Yes. My Soul Coach provides sports psychology and mental performance coaching for athletes, performers, and professionals across Hull and the East Riding. Sessions are held in Lockington, under 30 minutes from Hull city centre or online across the UK. Neil Sunley has been sports coaching since 1996, had a therapy and psychology practice since 2001 and maintains active research affiliations in sport and exercise psychology at university level, alongside BPS Professional Affiliate status. This combination of 25+ years applied practice and ongoing academic engagement makes My Soul Coach one of the most experienced performance psychology resources available to Hull athletes outside of professional sport.

A sports psychologist addresses the psychological factors affecting performance anxiety, confidence, focus, mental blocks using evidence-based clinical methods. A performance coach typically focuses on strategy, skills, and goal-setting without the clinical psychology layer. At My Soul Coach, both dimensions are integrated: the structured performance coaching framework of the MSC Method® sits alongside clinical hypnotherapy and CBT aspects, which means subconscious performance barriers are addressed alongside conscious strategy something neither a pure coach nor a standard therapist typically offers.

Yes. My Soul Coach works with individual athletes and young people from across Hull's sporting community, including academy-level footballers, rugby players, martial artists, competitive swimmers, and esports players. Sessions focus on the mental performance challenges specific to each sport: consistency under pressure, recovery from injury setbacks, pre-match anxiety, and building the kind of psychological resilience that separates good athletes from reliable ones.

The most effective time is before a problem becomes entrenched when you first notice nerves affecting performance, confidence dropping after a setback, or pressure feeling harder to manage than it should. Many Hull athletes also work proactively during pre-season to build mental resilience before competition intensifies. Waiting until performance has significantly deteriorated makes the work longer. Early intervention is almost always more efficient.

Yes and the combination is more powerful than either alone. Hypnotherapy works at the subconscious level, reprogramming the automatic responses that cause performance anxiety, freezing, and self-sabotage. Sports psychology works at the conscious level, building the mental skills, routines, and strategies that elite performers rely on. At My Soul Coach this integrated approach is delivered through the MSC Method®, developed specifically to bridge clinical hypnotherapy and performance psychology in a single structured framework. For under 18's parental consent would be required, although light visualisation is the preferred model.

The documented benefits include improved focus and concentration under pressure, faster recovery from performance setbacks, reduced pre-competition anxiety, stronger consistency across training and match environments, and better decision-making in high-stakes moments. At My Soul Coach, these outcomes are supported by combining sports psychology with clinical hypnotherapy and the MSC Method® working at both the conscious strategy level and the subconscious pattern level simultaneously, which accelerates results compared to either approach alone.

Look for a practitioner with genuine applied experience across multiple performance contexts, not just academic credentials. Key questions to ask: how long have they worked with athletes, what methods do they use, and do they have experience with your specific sport or performance context? At My Soul Coach, a free 15-minute consultation is offered before any commitment giving you the chance to assess whether the approach and the practitioner feel right before spending anything.

Yes. My Soul Coach works with performers across Hull and the East Riding actors, musicians, dancers, and public speakers facing the same performance psychology challenges as competitive athletes. Pre-audition anxiety, stage fright, performance freezing, and consistency under pressure all respond to the same evidence-based methods used in elite sport. Neil Sunley has presented performer psychology at national industry events including Actors Pro Expo in London and is a Spotlight listed actor himself. Making My Soul Coach one of the few practices in the UK offering genuinely specialist performance psychology for the performing arts. Hull-based performers can access sessions in Lockington or online.