Brentford FC’s Sports Psychologist Michael Caulfield gave a fascinating lecture to Sixth form students this week. Zoe and Maya from the Brainfeed blog team interviewed him afterwards. Here is what he had to say:
Can you share a particularly memorable moment from your time working with athletes or teams?
Yes I can, there have been so many. I think my favourite one would be in Tasmania, with the Irish cricket team when we beat the West Indies to qualify for the final stage of the World Cup in 2021. We were so far from home and it was a long trip. We had 90 families and friends in the grand stand. It was quite a cold day, but the warmth of the achievement with a group of young men I’d helped as they grew up and to have a sit by the sea that night with a cup of tea and a bun was beautiful. It wasn’t about the money, or anything, it was just that we did it, with a group of people and their families and it was lovely. I can feel it now.
Did you know the families well before the event?
Yes, I got to know them during the period of the previous 7 to 8 years and we became close. I’ve been to weddings since, I’ve been to parties, marriages, you name it, I’ve been there. I’m not their age so to be welcomed into their world was simply wonderful.
What do you think is the most common challenge athletes face and how do you help them overcome it?
The most common challenge, without a doubt, is they all have, most of them, a level of doubt as to whether they can do it. Whether they’re good enough, strong enough, will they get picked, can they survive at that level. When I watch the Olympics every four years, I am just amazed at the wonderful achievements and they go ‘I never thought I’d do this, because I didn’t know if I was good enough at six or seven’ or ‘I didn’t have the resources’. So doubt of whether you’ve got that to achieve would be the biggest challenge faced by athletes, and if you can get over that, by tracking your progress daily, weekly, monthly, annually, you then begin to realise, ‘hang on, I can!’. But you must not judge it on one event, because it’ll beat you when you think ‘oh no, I’m just not good enough’. It’s a long process, but track your progress. Just track your progress.
What’s one piece of advice you would often give to your athletes who are dealing with the pressure or set backs?
Talk to someone who’s probably not your mother, brother, sister, father. Someone slightly aside from your trusted family, because they love you to bits. And that’s where I come in, because I’m not their mother or father or sister or brother or partner, because they sometimes find it really hard to open up to someone so close to them, because they don’t want to upset them or let them down. Having someone trusted you can talk to, to help understand these really complex things we all go through, I think is quite helpful.
How do you measure success in your work as a sports psychologist?
The brutal truth is that it’s really hard, because I don’t keep measurements. But I think you can tell from the heart and the soul and the warmth. I rely on conversation and eye contact and all those things to let me know if I’m still wanted. Even the applause today made me feel like I got away with that.
What’s one book you would recommend that everyone reads about performance or wellbeing?
Life is Not a Game of Perfect by Bob Rotella. It’s not a new book; it’s probably thirty years old now, but it’s about those who want their lives to be perfect. Life is not perfect and sport and performance isn’t perfect. It’s a very simple book on how we have to understand that making mistakes is part of life.
