressing how you feel versus keeping things inside. It’s more common these days for children and adults alike to express how they feel and find solutions or coping mechanisms to help. I write with the utmost concern for those who need to express their feelings and thoughts - myself included - but have we come to a point where thoughts of anxiety are worse than thoughts that created it? It’s not uncommon to see people with anxiety and not remember what caused it. In a good way, we have become more aware of our thoughts and feelings which can help us identify, categorize and process them, but has this practice oversensitized us to the point it does more harm than good? Some have become obsessed with the notion of anxiety that they are constantly looking for what could trigger those symptoms, which creates more anxiety and off we go on this vicious loop. A lot of what we call anxiety today used to be called life. The French used the phrase “C’est la Vie” (this is life), which encompasses life as an experience as opposed to something we can always control. We are now more secure about our future than ever before. If you're reading this, you probably aren't concerned about your next meal or a roof over your head. Nonetheless we find ourselves unsatisfied. We may be physically secure, but it’s not enough - we demand to know our future. With all the anxiety labeling, we have forgotten that insecurity is a part of life. There will never come a time when you’re completely secure, and if you think so, just think a little more. No matter how well things are going, one can always feel the anxiousness of the unknown or ponder our inevitable death. As a human being you are not obliged to think about everything, no one has died or gone to jail because they refused to go down a path of anxious thinking. Our thinking [...]

Although I have been a hockey coach for over 30 years, I have always viewed myself as an educator first, and everything that being educator entails. Ironically, the work that I am doing now as a Performance Coach, is and has been extremely gratifying. Looking back, I know that the seeds were definitely planted while I was in university in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In attending the University of Toronto where I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Physical and Health Education (Kinesiology in today’s language), there were two distinct tracts that one could have gone down. There was the more scientific, biomechanical side, or the more humanistic side, of sociology and psychology of sports and of physical activity and health… I chose the latter. I graduated in 1992, after playing for 5 years for the Varsity Blues hockey team. I then went on to play professionally in Italy for a season, and then returned to become an Assistant Coach at U of T. Coaching was something that I wanted to commit to, and I found joy on the ice helping our players become better. However, another role that I took on, was that of being a mentor and consultant to these players. It was in that role that I found, where I was truly having an effect and more importantly an impact, not only on the players on ice growth and development, but off the ice as well. Over the next few years, I coached, and subsequently obtained my Bachelor of Education degree and embarked on a teaching career. I continued to progress as a Head Coach in Jr. Hockey, first with the Brampton Capitals, and then with the storied St. Michael’s Buzzers. The synergies between coaching and teaching were natural. I did this for 8 years. Along the way, I read voraciously, on anything from successful people’s biographies, to leadership books. I utilized the information that I took in to inform my classroom teaching as well as my coaching. I always had a very good grasp on the X’s and O’s of the game and could make adjustments in game as well as instruct during practices… very well. What I really enjoyed, however, was the leadership side of the game, helping individual players become better both on and off the ice. I enjoyed the culture building, creating standards of excellence and an environment of high-performance. This got me excited. Without knowing it, our teams with the Buzzers went to the league finals three seasons in a row, with us winning the Championship on two occasions. One of the players on that team was a young Cassidy Preston, who eventually coached my son in AAA hockey and obtained his PhD in Sports Psychology. I subsequently became the Head Coach and General Manager of the Oshawa Generals, of the OHL, and then became a scout with the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL (garnering a Stanley Cup ring in 2016). I’ve continually sought out learning [...]

I grew up in the typical hockey family, with two older brothers that were incredibly talented, a forward and a defenseman to learn from. I was also fortunate enough to have a “hockey-dad” who coached me and my friends for years before moving to the U22 league at the age of fifteen. This is when I started to take my training to the next level and I started to believe I could make it to the university level. The 'Ah-Ha' Moment The summer before playing U22, I attended Brian O’Riellys summer hockey camp, as one of two females, alongside my brother and other OHL / Major Junior prospects. Intimidated, I tried my hardest to keep up with the boys.After long hard training days, Coach “Bri”, who was a performance life coach, gave speeches on sport perseverance, mental toughness and being a good athlete and person. These talks altered my life indefinitely, it gave me insight into what mental performance training is and could do for me as a young athlete moving towards a university career. From that camp forward, not only did I decide to fully dedicate myself to my sport and make it to the next level, it made me want to pursue a career in sports psychology. I too had a passion for helping people, especially athletes, believe that they could get anywhere they wanted in their lives and achieve their greatest sport goals. Unfortunate Events Piled Up - Adversity However, in my last year of high school, I was involved in an accident that took me out of sport for the majority of the season. This accident gave me many mental struggles when trying to get back into playing shape. I then committed to a newly appointed NCAA Division 1 league university team, not fully knowing exactly what the year ahead of me would entail.Unfortunately, fresh off of months leave from the ice, I found myself on an underdeveloped and unorganized team. My gameplay took a major downhill turn. I went from a confident blue-liner that could see the ice well and move the puck fast, to a nervous, unsure defender, often making unconfident plays. My skating and puck skills also took a hit and I was at the lowest point of my career, on the verge of quitting all together.The Covid pandemic inevitably sent me home and made my transition to move back to Canada a lot simpler. From there, I then had to commit to a comeback journey. Fresh Start Through self-directed training during lockdown, I took the year of 2020 to recover my hockey career. Despite the major adversities, I embraced the physical and mental training necessary to make Brock U. After a tough summer of catchup and a tough tryout process, I made the Brock team as a “walk-on”.I thought I was back in business! Believing that my career was “saved”, I realized that my game play was still a little behind my peers after being away from the rink [...]

Being an athlete has always been a part of my identity. Whether it was hockey, baseball, soccer, track & field, golf—you name a sport, I’ve probably played it. I never once considered myself anything but an athlete. I always thought my natural athletic abilities would take me far, but as I got older, it became apparent that I needed to put in the work. Throughout high school, the effort I invested helped me play on some of the top hockey and baseball teams in British Columbia. I was on a path for success. But one thing held me back… Comparing Myself to Others My goals had always been to become a college/university athlete in either hockey or baseball and hopefully turn pro. However, I often found myself caught up in comparing my progress to others. I had teammates who were committing to Junior hockey teams, earning NCAA Div 1 scholarships, and even getting their shot at going pro. Instead of focusing on how I could improve, I constantly felt like the system was unfair and I played the victim. I felt I was working just as hard as everyone else, but not getting the same opportunities. This way of thinking sent me into a downward spiral. The more opportunities my teammates got, the more I became frustrated as I felt like I deserved better. Comparing myself to others affected my performance and I constantly felt like I was falling behind others. I let the noise affect me in a negative way and I started to fall out of love with being an athlete. Despite all this, my abilities on the ice still provided me with multiple chances to prove that I belonged at the highest level of hockey. Not Being Ready for My Moment With my teammates being called up to play for junior hockey teams, my goal was also to get called up to play for a British Columbia Hockey League team. In my 11th-grade year, I got my shot to play junior. I remember the excitement of going to the rink that day, stepping on the ice for warm-up, and thinking about the opportunity I had to prove myself in the BCHL. But this opportunity didn't go as planned. I ended up playing only 3 shifts. It wasn't the end of the world for me, but it was definitely disappointing. They promised me another chance, and they delivered on that promise when I got into my second BCHL game. Surely, I couldn’t get fewer than 3 shifts, right? Nope, I played just 1 shift that game. Even the backup goalie saw more ice than I did. My mind spiraled after that game. I questioned whether I belonged and if I was given a fair opportunity to prove myself. This self-doubt affected my performance for the rest of the season with my own team. Feeling hopeless, I believed my chances of playing college hockey, let alone junior hockey, were slipping away. That summer after the [...]