Participants attend the recent webinar in sports psychology amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
KUCHING (Aug 22): Sarawak athletes and coaches are urged to adopt the right mindset and prepare to live with the new norms due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was the key message delivered by Sarawak Sports Corporation (SSC) CEO Dr Ong Kong Swee when he presented a webinar series ‘Psychological Skills Training and Strategies towards Excellence for athletes and coaches amid the Covid-19 Pandemic’ last Wednesday.
He added that adopting the right mindset will help them to move on from the fear phase of the pandemic to the learning and growth phase.
“Losing direction and focus by athletes and being demotivated during the pandemic is common and is a worldwide issue.
“The coronavirus is here to stay but we must learn how to adapt to the pandemic situation and we have to stop compulsive reaction towards it while following the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP),” Ong explained.
The webinar series in sports psychology reached out to about 325 coaches and athletes in Sarawak.
It aims to deliver psychological support to coaches and athletes to be mentally healthy amid the pandemic and to stay motivated for upcoming competitions.
“We should have the attitude and mindset of those athletes and coaches who performed during the recent Tokyo Oympics where many world records were broken and it has been a great inspiration to see them doing it during this time of the pandemic,” he said.
Ong, who is also Sarawak State Sports Council director, encouraged all coaches, athletes and staff members to exhibit versatile leadership by creating a conducive environment for others to contribute to the society at large.
A creative idea brought up during the series was to overcome the fear factor by rephrasing ‘pandemic’ into a set of positive attitudes and attributes:
P – Positivity, health need to come first, A – Approach vs Avoidance, N – Accept the situation now, adopt the new belief and move on to next level, D – Developmental ways to manage the situation, E – Empathy to understand and feel what the other person is experiencing because everyone’s situation is different, M – Model the way and increase engagement to overcome barriers by creating support systems, I – Innovate and C – Context.
Ong also called on the local sports fraternity to stay updated on the right information from social media while maintaining virtual communication with the Sarawak contingent to stay connected while maintaining social distancing.