How it works
My name is Jose Reyes. I have an undergrad from National University in Liberal Arts with concentration in Leadership and Sport Psychology. I played in the water polo Dominican National Team for 16 years. Also I have coached in all levels for the past 20 years here in Orange County, CA. In addition, I am a referee in the high school level appointed to officiate semis and finals. Now that I am not playing for the Dominican team I just obtained my FINA certification which allows me to officiate in international tournaments like the Pan-Americans, World Championships and the Olympics to name a few. I have a daughter and she turned 10 years of age last Saturday.
I chose performance psychology because I am interested in understanding the mind while doing and activity. I have coach for a couple decades now and I have found out that the mind is the most powerful thing in an activity. As a player my mind was one of the things that got on my way of a good performance because my confidence and mental preparation was not ready to face the opponent even though my preparation physically was in top shape. I later in my player career learned and relied on the mental training that the coaches have given us. For example, Self-Talk, Imagery, Relaxation, Concentration, and Goal-Setting were the tools that help me be successful. Then it was during my undergrad years when I realized that preparing yourself mentally can also help the performance as a coach. Preparing myself mentally allow me to be able to manage my players and the team as a whole. In addition, using certain cue words that allow me to keep my composure when a questionable called was made by the officials was helpful.
The areas that I would like to consult are in the sport field as well as the classroom. I would love to land a job as counselor or water polo coach and teacher at the Junior college level or State school. As I am approaching this process it seems that I am getting scared of the idea that I can fill this position. I know I can coach because I have done it all my life but to consult is what I fear. What do I do? Embrace my fears? I believe so. I will trust and hope to learn the skills necessary here at National University in order to go out and do counseling and consultation correctly.
This makes a good fit for me because I have grown up in the pool deck being taught and teaching the sport of water polo. I am here in order to polish myself with the latest concepts and principles of performance psychology in order to help the performance of others reach their peak performance as well to teach it in the classroom.
The major challenges that I can anticipate are getting a job. The credibility and the respect that I have to get from consulting could be hard. However, in the world of water polo I have a good reputation of doing a good job and knowing the game something that may help me with my hiring. Other challenges may be of others not buying to my consulting and myself not recognizing the adjustments. As we learned in our video lecture my hire could land in another field different from water polo and the language and structure of that field may not be familiar to me. Here I can see some setbacks and conflicts with my consulting.
Finally I am confident that landing a job and having a career in Performance psychology isn’t going to be easy but I am willing to put the work in the classroom as well as the field. I will be humble as much as possible as I am studying a field that needs to be study carefully.