KIRSTY MACMILLAN - MENTAL PERFORMANCE COACHING

CREDIT - PLANET CANOE

Mental Performance Coaching

By Kirsty MacMillan BA, RRT, CCAA, MPM

When I raced at the ICF World SUP Championships in Sarasota in November 2024, I was the most focussed and present I’ve ever been while racing.  Not just for one of the disciplines or one heat… all of them.  It was the most incredible feeling, to be so calm and able to get off the starting line so quickly.  Remarkable considering in the past I’ve usually been so anxious before a race. I didn’t become a certified Mental Performance coach for myself but it’s been quite the journey to use all of these tools for myself!  

Back to the beginning… 

As someone who hasn’t been a paddler all my life, the last 10 years since I discovered SUP have been so incredibly fun! Truly one of the best things to ever happen to me. It didn’t take long for me to realize that paddling technique is complex, and the brainy side of me wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. So imagine when I found out that THE legendary SUP coach Larry Cain lived in the same city! I’ve been coached by Larry ever since, and my improvements in paddling and racing can all be traced back to him. I’m also an Anesthesia Assistant here in our local hospital.  Everything at work changed for me during the covid pandemic, and SUP literally saved my sanity by giving me an active outlet for my anxiety and mental stress.  Fast forward to today - I am an advanced certified Paddle Canada SUP coach and love sharing the knowledge that I’ve been so lucky to have received. I’ve done the Carolina Cup Graveyard twice, competed at the ICF World Championships in Poland (2022), Thailand (2023), and Sarasota (2024). 

Back in January (2024) I decided to travel to the Canary Islands to train with my friend Susanne Lier, multiple World Champion, who I’d met at a dinner in Thailand during the ICF World Championships. I knew learning to paddle in ocean conditions from her would help me improve, it’s also hella fun and as a coach I always love learning from other coaches. When I got home from this trip, my mind was searching for something more that I could learn and offer to people I coach. Deep down inside I think I was meant to be a teacher, and I wanted to be able to coach more and more.

This is when I came across mental performance training, and a certification program by Brian Cain (MPM - Mental Performance Mastery). The more I read about it the more I was fascinated. The mind can be trained just like we train our muscles in the gym. Brian Cain did his Masters in sports psychology at Cal State Fullerton under the infamous sports psychologist Dr. Ken Ravizza. Brian has coached players in MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, UFC, LPGA, and PGA, as well as Olympic athletes and US NCAA Champion athletes. His website has more testimonials than I can count, and after completing his program and participating in his monthly coaches Zoom meetings, I can honestly say that I am truly grateful to be learning from yet another great coach (named Cain lol).  The principles he teaches apply equally to young kids, college level athletes, and pro athletes.  Same strategies, same concepts.

We have to be in control of ourselves to be in control of our performance. 

                                                                                                             - Dr. Ken Ravizza

What is Mental Performance Training?

How we show up to train for our sport that we love, how we show up to our jobs, and for our family is overwhelmingly governed by our mindset.  We’ve all heard that many sports are 90% mental, there are in fact 4 areas of high performance preparation: Physical, Technical, Tactical and Mental. As Dr Amber Selking says in her book Winning The Mental Game - Building a Championship Mindset, “I can’t verify that the percentage 90% is accurate, but the mental domain controls the other three.”  When our mental game is strong, we can perform in the moment and to the very best of our potential.

7 Skills of Mental Performance

Developing these skill sets will help you to perform at your very best. They need to be practiced to get better at them, no differently than lifting weights in the gym… it takes time.

1 - Elite Mindset

Without the right mindset, you are missing opportunities for growth.  Without the right mindset, you aren’t getting the most out of the time and energy you’re spending in your training sessions. There are tools and strategies to improve your growth/elite mindset so that you look at “failures” as opportunities to improve and will help you to perform at your very best.

 2 - Awareness

We will discuss how thoughts work, and how important it is to talk to yourself not listen to yourself.  Awareness is the first step to being able to change and improve yourself. It will leave you feeling empowered.

3 - Focus

Athletes who succeed don’t do so because they somehow avoid adversity. They succeed because they develop a skill set that allows them to overcome the challenges they face… focus is a crucial component of helping you do that.  With practice, you can have a highly trained level of present moment focus so you can block out distractions, navigate adversity, and perform consistently at your best.

4 - Confidence and Self-Control

Confidence is an action, not a feeling that you either have or don’t have. Once you understand what’s involved in doing confidence, you’ll know you can always have it. Your Body Language, Focus and Self-Talk all play a part in whether you are performing your very best or not. And for the times that you’re not, we will create a Recognize/Release/Refocus Routine to get you back to playing your best.

5 - Process Over outcome

Often one of the hardest things as an athlete to do is to find the drive to do the routine daily things needed to reach their goals. Especially when they don’t FEEL like it.  Redirecting your focus to controlling what is in your control, and going all in on those things, is what will lead to the ultimate goal of performing your very best. 

6 - Visualization

Mental Imagery or Visualization has long been shown to improve athletic performance, primarily because the neural pathways in our brain can’t distinguish between actual training as opposed to visualization. The more these pathways fire, the stronger the pathway becomes.  It can help you acquire new physical skills faster, improve technique, reduce stress of performing at competition/”game time”, as well as help an injured athlete during their recovery. Breathing techniques/meditation when practiced regularly will help you to stay calm and present when you are training or competing. 

7 - Routines and Habits of Excellence

Great training and great performances don’t happen by accident.  There has to be structure or a process that incorporates your routines so that sticking to them helps you to reach your goals. This one isn’t easy for everybody, and so it really helps to go through what is involved in setting up a good morning and evening routine, as well as pre/during/post competition routines.  Understanding how habits are formed and how they can be changed for the positive is really important. 

Bottom Line

Harvey Dorfman, one of the great minds in mental performance, summarizes it perfectly… Awareness. Strategy. Action.  What we are aware of we can improve, and as a Mental Performance Coach I can help you navigate this. Doing a little a lot and consistently, is how you’ll get from where you are to where you want to be. 

Full Circle Ending!

This year my coaching dreams have come true… I’m so excited to be a part of the team at Paddle Monster as a Mental Performance Coach! I’m coaching at schools, individuals and teams. And I’m joining Susanne Lier at her SUP Camp in Khao Lak Thailand in April 2026! I can’t wait to share my knowledge and help other paddlers with their mental performance. It really is the secret weapon to level up. It will be an incredible venue, meeting lots of paddlers from around the world and sharing the water!