Six-week course from Rivera Trading Group

The Psychology of Performance

The Mental Edge

Mental Skills for Performance, Confidence & Life

Six weeks of practical mental skills for performance, confidence, and everyday life.

Learn practical psychological skills used by athletes, traders, performers, and leaders—and explore how to apply them to sports, trading, academics, relationships, personal goals, and everyday life.

The emphasis is on developing the mental skills to perform, grow, and make deliberate choices under pressure, not simply learning about psychology.

Explore the six weeks

Confidence

Build useful self-talk and trust in your preparation.

Focus

Direct attention and return to the task when distracted.

Emotional control

Recognize stress responses and practice responding deliberately.

Resilience

Learn from setbacks and act in line with your values.

The course

Six weeks of practical mental skills.

Each week explores a different part of performance psychology, with ideas students can reflect on and apply across the settings that matter in their lives.

Week 1

The Performance Mindset

How your mind affects performance

Explore how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors shape performance, and practice focusing on the parts you can influence.

Mental performance and the thoughts → emotions → actions → results connection
Fixed and growth-oriented thinking
Controlling what you can control
Process goals versus outcomes
Recognizing unhelpful internal narratives

Week 2

Confidence & Self-Talk

Learning to coach yourself

Learn how confidence can be developed through intentional practice and more useful self-talk.

Where confidence comes from, and confidence versus arrogance
Recognizing the inner critic
Productive and destructive self-talk
Reframing mistakes
Developing effective performance statements

Week 3

Goals, Motivation & Discipline

Turning what you want into what you do

Connect long-term ambitions to the repeatable behaviors and habits that move you toward them.

Dreams versus goals
Outcome, performance, and process goals
Motivation versus discipline
Building productive habits and delayed gratification
Developing consistency

Week 4

Focus & Concentration

Training your attention

Practice directing attention, staying present, and returning to the task after distraction or a mistake.

How attention affects performance
Internal and external distractions
Technology and divided attention
Staying present and refocusing after mistakes
Developing performance routines

Week 5

Pressure, Stress & Emotional Control

Performing when it matters

Understand common responses to pressure and learn practical ways to regulate stress and choose a response.

Why we get nervous and the physical effects of stress
Fight, flight, and freeze responses
Performance anxiety
Breathing and physiological regulation
Emotional control: responding instead of reacting

Week 6

Resilience & The Mental Edge

Responding to failure, setbacks & adversity

Bring the course skills together to reflect, recover, and respond constructively to challenges.

Separating failure from identity
Learning from mistakes
Handling criticism and rejection
Recovering after disappointment
Mental toughness, resilience, and acting according to personal values

Six-week course

A framework for performing under pressure.

The course introduces practical ways to develop confidence, focus, discipline, emotional control, resilience, and deliberate performance. These skills can be applied to trading, sports, academics, career development, relationships, leadership, and everyday life.

Interested in The Psychology of Performance?

Ask about the course