Every player knows the feeling. A throw that behaves perfectly on a Tuesday night in the garage, then deserts you the moment a leg actually matters. Nothing has changed in the stance, the grip or the arm. What has changed is what is going on in the eleven seconds before the dart leaves your hand.

That is the part almost nobody coaches, and it is the part this book is about.

Little Mental Frameworks for Better Darts brings together nineteen of the most useful ideas in sports psychology and puts each one on a single page, with a diagram, a plain explanation of why it works, what it looks like at the oche, and something you can try in your very next session. Think Box, Play Box. Quiet Eye. External Focus. Reinvestment. The Red Spot. PETTLEP Imagery. If Then Plans. Pressure Training. The Check Engine Light.

There is no jargon, no mysticism and nobody telling you to simply relax.

What makes this more than a book to read is what sits after every framework. Each one is followed by its own journal page, so you can test it on your own board, log what happened, rate it out of ten and decide whether to keep it or park it. The book then ends with the DartsMatt Scorecard, a single page where you score all nineteen and walk away with the two, three or four that genuinely work for you.

Because that short list is worth more than all the rest put together.

Written by Matt Tizzard MSc, SightRight Certified Coach and founder of DartsMatt, drawing on sports psychology research, a Professional Certificate in Sports Psychology and Youth, and the work done every week with players in the Worcester studio and online.

What is inside

• 45 pages, designed and illustrated throughout

• 19 mental frameworks, one page each, with a diagram for every one

• 19 matching journal pages so you can test each framework on your own board

• The DartsMatt Scorecard, to find the handful that are genuinely yours

• 22 academic references, so you can go deeper on anything that grabs you

• Written for darts, by a darts coach, not a general sports psychology textbook

  
  

Who it is for

• Players who practise well and then cannot find it in a match

• County, Super League and local league players chasing consistency

• JDC juniors, the parents and coaches around them

• Coaches who want a shared language for the mental side of the game

• Anyone who simply wants their Thursday night at the oche back

  
  

About the Author

I am Matt Tizzard, a SightRight Certified Darts Coach and the founder of DartsMatt. I coach players online and face-to-face from my studio in Worcester, from JDC juniors and ADC players through to county, and I would relish the chance to work with pub and professional players too.

My coaching did not begin with darts. I played golf from a young age and to a good standard, working with PGA Professionals Maurice Campbell and later Freddie Meikle, and that took me into the orbit of Jamil Qureshi, the first official psychologist to work with the European Ryder Cup team. That early exposure to performance psychology still shapes the way I coach today.

An MSc in Process Management sits behind much of my approach. Practice should be designed rather than drifted into, performance treated as a process rather than a mood, and the mental side of the game given the same attention as the throw itself. I also hold a Professional Certificate in Sports Psychology and Youth.

My approach comes down to three words: Plan. Transform. Perform. I do not believe there is usually one magical change that transforms a player overnight. I look for the small improvements that, stacked together, add up to a bigger one.

This book is the mental side of that work, in one place, so you can get on with it at home.