One of the major effects of a losing team is the loss of team cohesion. Often you hear that winning brings everyone together, so how can sport psychology consultants keep the team together when it is in the midst of a long losing streak?

In cases such as these, it is important that the team stay consistent to the gameplan, making changes where it deems necessary. A well-thought gameplan leads to consistent positive performance.

Here are some ideas for how you can help your team/athletes perform consistently:

- Use Goals to Focus Practice and Training: link what you do in training to the goals you have set for your team and for your individual athletes. Let your players know before every practice what you expect of them and how what you are doing today will help them achieve their goals. At the end of practices, take a moment to evaluate how well the athletes worked in meeting the practice expectations.

- Create Consistent Pre-Performance Routines: how you practice, influences how you compete…but also how you prepare in the weeks, days, hours, and even minutes before a competition can determine how well you do. It is no surprise that the athletes and teams who perform consistently also have well-developed pre-performance routines that they implement consistently. These routines help athletes and teams become physically and mentally ready to compete each time they step onto their competitive venue.

- Create Competition-Like Scenarios In Practice: make practices feel like competitions so athletes have the opportunity to challenge themselves in higher pressure/stress situations. Athletes cannot perform consistently in games if they do not practice competing in similar situations.

- Have Consistent Emotions: work with your athletes to identify the emotions they associate most strongly with ideal/peak performances and then help athletes learn to regulate these emotions so they can readily access them for practices and competitions. Pre-performance routines are one effective strategy for achieving this.