Single-Session vs Long-Term Coaching: Which is best for you?
Single-session coaching to save money and time or multi-session coaching to develop, master skills, and truly invest in yourself? Which should you choose?
I receive a lot of great questions from athletes, parents, and people who are just interested in understanding sport psychology and mental performance coaching. One of the questions I was surprised to receive (multiple times) is from people wondering why they would need more than a single session of mental performance training. This seemed like a great topic to discuss today and hopefully I am able to build out the picture better to help you make a decision as to which approach works best for your needs.
Single Session
Let me start off by saying that, yes, sometimes a single session is beneficial for some people. (WHAT?! A Coach saying there are benefits to a single session?! Yes, stick with me here). I have some athletes that I worked with during my doctoral program during COVID who do a check-in once or twice a year. Their lifestyle has changed to something other than being sport centric, but they still find many of the skills and drills useful that we used when they were an athlete at the collegiate level. These are some of my favorite single-sessions for two reasons: 1) I get to hear from old athletes and see how they continue to apply mental performance theories and principles to their lives well after sports have ended and 2) we get to work through new applications of mental performance and psychological theories to their everyday life! It is exciting!
There has also been situations where athletes are looking more for an azimuth check than needing additional training. I have worked with athletes who had a solid background in mental performance training and were just looking to double check if they were going the right direction, for these situations a single session might be preferred. Either they have a depth of experience, they were coaches themselves, or they weren’t living a competitive lifestyle anymore and just wanted to get some questions answered. A single-session fit what they were looking for and I always leave the door open if they want to come back for follow-up.
Most athletes don’t fit into the single-session need category, but they might try to convince themselves that they do for the sake of saving time and money. Here is a breakdown of the benfits and drawbacks of a single-session of mental performance coaching.
What are the benefits of a single-session?:
Great for azimuth checks
Easy to fit into your schedule
You control the focus
No commitment
No homework (probably)
What are the drawbacks of a single-session?
No progression model: You get a single session to learn and the opportunity to build on concepts is severely limited.
More expensive per session (you lose the benefit of package pricing).
Limited follow-up: Some coaches might check to make sure you understand the information covered, but it won’t be as extensive as working with the same coach over the full season.
Not as personalized: If the coach only meets you a single time they can’t truly know your communication or learning styles which might limit your take-away from that session.
Very shallow approach: Without building trust, most athletes wont be open enough to truly focus on their needs to breakthrough whatever mental hurdle is tripping them up.
Let’s move on and look at multi-session coaching. This is the approach I usually recommend, not because this is my job, but because I believe in the benefits of multi-session approaches.
Multi-Session
Package deals come in all different sizes depending on your needs. Some coaches, like myself, even offer season retainers that allow athletes to reach out to them anytime during the season through agreed upon methods. Multiple sessions have a number of benefits, and a few drawbacks too (which I will touch on in a little bit). Depending on the size of the package deal, there are different benefits but most coaches generally have a minimum for their packages. If you look at my coaching offers, you will notice that my smallest package deal is four sessions and there is a reason for that.
Mental performance training, similar to physical training, is a progression based model. One of the best ways to think about it is to imagine yourself going to a strength and conditioning coach and telling them you currently bench press 95 pounds and you want to bench press 315 pounds by the end of the first session. Seems far fetched right? Similarly, you can’t expect to build the self-awareness, master the skills, and implement a plan all within a single 60 minute block of time and be done with it. While strength training is creating physiological adaptation in your muscles, tendons, and ligaments, mental performance training is creating neural adaptation in your brain and building awareness of how your nervous system works in your body, which also takes education and repetition.
Many mental performance coaches use a nested planning model approach. This means they work with you to establish your end-state goal and then build a plan that builds upon itself towards that goal. Your goal might be multiple years away but that coach is looking at the end-state, every year until the end-state, each season, each month in the season, and each session within the month. This progression model takes into consideration your current needs, but also looks down the road to see how to strengthen your weaknesses and bulletproof your strengths, while being available to address immediate time-sensitive situations.
Here’s a quick break-down of the Nested Planning Model Approach:
Session-Session: Micro Cycles
Season to Season or Months to Months: Meso Cycles
Year to Year: Annual Cycle
Big Picture End-State: Macro Cycle
One of the GREATEST benefits of multi-session coaching is that there is a relational aspect that comes with a multi-session approach to mental performance. When a coach and athlete get to know eachother, trust can be built that allows more openness. Without this openness, coaches can’t truly help athletes to answer all their questions or address all their needs. However, trust takes time and can’t be forced. Trust comes through communication and demonstrated values of the coach in such a way that the athlete can observe them and their authenticity.
What are the benefits of multi-session coaching?
A connection between athlete and coach is developed which allows greater trust and a greater understanding of the communication and learning styles of the athlete.
A progression model approach to coaching can be used to help the athlete master the skills through repetition resulting in the internalization of skills and theories.
There is time to explain that ‘why’ behind individual skills training. This allows the athletes to internalize the skills and offers opportunities for their application in other areas of life.
Coaching becomes more personalized to the needs of the athlete.
Between session check-ins are available for time-sensitive needs and competition needs of the athlete (e.g., game-day support).
A foundation of self-awareness can be built to allow more internalization of mental performance training skills and habits.
Package deals are available that allow you to save money over time.
For athletes under 18, package deals include communication and training with parents as part of the packages.
Package deals for teams include coaching with athletes and/or team managers as part of the packages.
What are the drawbacks of multi-session coaching?
Multi-session coaching is a financial investment.
Multi-session coaching is a time investment.
There is going to be homework for you to work on. Athletes who work with me are given a worksheet and journal prompts to complete between sessions to help with self-awareness and skill development.
Whatever your goals, there are coaching options available. It is up to you to decide your level of investment and commitment towards your desired end-state. If you are curious where to begin, feel free to reach out through one of the contact forms or e-mail to set up a phone call or video call and we can discuss the pro’s and con’s of each approach to mental preformance coaching. Until then, good luck and keep putting in the work.
~ Coach Tyler
