Sport Psychology Consultanting
Young Phenom stays Calm amid Hype
Jul 14th
In the modern era, sports have become a lot more then a recreational past-time. The pressure to perform can be very intense. The stakes have gotten so high in specific arena’s that individuals will do almost anything to get an edge. A side effect that often comes from individuals dealing with large amounts of stress is high anxiety. Yet, it is not hard to find young phenom’s, as we like to call them, dealing with this stress with aplomb.
How do these “phenom’s” manage to keep there attention where it needs to be in order to perform at such high levels. Lets take a look at major league baseballs Jason Heyward. Jason has soared through the minor league system to make the major leagues at a very young age. Here are some comments made by Jason and some of his teammates.
“I think he’s always going to be like this,” “He’s got that head on his shoulders and he’s very mature. He knows what he has to do on the field, and he’s always going to stay calm. He doesn’t want to get out of his zone.”
Further when asked if he shared some of the assumptions being drawn by the many who expect great things from him, he calmly said, “My only assumption is that I’m hitting seventh and playing right field today.”
“The fact that he doesn’t want to think about it just shows his maturity,” outfielder Matt Diaz said. “He just wants to think about today. I think that’s one of the reasons he is able to walk around so calmly, because he’s really only worried about things he can control.”
I have seen this pattern in numerous high performing individuals. They refuse to worry about variables outside of their immediate control, namely the future or more specifically outcomes (winning or losing). Because they maintain a focus on taking life one day at a time it enables them to stay more attuned to the reality of what is really happening. Hence, they are able to channel their energy more effectively to do what they need, what they can do.
Jason’s last comment was “it’s just fun, that’ really all it’s ever been.”
Differences between practice and match play (Part 1)
Jul 5th
The difference between practice and match play for so many is a matter of time management. For example I had a tennis player a while back that was very talented and played extremely well in practice. She was close to the best player on our team in practice. But under pressure during match play—a different player would turn up.
This individual was taking the usual approach to try and control her mind better in pressure situations. She was seeing a counseling psychologist, doing visualization etc, but it wasn’t working. Finally, during a match were she had lost the first set 6-4 after playing very well to get to 4-4 and then choking the last two games because of nerves. I told her to step up one big step into the court to cut down the amount of time between each shot. I was hoping with less time she won’t have the time to worry so much and would be able to get out of her head and just play. I was shocked at the result.
Unbelievably, she started playing just like she did in practice. She was explosive, quick to the ball, and was making efficient good decisions without any hesitation. She was playing her game, dictating the play, and most importantly she was having fun. She won the second set easily which was great, but I wanted to see what would happen if the score was close. Would this approach stand up under pressure? I know, I know, I’m crazy, but understanding how the mind works, especially under pressure I thought would lead to more wins later. In the third set the score got to 4-4 again, her usual choking point. At this point she played several great points, intermixed with some points where her mind was racing and doubts were starting to creep into her mindset.
Though it wasn’t pretty at times, and we me hounding her to stay up in the court (she kept moving back when she got scared). In the end she got through it and had the biggest win of her career to this point. From this time on she played this way until she forgot about the advantages of cutting out time. Once she regressed back to old habits the anxiety came back just as fast as it had left. Unfortunately, I wasn’t coaching her at this point in time.
Uh-Oh Moments
Mar 25th
I would like to mention a pretty crucial aspect to high performance. I will title it the Uh-Oh moment. Sometimes when we are competing or performing, not matter what it is in life, from sports to parenting, we have Uh-Oh moments. These moments can really either make us, if we focus on the right thing, or they can break us, if we focus on the wrong thing. Let me just give an example here, lets take freestyle skiing first. in the freestyle moguls a skier must ski as fast as they can switching back and forth down a hill through moguls then they will go off a jump launching them into the air, they preform a trick and then begin skiing down another set of moguls and off another jump, performing a trick, all as fast as they can. It is important to be very assertive while you are competing in a sport like this because decisions have to be made very quickly and frequently. An uh-oh moment can happen at anytime you lose that focus for a split second, even when you are doing everything perfectly right. During the finals at the Winter Olympic Games recently in Vancouver, the finals of freestyle moguls, one athlete was skiing the best race of their life, making all the cuts necessary and hitting big air and landing a great trick on the first jump then back to skiing great, the fastest this person has ever skied, then the second jump, the skier had been launched into the air higher then ever before, the spins and flips came and for one split second while the skier was in the air, a thought crossed the mind, “uh-oh, this is big air”. The skier lost focus for one split second and was not able to adjust for the landing and missed the landing, costing possible a medal at the Olympics. Now we have to be careful how we evaluate our performance here. Because too often we focus on the mistake, “man I missed the landing.” When in reality we need to celebrate the fact that we have just skied the best, fastest and got the biggest air that we have ever done. We have just skied the best ever and we are down on ourselves because of one little tiny uh-oh. Now if we dwell on the fall or missed landing, that can spiral us into negative thinking and failure, but what high performing individuals do in this situation is celebrate the successes and then go to work trying to improve the uh-oh moments so that they don’t happen the next time. The best are always trying to improve.
Lifting the level of mental toughness to the match the level of adversity
Mar 25th
I am increasingly moving further and further aways from what I would consider being in shape. Over the last couple of months I have regressed to the point to were I am only doing pushups every other day to maintain some level of fitness. Last Monday I got down and started to do some pushups. I have my goal of what I want to get to (my objective) and I usually focus on technique (process) to achieve my goal. After the first couple of pushups the thought popped into my mind “ohh….I am tired and heavy to today…” I quickly stopped what I would deem to be a mild doubt as to whether I could reach my goal or the day. It didn’t take alot of mental toughness to override the doubt so I continued on my way, getting into a rythm and knocking out some sets. About 2/3 of the way through a stronger doubt popped into my mind “I am really tired today you should probably stop.” This time I had to lift my level of mental toughness to again override the doubt. This took more energy than prior but nothing extra ordinary. Again, I continued to go through some sets. About 5 pushups short of my goal number a strong doubt popped into my mind, “you are sick, it’s okay to stop today, you have done enough, just stop.” This time the doubt was intense, so I had to lift my level of mental toughness, “I got this, I can do this” to the point I was almost yelling to myself, inside my head of course not externally. I was able to complete my desired number of pushups and it felt great. Not because I was possibly physically stronger but the feeling of overcoming doubt, the feeling of being able to achieve what you what is empowering. It feels like you can do anything when you overcome doubt. I know it is just pushups but I believe this applies across varies fields of life.