Mental Performance Coaching for Athletes Who Want to Compete More Freely
You can train your body, study your sport, and still feel your performance tighten when the moment gets heavy.
You may overthink after one mistake. Rush when the result matters. Compare yourself to other athletes. Carry one poor performance into the next opportunity. Or let a coach’s decision, a parent’s reaction, a statistic, or a roster role determine how you see yourself.
The Game Within gives you a practical way to understand those patterns.
Monthly or biweekly coaching with Shawn Collins helps you apply the course to your sport, your season, and the athlete you are becoming.
Already ready to begin? Get annual access to The Game Within.
Start with a clearer view
The Mental Performance Index Gives You a Starting Point
The Mental Performance Index is an assessment used to begin the conversation about how you experience pressure and performance.
It is not a grade, diagnosis, label, or prediction of success.
It gives you and Shawn a clearer starting point for coaching. Your results can help identify what to discuss first, what to practice, and what changes to review over time.
The Game Within
The Game Within is BETTER’s mental performance course for athletes who want to compete with more freedom, understand themselves more clearly, and develop a healthier relationship with performance.
The course includes six sections, 40 lessons, video instruction, printable worksheets, an individual athlete portal, and access to the BETTER Athlete Community.
Seth Kindig and Kevin DeShazo support the broader community. Shawn directly supports the athletes and families enrolled in his coaching.
Four Stages
Fear
Name what you are trying to protect.
Fear often appears before the athlete can explain it. The body tightens. Breathing changes. Decisions speed up. The athlete protects a role, an image, a result, approval, or a future opportunity.
The goal is not to pretend fear is absent. It is to notice what it is doing early enough to respond.
Purpose
Clarify who you are becoming through your sport.
Purpose gives the athlete a reason to compete that is bigger than one result. It connects goals to behavior and helps the athlete decide what matters when the game does not go as planned.
Drift
Recognize the patterns that pull you away from your best.
Drift is rarely one dramatic event. It often starts with a small change in thought, body language, breathing, effort, communication, or decision-making. Athletes learn to identify triggers, tells, and the path back.
Competitive Joy
Pursue excellence without asking performance to prove your worth.
Competitive Joy does not lower the standard. It allows the athlete to compete hard, review performance honestly, and keep identity separate from the result.
A course can teach the idea.
Coaching helps you use it when the pressure is real.
Every sport creates different moments:
- A pitcher gives up a lead.
- A golfer carries one poor hole into the next three.
- A basketball player loses minutes.
- A runner tightens before a major meet.
- A volleyball player starts playing not to make an error.
- A baseball player presses after a slow week.
- A swimmer reaches the blocks already thinking about the time.
- An injured athlete returns physically cleared but mentally guarded.
Private coaching gives the athlete a scheduled place to review what happened, name the pattern, choose one practice, and return with evidence from the next real performance.
Monthly Coaching
Best for athletes who want a consistent review rhythm and can apply one focus between sessions.
The recommended format is one private 45-minute Zoom session each month, supported by The Game Within, the Mental Performance Index, and one written practice focus after each session.
Biweekly Coaching
Best for athletes in season, moving into a higher level, returning from injury, working through repeated drift, or preparing for a concentrated competitive period.
The recommended format is two private 45-minute Zoom sessions each month, supported by The Game Within, the Mental Performance Index, and a written practice focus after each session.
What Athlete Coaching Includes
- Private coaching with Shawn at the selected cadence.
- Application of Fear, Purpose, Drift, and Competitive Joy to current sport situations.
- Review of the Mental Performance Index starting point and approved follow-up measures.
- One written practice focus after each session.
- Periodic progress review.
- Direct support from Shawn for his coaching clients.
- A clear separation between private coaching and the general BETTER community.
What It Does Not Include
- Unlimited texting, email, or unscheduled calls.
- Immediate or emergency response.
- Therapy, medical care, crisis response, legal advice, or recruiting representation.
- A promise of confidence, statistics, playing time, scholarships, wins, or roster outcomes.
- Access for siblings or teammates under one individual agreement.
- Automatic sharing of private coaching notes with a parent, coach, or program.
For parents and legal guardians
Support the athlete without making the result the measure of worth.
Parents often know an athlete is carrying more than the athlete says.
The goal is not to remove every difficult emotion or protect the athlete from honest competition. The goal is to give the athlete language, practice, and support for responding to pressure in a healthier way
For Athletes Under 18:
- A parent or legal guardian completes the approved enrollment and consent process.
- The coaching agreement explains communication, privacy, scheduling, and safety boundaries.
- Parents receive the information needed to support the service without turning private coaching into a performance report.
- Any parent update is handled under the consent and safety terms stated before coaching begins.
- Private coaching gives the athlete a scheduled place to review what happened, name the pattern, choose one practice, and return with evidence from the next real performance.
Get The Game Within for the Current Early-Access Price
BETTER has announced a stated annual reference price of $199 and a current early-access price of $49 with coupon code: GWEARLYACCESS
Frequently Asked Questions
Start with the Mental Performance Index
You do not need to wait for an entire team to begin working on the mental side of your performance.
Take the assessment. Review what it shows. Then decide whether the course alone or the course plus direct coaching is the right next step.