Her preparation for the [team] sessions exhibited excellent attention to detail and creative ideas with worksheets and activities she prepared for the players.  I also appreciated how Carrie encouraged the players to search for their own answers, thoughts, and feelings, rather than putting words into their mouths.  She structured environments that promoted everyone’s involvement and made it safe to express thoughts, emotions, and ideas.  We were very fortunate to have her as a part of our program.

Carrie played a crucial role in the development of a young program. She helped create an environment that was encouraging and safe for communication among team members and coaches. Each year she demonstrated the ability to adapt to the needs of the team; whether it be developing a level of comfort among them, serving as a guide to help us build a strong foundation based on the characteristics necessary for team success or teaching psychological skills to enhance performance. In addition she provided guidance to me, as well as the entire coaching staff, to help improve our ability to work most effectively with each team. We were truly fortunate to have someone like Carrie assisting the growth of the program!

The entire workshop was fascinating. The breakdown of pre-race prep, control [and] out of control and stoplights all gave me some insight to how I approach situations and events.

The idea to “think confident, act confident and be confident” seems to have carried with me. I’ve been thinking about it on a daily basis and, if you can believe this, I think I’m even walking with more confidence!

In the looking confident/ post it notes drill, I cannot tell you how much it helped to realize everyone else is telling themselves the exact same thing I am on a bad day! The handout is good too – it forced me to not just hear what you said and move on, but to actually be able to carry the changes into the future by having concrete things to say to myself.

I have been training and racing for many years and wasn’t aware of the importance of the mental skills component. I started working with Carrie when I set out to achieve my biggest goal yet, a full Ironman. Carrie guided me on techniques and strategies for improving my mental skills training and turning the challenging and negative thoughts into positive ones. Carrie taught me how to use writing, visualization, goal-setting and stress management to deal with the anxiety of high intensity training and racing … I saw major improvement. My attitude towards myself improved as well as overall results as I learned to dial into the positive. I highly recommend Carrie, as she is an outstanding listener, professional coach, and helped forward me into action to achieve my goals.

Having somebody to bounce my thoughts off of was probably most important, especially since Carrie could help me understand the thoughts and emotions as well as just listen to them. She helped me clarify and effectively deal with a lot of different things I was feeling. It really blew away my expectations. More important than any technique was the practice of listening to my own thoughts, feelings, and especially needs. I learned to be more attentive to those forces which I feel will be very helpful for my own personal well-being and happiness.

In bike racing, which is harder? I suppose it depends on the situation, but I would be willing to say that the majority of endurance athletes would agree that mental toughness is by far more difficult than physical toughness. Knowing how to shove those negative thoughts out of your brain and coming up with a detailed plan of how you will mentally deal with everything from preparing for a race to crossing that finish line. If you think that my comeback from my horrific crash was on my own, think again. Besides my friends and family, I blame two people for my comeback: my coach, and Carrie Jackson.

She helped me perform to my top potential.

Learning how to focus really helped me: especially how to move forward after mistakes and learning how to realize I can’t control the past.

I think it has been helpful for me [working with Carrie] as a player, but it has also been good for our team. The mind game, I believe, is just as important as the physical.

Thank you so much for coaching me through the best season of my skiing life. You are such a gift!