Athletes often focus on physical preparation but 'mental' preparation is just as important for a healthy, correct and satisfying career and sporting practice. Coaching, or coaching and guiding, is a method, a mental approach, used to improve one's ability to assess, understand, organise and focus on achieving goals and maximising sports performance. A true training path, which is customised according to aspirations, towards the acquisition of a high degree of awareness and which must accompany sports training.
The coach, as a 'mental' coach, focuses on the future, supports the athlete, through active listening, to find answers and to consider alternative points of view, to transform fears into opportunities to reach one's goals using one's own abilities. Coaching is a discipline that established itself in the United States over 60 years ago while it is relatively young in Italy where, today, it is finally finding proper recognition and popularity thanks to the Tokyo Olympics with Jacobs who emphasised the importance of the personal coach for one's victory. An athlete's training must therefore be a complete journey involving body and mind. In reality, coaching is a method that can be applied in every sphere of life, not only sports, but work, personal, school... that helps us live better.