Sport Psychology Consultanting
Determination in the face of adversity
Jul 15th
I had an unfortunate experience a couple of days ago. The funny thing is I just blogged not long ago about how high performing individuals seem to focus their energy on what they can do and don’t appear to waste energy on what they can’t do or on judging others. They are busy working hard on creating; skills, providing a service, etc that they are too busy to whine and complain.
I have spent years studying high performance in the attempt to understand how to help people become happier and healthier. It is disappointing to me to come across individuals that only see what they want to see. That are so threaten for some reason they have to pull others down.
I am guessing we all come across individuals like this from time to time in our lives. What I have noticed from these infrequent encounters is that it always seems to only strengthen what I am doing. Although in this most recent situation, I found myself at times feeling emotionally charged. It just makes me more determined to keep my head down and work harder then ever. To control what I have control over.
Misery loves company what else can I say.
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.”
Another form of Interference-homesickness (Part 2)
Jul 13th
Homesickness has a couple of effects on our performance. First, homesickness directs our focus to what we don’t have in our lives, namely our family, friends, familiar environment etc. This unfamiliarity creates a feeling of a lack of control. Whenever we don’t feel like we have control anxiety goes up and we start to approach life with an avoidance tendency. Focusing on what not to do, playing not to lose. Motivation, takes a huge hit and we start to develop feelings of helplessness.
Once we are in this mental cycle off of the performance arena, we typically carry this attitude over to our on court/field performances. As has been discussed in previous posts, once we are focusing on what not to do, there is no way we can maximize our potential or the effort that we put in. In fact, I have witnessed and experienced tremendously poor performances when homesickness has hit.
Back when I was playing on the pro tour at the age of 18 I found myself terribly homesick and wanted to go home. I didn’t, but I found myself lost and confused. I still remember the state of mind I was in. The majority of the time I was whining and complaining to myself. I was down and feeling sorry for myself. During matches I was going through the motions, questioning why I was even there. I realize now how I was sabotaging my own performance. In practice I would work extra hard, to the point of throwing up. This was an attempt to compensate for what I was doing during match play.
What do we do to get over homesickness? First, we need to stick it out. Going home only reinforces quitting. Second, we need to stay focused on what we CAN DO. Meaning the skills required to compete, our strokes, footwork, strategy etc. We don’t need to be callus or cold, like a lot of pro athletes try to do to cope with homesickness. If we channel our energy in the right direction we can avoid this form of interference. Lastly, with the technology available, it is easier to stay in touch with loved ones. Email, Skype, text, call, use whatever works to stay connected to avoid the loneliness that is at the root of homesickness. It isn’t easy, so don’t feel like a wimp, but it CAN be overcome.
Mental Skills: Confidence, it changes the game.
Apr 1st
Confidence is a mjor part of sports, in fact it is the number component that leads to high performance, and at its simplest form, if you don’t believe you can do something you wont. If you believe you can do something then you will. A large component to developing confidence is having a previous successful experience.
Let me share a story about the building/development of confidence and how it can change the game. I have worked with an athlete his who is a pole vaulter, we will call him Chris. Chris has a lot of natural ability, he is pretty fast on the open track and he is pretty strong in the weight room, but the one thing that he lacked was belief in himself, or a little confidence. He would often times tell himself and tell other people that he had confidence and he believed that he could jump high, but where his lack of confidence became evidence was when he actually got on the runway to jump. He did not believe he was fast enough, to get on big poles and jump as high as he wanted, until something interesting happened. Chris decided he wanted to run the 100 meter dash as part of his training for one particular meet. Chris went and ran 11.02, which for a pole vaulter is pretty quick. Once Chris discovered that he was actually pretty fast, he began to improve dramatically. In practice he began running faster down the runway, and as a result of that he began to get on bigger poles. In his first outdoor competition he tied his lifetime best. That week in practice we moved him to a longer pole. The second competition he Improved on his lifetime best by 4 inches, and nearly 3 more inches on top of that. In the sport of pole vaulting inches make a big difference. Now Chris has the second highest mark in the nation.
The interesting point here is that Chris had it in him to jump this high all along, he just had to believe it. Once he had the successful previous experience that suggested that he was pretty fast, he began running faster, because he had confidence that he could run faster, and the result is that his performance when up dramatically. Physical ability is a large part of being a good athlete, but the mental skill of confidence or the mental ability is what allows for the physical ability to be effective. You never know what you maximum ability may be if you don’t learn the Mental Skills that allow you to reach your maximum ability.
Learn more about these skills in the book The Fearless Mind, begin learning these skills with a Performance Journal, this will set you up for success.
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.