Athletes Soul

Join us to train your mind, identity and your emotional world in and beyond sport.
Athlete Soul Group Coaching is a 12-week experience designed to help you grow not just as an athlete—but as a human.

Through live sessions with Kelsey Wiechman and Steve Davis, you’ll explore emotional intelligence, identity development, resiliency, and learn how to design a life that feels aligned and meaningful.

Open to all athletes. All sports. All levels. And completely free.
The next group starts May 18. Sign up now at athletessoul.org/signup

Only a week left to sign up!

Katie Hawkins, Athlete Success Manager and Coach at Athletes Soul is leading our Monthly Huddle this Friday May 1st from 12 to 1pm PST.

In this one hour virtual event, Katie will take the time to explore how to decelerate from sport in a way that honors the athlete's body, protects their long-term health, and how to take the space to discover what comes after sport.

Participants will learn how to transition from sport with intention - not just absence. This huddle is specifically designed for athletes who are retiring from their sport.

If you'd like to join this free event, sign up on our website at www.athletessoul.org/events

We continue with our theme of understanding our emotions and using them to our advantage.

Interestingly, we, and most people, don’t struggle with their emotions. We generally struggle with how we talk to ourselves about these emotions. It’s the inner voice that can create the pressure, the shame, the fear, the anxiety or with deliberate practice the space and the clarity.

A small shift in how we talk to ourselves can change everything, from “I shouldn’t feel this way” to “I’m noticing I feel this way. It helps you detach from the emotion and step out of reaction into awareness.

We don’t need to control every emotion. We just need to understand them and analyze them with detachment and without judgment.

What if supporting athletes meant looking beyond performance?

Check out our monthly newsletter More Than Performance which is built on a simple idea: athletes are humans first—and when we support the human, performance follows.

Each edition explores how to better support athletes in ways that actually matter long-term. This isn’t about pushing harder or doing more. It’s about understanding the full athlete—and creating environments where they can thrive both in and out of sport.

Our latest newsletter, we explore how athletes can stop fighting their emotions—and start using them as a tool for performance and growth.

If you’re a coach, parent, athlete, or someone who works with athletes and cares about long-term development (not just short-term results), this space is for you.
Read our latest piece and subscribe here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/athletessoul/p/work-with-your-emotions?r=2qn4lg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Join us to train your mind, identity and your emotional world in and beyond sport.
Athlete Soul Group Coaching is a 12-week experience designed to help you grow not just as an athlete—but as a human.

Through live sessions with Kelsey Wiechman and Steve Davis, you’ll explore emotional intelligence, identity development, resiliency, and learn how to design a life that feels aligned and meaningful.

Open to all athletes. All sports. All levels. And completely free.

The next group starts May 18. Sign up now at athletessoul.org/group-coaching

Emotional control isn’t about shutting feelings down — it’s about learning how to work with them.

In sport, many of us were taught to “push it away” or “lock in,” but suppression isn’t control. It’s avoidance. And while it might work in the moment, it often costs us consistency, performance, and long-term well-being.

Licensed therapist and clinical advisor of Athletes Soul. Adam Boardman takes us through the differences between emotional suppression and emotional control and why it's important to improve emotional awareness and control to unlock sustainable and long-term performance.

There’s a moment most people don’t even notice. The space between what you feel… and what you do. It’s the split second after the frustration, the nerves, the pressure hits—before the reaction takes over. And for many athletes, that reaction feels automatic.

That space is where your power lives.

When you learn to slow it down—even just by a few seconds—you create the opportunity to choose your response instead of react. To stay composed instead of spiraling. To use your emotions as information, not let them control your behavior.

This isn’t about suppressing what you feel. It’s about understanding it, creating awareness around it, and using it to your advantage.

The best athletes aren’t the ones who feel less, they’re the ones who respond better to situations and emotions.

Learning about your emotions isn’t a one-size-fits-all process — it can be explored in different ways, depending on what you need right now.

At Athletes Soul, you can deepen your emotional awareness through our self-paced course, designed to help you understand and work with your emotions at your own rhythm.

You can also go deeper in our group coaching program, where we bring athletes together for live exercises, reflection, and real conversations. In this space, you’ll work alongside our coaches as well as current and former athletes on emotional intelligence, identity development, and navigating life beyond sport.

Because growth isn’t just about becoming a better athlete — it’s about becoming a more self-aware, grounded, and intentional human. And that’s what ultimately elevates everything else, including your training and performance.

Emotional intelligence isn’t just a “nice to have” in sport — it’s a measurable edge. This meta-analysis by Alexandra Kopp and Darko Jekauc (2018) found that athletes who better understand and manage their emotions tend to perform better. The effect isn’t huge, but it’s consistent — and in high-performance environments, small edges matter.

From staying composed under pressure to bouncing back after mistakes, emotional intelligence supports focus, decision-making, and team dynamics. It won’t replace physical or technical training, but it’s a powerful tool to build more consistent performance.

So what are you doing as an athlete or as a coach to train emotional intelligence?

The goal isn’t emotional silence—it’s emotional effectiveness.

Too often, athletes think they need to “get rid” of emotions to perform. But emotions aren’t the problem—they’re information.

Frustration might show up as tight shoulders and rushed movement.
Anxiety might feel like a racing heart, hesitation, or overthinking.
Pressure can turn into forcing, gripping, trying too hard.

The skill isn’t to shut this down. It’s to recognize it early and respond intentionally.

High performers don’t eliminate emotions—they:
• Notice what they feel
• Understand what it means (or question it)
• Choose how to respond
• Adjust their state to meet the moment

And if you’re thinking, “I don’t even know what I feel sometimes”—start with the body. That’s always the entry point.

Emotional flexibility = performance consistency + resilience.