Mark Bawden

Performance Psychologist within Elite Sport, Education, Health and Business

Mark has applied his “strength based approach” to performance enhancement throughout Olympic sport and has contributed to five Olympic Games including being Team GB Head Psychologist at the London 2012 Games. Mark also previously led the psychology team for the England and Wales Cricket Board.

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Mark spent 20 years as a performance psychologist, which saw him work across elite sport, education, health and business. He is the co-founder of Mindflick® – an organisation focused on blending cutting-edge performance psychology and people development; throwing in plenty of passion and innovation for good measure.

Mark has a philosophy of positive psychology, where practitioners focus on developing strengths, become immersed into their sports and work in close alignment with coaches. The intention is to develop strategic solution focused interventions.

Mark is a Chartered Sports Psychologist with over 15 years’ experience of working in elite sport, education, health and business. His doctoral research was on the “yips”, a phenomenon (which he experienced as a promising young bowler), where sports performers apparently lose their ability and skill to perform their sport overnight.

Mark’s current focus is on a tried and tested concept which he has developed called “Superstrengths” – the natural aspects of our game that provide us with a competitive edge over our opposition and which can be developed into a world’s best attribute. Mark takes his experience of working with England Cricket and as a backdrop to his speech where he examines what today’s athletes and elite teams are doing to get their performance edge. In particular, examining what allows individuals and teams to have the freedom to play to their natural strengths is an important consideration in achieving “performance leaps” both at a collective and individual level. As well as his interest in the mind, Mark is also a huge music fan and has an obsession with collecting 60’s/70’s vinyl and listening to Pink Floyd!

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Adversity
Collaboration
Decision Making
Health & Wellness
Leadership
Mindset
Performance
Performing under pressure
Psychology
Resilience
Risk
Teamwork
Winning

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