FINDING OUR INNER CHAMPION

Mental Toughness: 
How Champions Respond to Stress

   THE PRESSURE AND STRESS WHICH ATHLETES EXPERIENCE during big competitions can significantly impair their ability to play at their highest level.  From Greg Norman’s blowing a big lead at the 1996 Master’s to Karl Malone missing 2 critical free throws at the end of a 1997 play-off game against the Bulls – we’ve seen time and again how the pressure of the moment can take even the most seasoned athlete out of his game.

   Those athletes who have developed the capacity to effectively manage stress – or who have learned critical coping mechanisms from working with sport psychologists – have been able to be in top form when it matters, and have the awards to show for it.

   While it is essential to have talent and technique, that is not enough to succeed at the highest levels.

   In elite sports, stress is a fact of life. Athletes who lack critical mental management skills are NOT going to fare as well as those who develop effective tools for coping with – and even embracing stress.

   In 1994 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario was knocking on the no. 1 ranking in women’s tennis, but went for six months without a title win. She began to work with a sport psychologist. An initial series of meetings was followed by constant phone calls, faxes (that was before texting!) and periodic visits. The sport psychologist helped her develop strategies that kept her focused and determined no matter how far ahead or how far behind she might be. In three months’ time, she won the French Open, and won eight more titles that year. Perhaps her biggest victory was a win over Steffi Graf in the finals at the U.S. Open; she had never beaten Graf on hard courts before that. What is particularly worth noting is that Sanchez-Vicario LOST the first set 6-1.

   While stress is often given a bad “rap,” the fact is that stress is critical to our growth as athletes and as human beings. Stress is the thing that impels us to seek out and strive to achieve lofty goals.  As sport psychologist Dr. James Loehr notes, “Stress is a prerequisite for mental, physical and emotional growth.”  Take for example, how we develop physical strength: by stressing our muscles in resistance training – by actually tearing down muscle tissue – and then allowing it to rebuild in stronger form.  The same thing is true of MENTAL toughness.

   Consider the tale of Bonnie St. John, winner of the Silver Medal in the slalom skiing event at the 1984 Paralympic Games. St. John recalled,

In the first run of the slalom, I was ahead, but then I fell down and had to get up to complete the race. In fact, the woman who won the gold medal also fell down. I knew from previous races that I could ski faster than her.  But what won the gold medal for he was that she got up faster than I did after falling down.  I learned that everybody falls down … but Olympic athletes get up faster, and gold medal athletes get up the fastest of all

   Mental toughness is the quality that enables athletes – or any of us – to get up fastest of all – by remaining focused, positive and clear-headed under conditions of stress. Whatever your level of talent and skill, developing mental toughness is what enables you to perform consistently at the peak of your talent – and flourish in the process.

Having the ability to anticipate and recognize stress, to manage your stress during competition, and to recover from stress between competitions (matches) – and even between points – are all critical to YOUR ability to compete with confidence, control and consistency.  

What are you doing to maximize YOUR mental toughness?

© 2015 by Dr. Mitchell Smith.  All rights reserved.

A LESSON FROM THE WORLD OF ACTING

Alexander Fehling, the German actor who plays Claire Danes' boyfriend Jonas Hollander on TV's "Homeland," recently told the New York Times how he learned an important lesson while auditioning for the prestigious Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.

"Imagine ... they only take 20-25 students from as many as 1,000 people auditioning. I didn't get in, and felt terrible. Later I realized that when I was on the stage, I was concentrating on showing (everthing that) I can do. And this is not interesting. It took me a year to change my perspective on the purpose of an actor. Then it worked out."

In my opinion, the exact same thing holds true for athletes. If you are looking to show what you can do, you will be making it about yourself and NOT about the moment of the competition. 

One of my first sport psychology involvements was with members of an elite boys' gymnastics team. I used to tell them "If you are out on the floor routine or on the high bar and you are trying to prove something, it is as if you were wearing a 40 pound weight around your neck."

Trying to show how good you are (as in the case of Fehling) is probably going to work against you - in part because you are busy focusing on someone else (whether it is the person deciding which students pass the audition or your coach or the people in the stands). 

Instead, an athlete who can allow himself to be ABSORBED in the moment rather than FORCING the moment will be more likely to produce high level competitive play - or in the case of the actor - a compelling performance. 

Any self-judgement will only get in the way of this process. Any fear of failing to prove something will similarly keep you from your best performance. But when the LOVE of competition is your main focus you are likely to have a performance you will be happy with.

More recently, Constance Wu, one of the stars of "Crazy Rich Asians" and TV's "Fresh Off the Boat," had this to say:

"I've always found that if you stop thinking about the results, or the product and just think about your love for what you do, and you re-connect to your creativity, you feel such a wealth of meaning in  your life that keeps you going when there is adversity."

THE QUALITIES OF A CHAMPION (Part 1)

A great mark of champions is not so much their exceptional talent as much as their exceptional ability to play consistently with the full measure of whatever talent they have without distraction, loss of focus or decrease of  confidence at any moment throughout the entire competition regardless of what is happening.

THE QUALITIES OF A CHAMPION (Part Deux)

"A team is made up of people who respect each other and who place themselves at each others’ service."  

These were the words of Marcello Lippi, head coach of the Italian national soccer team that won the 2006 FIFA World Cup, who noted that, “Each player (has to) feel equally useful, but not indispensable.  If all the players cater to their own self-interest, you will have some spectacular moments of soccer, but in the end the teams which have a ‘we’ mentality will prevail.”