FEAR OR TRUST: WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON, WHICH WILL TRIUMPH ?

In the 1990s Jonny Wilkinson was a budding young British rugby talent with both remarkable skill and an unquenchable passion for the game. In a new documentary about the rise of British rugby entitled “Building Jerusalem” Wilkinson recalled his readiness to do what it took to succeed:

“I don’t remember feeling I needed to escape the pain that came on the field. That came very naturally. What I struggled with was the pain of the mental anguish behind it – the pressure riding on the result … that lack of control in losing or not losing that brought with it a sense of doom.”

Called to the British national team at age 18, Wilkinson faced an early test of that mental anguish in his first major international tournament, against rugby powerhouses Australia, New Zea-land and South Africa, the so-called “Tour of Hell.”  When he was called upon for a penalty kick in one match, the TV commentator noted, “For a man of his talent it's a simple kick, but believe me, those goal posts are going to seem quite narrow at this moment.”

Indeed, at that moment, it was not only the pressure riding on the result, but the pressure as the youngest member of the squad to be seen by his older teammates as one who could be relied on when it mattered – as a player who deserved a spot on the national team.

That kind of pressure must have entered his thoughts.  His kick was just wide of the mark.

The TV analyst then commented, “I think it's important that the next kick go to Wilkinson as well … to help him re-establish his confidence.” And when that moment came, he noted, “This will be an important test for him after what was an easy miss.”

The player kicked the ball … and once again failed to score.

“After I missed the second kick I felt embarrassed. Later, in the dressing room, I didn't know where to look. I was always trying to avoid stains on my career path, and now I wasn't sure how I was going to wash that one off. I thought to myself, 'What's the point? I'm a waste of space. It's all a lie.’”

In a series of conversations with his father over a period of weeks, his dad finally said to him, “OK. Enough. What are you going to do about it?”

Wilkinson eventually came to see that one of the most important things he needed for success was learning how to think correctly under pressure.

After the stunning blow to Britain during that international tour, the head coach addressed not just Jonny but the entire team when he asked, “Can you commit to doing whatever it takes to succeed? Because the teams that do sacrifice the most often win.”

Wilkinson made that commitment. A teammate remembered, “You would be on the bus after a practice and Jonny would still be on the field kicking goals.”

But relentless hard work wasn't enough. Wilkinson came to understand what was needed mentally.

“Dealing with the pressure of a kick is really a matter of the process. You get away from the outcome and take it back to the understanding if I do this in the zone around the ball and focus on the parts that I can control … and if I do this and this and this, then I'll get there.”

As a result, it was a more seasoned and mentally tougher Wilkinson five years later on the England team in the 2003 World Cup, held in Australia. There he faced another critical test when England advanced to the final game against the host (and favored) team.

With England trailing in the first half, Wilkinson came up to kick to close the gap to one point, then made each of his next two kicks to help take England to a strong lead by the half.

However Australia came back strong in the 2^nd half to tie the score at 14-14. Wilkinson heeded the words his head coach had shared with the team before the match:

“Let's just do what we do. Don't look to do anything special. Don't force anything. Just stay focused and stay accurate and opportunities will come.”

Wilkinson hit his mark to put England up 17-14, but Australia came back to tie it up once again.

With the clock ticking down, England had the ball and it was passed to Wilkinson who made a quick kick on the run to secure the victory just seconds before the ref's final whistle. It was a classic example of the ultimate in sports execution – when an athlete executes the very thing he has trained his body to do over and over and over – without thinking.  It was “the only kick I can remember in my whole career where I didn't think about it,” Wilkinson recalled. Indeed the sheer joy of the moment was only diminished by the thought that when the ref blew that whistle the moment would be over.

Perhaps it was the fact that at that moment there was simply no time for fear, or that he had mastered the ability to free himself from the fear and replace it with trust in his ability to do under pressure what he had done thousands of times before in practice.  

Something he stated in the film harkened back to his above-mentioned comments about the mental anguish that accompanied his lack of control over winning or losing.

“My kicking sessions (during practice) were my way of regaining total control.”

MIND OVER MATTER: YELLOW LIGHT MOMENTS

When it comes to athletic success, there is often a point where an athlete needs to push himself to his limit. In some sports, like swimming and track and field, this “comes with the territory,” but there are other sports, like soccer, basketball and tennis, where athletes are asked to push themselves in practice to develop the physical conditioning that may well make the difference between winning and losing in games. Few athletes may possess the iron will of a Michael Phelps or a Novak Djokovic to push themselves unrelentingly hour after hour -  but there are mental strategies that can help an athlete who is on board with the need to push himself but may find himself giving up too quickly when pain or fatigue set in.

                            

     WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE… You are approaching an intersection as the light turns yellow. Most of the time, we speed up to make it through the yellow light. Sometimes the light turns red as we are going through the intersection. It happens with drivers thousands of times every day.

     Sometimes, a driver slows down and comes to a stop at the intersection.  And while it is often a matter of our ability to get an immediate read on our timing relative to the light, there is something else at play… our motivation (in this case, the motivation to save time).

     We’re coming up to the intersection… the light changes to yellow… and we’re thinking “I don’t want to get stuck waiting at this intersection. What a waste of my time that is. I want to go on my way.”  (And if we are in a rush, all the more so…)

     And so we go through the light. (Hopefully it’s yellow… how many senseless deaths are cause by people running  the red light – but that’s another matter for another time.)

     But any reasonably responsible driver will also be saying something else to himself/herself at the same time … something like “I need to stop at the intersection because that is the safe thing to do under the circumstances.”   Or even “I need to stop at the intersection because there could be an officer nearby – or a traffic camera, and I don’t want to get stuck with a ticket.”

     IN OTHER WORDS… we are faced with two reasonable but opposing motivations – one which translate into “GO” and the other which translates into “STOP”

     It all happens in a fraction of a second, but in that fraction of a second ONE of those factors (“GO” or “STOP”) wins control and determines our behavior.

     This thought occurred to me recently while doing interval training on the bike. As I was pedaling at maximal effort I was feeling an energy drain – and probably would have dropped down to a lower speed.  But all of a sudden an image came to mind that gave me a surge of energy – enough energy to keep me going strong! (What was the image? See the end of the article!)

     There I was, my body sending signals of pain and fatigue to my mind, which in turn was ready to activate the “STOP” response … when a different (opposing) thought came into my mind which sparked the “GO” response instead. That thought prevailed over the other tendency and won out… with the result being that I kept going “full throttle” instead of giving in to my original temptation to slow down.

     A similar situation was reported during the 2008 Summer Olympics, when U.S. Olympian Jason Lezak captured the world’s attention by recording (unofficially) the fastest relay leg in swimming history to help the U.S. to a gold medal finish in the 4 x 100 freestyle. This was one of the races needed to help teammate Michael Phelps set his Olympic record of eight gold medals – a loss in this event would have put an early end to that quest.

   Lezak was going against French swimmer Alain Bernard, who, at the time, held the world record in the 100m freestyle, and had earlier that day bragged to his teammates that they would “smash the Americans.”  Lezak was swimming the final leg of the race, and trailed the Frenchman noticeably at the turn. With 50 meters to go, Lezak was a full body length behind. After having taken first place in this event for nine consecutive Olympics, the Americans had come up short in both 2000 and 2004. In fact, just prior to the 2004 Olympics, I asked Jason what aspects of the experience – his second time there – he was most looking forward to, and he replied, “I’m looking forward to getting the gold in the 400 freestyle relay back from the Aussies.”

     So when Lezak swam his part in what television commentator and former gold medalist Rowdy Gaines called “the greatest relay I have ever seen,” besting his own personal record by 1½ seconds, he later explained:

“When I flipped at the 50 and I saw how far ahead he still was, I really thought, ‘There's no way (I can catch up with Bernard). The guy holds the world record. This isn’t possible.’ And then I changed and I said, ‘You know what, that is ridiculous. This is the Olympics, and I'm here for the United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts. I’m just gonna go out there.’ I’ve been part of two teams at the last two Olympics that came out behind, and I wanted … to show that we are the nation to beat in that relay. In like five seconds I was thinking all these things. I just got a supercharge and took it from there.”

     Whether it is that “supercharge” that helps an athlete surge ahead in competition, or just the motivation to maintain a high level of energy and effort in practice … it often comes down to that “Yellow Light Moment” and WHICH ONE of the conflicting messages we tell ourselves – “Take it easy” OR “Keep on going!” – takes hold.

   I often ask athletes to picture some sort of image or scenario that will remind them of the way they want to perform. In this case – me on the bicycle - I thought of filling my car up with gas to fuel me on the way … and then imagined passing someone on the highway (i.e. going strong). That image over-rode the other signal my body was sending my brain – the one of feeling tired and feeling about to quit. 

   Another time I was on the treadmill, going at full speed, when the pain/fatigue kicked in. Although I was similarly tempted to slow down, I thought to myself “What if I was to get my second wind in the next 2 minutes? What if I was to get a surge of energy if I could just keep it up for the next two minutes? I thought to myself that IF that would be true and IF I would have slowed down instead that would have been a shame… and that thought – that my second wind could be right around the corner – gave me the determination I needed to keep going for the next two minutes. THAT MENTAL STRATEGY MADE THE DIFFERENCE between stopping and keeping going. 

     Like the saying goes – “mind over matter.” Which one of two opposing thought will prevail in your mind. That is what matters!

Post Script… There is probably not a basketball coach around who hasn’t made his players run suicides in a certain time, (e.g. 28 seconds) only to have them run again because some team members didn’t make the required time.  So the team runs again, and still comes up short. Eventually they push themselves and everyone finishes in time.  The thing is that by the fourth or fifth time they are that much more exhausted, and yet they manage to run the best time of the lot. This certainly speaks volumes about the mental part of our ability for endurance!  As former Celtics great and Hall of Fame basketball legend John Havlicek put it:

“Most people think they’re overworked so they stop. They could have kept going but they didn't. They weren't beat physically, they were beat mentally.”

            © by 2010 by Dr. Mitch Smith.  All rights reserved.

CHAMPIONS: Getting past the cliches

I just saw a tweet by a former NBA coach who wrote:
"... champions see challenges for their unpredictability and hardships that come their way, and their inner voice says, 'OK. Time to get going!' "

Of course this is the IDEAL. But I believe that most of us don't exactly come by this quality naturally.

So on a scale of 1 - 10 how much of this quality do YOU show in the toughest times?

The idea behind Mental Coaching is to help those of us who are TYPICAL rather than EXCEPTIONAL to increase our mental toughness in such situations NOT to a 10 but at least by 1 or 2 points further up the scale.

To me, THAT is what being a CHAMPION means... doing what DOESN'T come naturally.

Your thoughts?

HOW MENTAL SKILLS COACHING CAN HELP YOU

THE GOAL OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTING is to help you achieve a valuable set of MENTAL SKILLS which are key to playing at a CONSISTENTLY high level in each and every game. This involves helping you identify the best combination of performance goals and outcome goals to reach your objectives.

Sport psychology consulting involves helping athletes in in such areas as concentration, mental rehearsal, self-confidence, and stress management.  

Consulting with athletes is always designed around the athlete’s personal needs, typically focusing on such matters as:

• Self-confidence

• Ability to stay focused in competition

• Rebounding quickly from mistakes and slumps

• Anxiety management and coping with stress

• Goal Setting

• Overcoming negative thinking

• Motivation 

• Visualization & Mental Rehearsal

• Relaxation

• Recovering from injury

TYPICAL OUTCOMES FROM SPORT PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTATION INCLUDE:

• Greater personal satisfaction in practice and games
• Greater sense of control in reaching personal goals
• Better production (stats)
• Acquisition of skills which are applicable to other areas of life (persistence in the face of obstacles, self-confidence in confronting challenges, effective communication with coaches and teammates)
• Increased professional opportunities (team offers, salary)

For more information, contact MitchSmithMentalCoach@gmail.com. Mental Coaching can be conducted via Skype, Facebook, phone or email.

ALL CONSULTATION SESSIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE IS 100% CONFIDENTIAL

HEAT'S 2012 VICTORY POINTS TO LIFE LESSONS LEARNED

   If America is the land of second chances, LeBron James and the Miami Heat certainly offer a prime example. It was only one season ago that King James talked about taking his talents to South Beach, and well before the first tip-off of the season, the celebrations were already underway. True, the Heat made it to the 2011 NBA Finals, but by the time the team was struggling in game after game of sub-par fourth-quarter play, more people were cheering against LeBron and the Heat than for them. 

   Just one year later the confetti poured from the top of the American Airlines Arena and the champagne flowed as the Heat won the 2012 Championship and “the King” was crowned as Finals MVP. With less braggadocio and more maturity, the Heat had become a truly formidable foe and underlying the stellar offense and unrelenting defense, a number of changes had taken place in the soul of the team and its star player – changes that helped propel them to victory.

   So what happened? There are a number of things the Heat did to transform themselves from “losers” to “winners” – things that any team, player, or coach might want to consider when it comes to finding your own path to championship performance.

Pain and tears can be the impetus to turn things around

   In 2011, the Heat had clearly set themselves up for a big fall. With all the celebrations that took place before a single game had been played, these guys had put the cart before the horse. Reflecting on this a year later, Dwyane Wade said, “This team, we had so much pain, so much hurt, so much embarrassment from last season that … nothing needed to be said. From the first day (of this season) we (were) on a mission, and that mission was not complete until tonight.” 

   When things don’t work out like we had hoped, we are tempted to blame anyone and anything. Not surprising, that’s exactly what LeBron did – at first. “When we lost, I blamed a lot of people besides myself,” LeBron admitted. “I wasn’t ready to own it.”

   It took growing from that pain for James to position himself for the chance at redemption, and to capitalize on it. True champions look inside, don’t get caught up in all the “what if’s” and “if only’s,” but find the grit to go forward.  “I realized there were no short-cuts,” LeBron said shortly after being named the Finals MVP.

What’s the real goal?

   After publicly announcing at the start of the 2010-11 season just how many titles there were going to win (not four … not five … not six …), it was clear that the Heat were playing to prove something. Winning the title had become an all-consuming objective, and “doing the work” kind of got lost.  LeBron recalled, “The best thing that happened to me last year was us losing the Finals… and me playing the way I played.  It humbled me. After the 2011 Championships I took a couple of weeks off and then I got back to the gym and got back to the basics. I had hit rock bottom. I really wanted it, but I wasn’t doing it the right way. I knew what it was going to take, and I was going to have to change as a basketball player, and I was going to have to change as a person,” LeBron said after Thursday night’s Championship win.

   What player doesn’t seek success, fortune and fame? What LeBron came to understand is that these qualities are rarely achieved by aiming your sights at them directly – they are mostly found when we focus on “doing the work” and let the results – the championships and the accolades – take care of themselves. In the course of my own work, helping scores of athletes arrive at this understanding has brought them the results they had hoped for … whether it was upping their points or rebounds per game, or helping teams to play better at “money time.” Key to the process was to stop agonizing over the results and make the pursuit of excellence in the quality of their play their chief focus.

Let go of the baggage 

   The way that LeBron left Cleveland did not sit well with a lot of people. “Last year a lot of people were saying I was a selfish person and a selfish player, and I really let it affect me.  All last year I was playing to prove everybody wrong.  I was angry and playing with a chip on my shoulder. At the end of the day I was basically fighting against myself.”

   Like so many players, one post player I worked with always did a great job in practice, but had difficulty bringing his “A” game in competition. I told him that trying to prove something out there was like playing with a 50-pound weight around his neck. “Just focus on accepting the challenge of the moment as a way of testing your talents and all your preparation. However you play isn’t going to really prove anything – and certainly not to the people who care about you.” Being free of the extra baggage helped him go out and play a more aggressive and confident game.

   Dr. Thomas Perls, author of the book Living To Be 100, reported research findings that individuals who are effective in “letting go” thrive much better than those who insist on holding on to past hurts or the need to prove something or to “even the score” with others. In sport this is certainly true!

Ego is fine… when held in check

   LeBron talked about how losing humbled him and made him re-assess his focus. When he talked about getting back to basics – the rebounding and the defense – he was focusing on the qualities that make him a champion. Sure – our ego is on the line (Are we going to start? How many minutes are we going to play?) But if we are able to put that aside and focus on “doing the job” – on the proper effort and constant improvement – we are more likely to keep growing as a player and stay on the path to reaching our goals. .

   Dwyane Wade, who himself had been the MVP of the 2006 Finals, put ego aside and accepted a different role in helping the Heat to hit their collective stride. “We made the decision two years ago to become a team, LeBron, Chris, myself, and the other guys decided to come together. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to make sure that you reach your goal. And I had a position (and) a role to play. It might have changed a little bit, but at the end of the day we all had one common goal, and that was to become champions.” 

Even champions make mistakes - they just bounce back faster  

   My conversations with many elite athletes lead me to conclude that at the highest levels of play, championships are won by players and teams who make the fewest mistakes. But the fact is that even the best athletes make mistakes. The champions are the ones who are resilient – who know how to move on quickly, so that mistakes don’t take them out of their game plan and lead to even more mistakes. Just as Mike Miller’s astounding seven 3-pointers fueled the Heat in Game 5, the mistakes that the Thunder made seemed to take the wind out of their sails. But, as players and coaches on both teams noted throughout the series, you have to keep “grinding it out,” no matter what.

   Bonnie St. John, silver medal winner in downhill skiing in the 1984 Paralympic Games, learned an important lesson at the time.  “In my 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 her 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 medalists get up the fastest of all.”

Hang in there 

   

   Coach Eric Spoelstra, whose own job this season was at times thought to be on the line, was asked what the biggest challenge was as the man charged with bringing the team back from last season’s loss. “Just to pick up our spirits and stay on course. We knew we could do it, but it would be a long season and a tough road. We got knocked down two or three times this playoff run, but the thing that matters, we got up and we kept on working.”

   In 2000, tennis great Gustavo Kuerten took an early two-set lead in the finals of the French Open, when he got trounced 2-6 in the 3^rd set and was in danger of losing the fourth set as well. After winning that set, the match, and the title in a tie-break, he said that when he felt his game slipping away he told himself that if he could just hang on, his game and his confidence would return – and all he needed to do was just keep believing in himself. More recently, New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin told reporters that as long as he had one person who believed in him, he could keep going during those tough times before he got picked up by the Knicks and life became rosy.

You have to please yourself

   In the press conference, LeBron was asked what he learned about himself as a ballplayer and as a man on the journey to the championship.

   “The biggest thing I learned,” he replied, “is that you can’t control what people say about you, what people think about you. You have to be true to yourself, to the people that surround you, and to your loved ones. I put a lot of hard work into this … It just shows when you’re committed and you give everything to the game, the game pays off and it gives back to you.”

   In the end, redemption came from “doing it the right way.” And while the spectacular play of LeBron and D-Wade, and the way that the rest of the team rose to the occasion, brought them the championship trophy, perhaps in the qualities that make for true champions, the Heat players and Coach Spoelstra really aren’t all that different from the coach and players of runner-up Oklahoma City.

   My own work in helping athletes and teams to “do it the right way” has often given them the tools to achieve top performances. But mostly, when we have talked about it afterwards, I remember their profound feelings of pride in having hung in, worked hard, and regrouped as necessary to reach the goals they had set for themselves years earlier, and attaining in the process a deep sense of personal excellence.

TRYING OUT FOR NATIONAL TEAMS AND PRO CLUBS - PART 1

Few opportunities in life come without some measure of stress.  This is particularly true when it comes to basketball players who are looking to get a spot on their national team, playing in a showcase camp, or trying out for a pro club.

Take the case of Michael, who has been invited to try out for his country's national team for Eurobasket play. Michael had previously been a member of his U20 team two years' running. 

But when it came to trying for the senior team, he felt a great deal of pressure.

"It can be tough, with everyone competing for those spots. With my desire to be on the team, I worry what the coaches are thinking. And I worry about what the other guys are thinking of my play, too."

The paradox of Michael's situation is that the very goal that motivates him is also the thing that gets in his way. He wants to make the team, but the worries that this generates cause him to doubt his abilities to rise to the occasion and keep him from playing at his best.

Perhaps nothing demonstrates this better than what happened on a previous occasion. After sub-standard play, it became readily apparent that Michael was out of consideration for a spot on the team. At that point he said to himself, "Oh well, f*** it!" and then went out and played great basketball. Once the worries of whether or not he would get selected for the team were out of the equation, Michael was rid of the stress that had gotten between him and his abilities.

So I helped Michael develop a better approach by way of the following analogy.  I told him to think of watching TV.  Let's say he is watching golf on one channel. But then he switches to basketball on a different channel. Once he is on the basketball channel he can no longer follow the golf match.

I told him to think of his motivation to make the team as the golf channel. The motivation includes thinking about making the team, pushing himself to be in the best physical condition, working on some of his moves and shots, etc.

However, once he is in the tryout camp, he will be better of by changing to the other channel (and no longer going back to the first channel) where the goal is to play in the moment as a fierce competitor who is also having fun - without reference to the outcome of his play (just as when he played with the attitude of "F*** it" he was not thinking about any outcome and this allowed him to be focused just on playing).

In  order to succeed at this strategy of being exclusively on one channel, I suggested that Michael use visualization skills to see himself doing this successfully, including getting back on track when he found himself entertaining worries about what the coach or other guys were thinking about how he was playing. I recommended that he do this with enough frequency that he would be able to do it for real when he was at the national team camp.

By focusing on the quality of his play rather than the outcome, and by setting as the goal to play as a fierce competitor and have fun, Michael could more easily rid himself of the worry that got in the way of full use of his talents and abilities.

ATHLETES WHO PASS ON A GOOD THING

As a sport psychologist I am biased about the value of the services offered by me and my colleagues. Of course, I have the Thank you’s of the many athletes I have helped, and a high number of Olympic athletes employ the help of sport psychology to prepare them for competition on the highest stage in sports.

I am always curious when athletes (and coaches, too!) elect NOT to work with me as to why they would pass on a proven service. When I told one basketball player that I could help him pinpoint some of the mental areas where improvement would have a near immediate pay off, he replied, “That’s okay; I’ll just work on EVERYTHING.”  Which to me meant he would actually work on NOTHING.

I have had many players tell me they can’t afford my services. I have worked with players for free, and the moment (after several sessions) when I tell them I really need to start charging for continued work, they are “out the door.”  I have told other players that I would charge them as little as 5 Euros/$10 just to just get them on board with the benefits of what I have to offer and they still say they can’t do it… and you know these guys easily spend double that without batting an eye on a snack or a movie.

Recently I have been coming across another reason guys don’t take advantage of this.  Last summer I ran a Big Man Camp in Europe with former Detroit Pistons “Bad Boy” Rick Mahorn.  The camp was very successful (as proof, every single guy from last summer plans to come back AND they all asked to make the camp longer this year!) and Rick did a phenomenal job. Apart from his teaching and drills, his playing experience that he shared with the guys was a treasure.

(The fact that this is the only high level basketball camp that includes mental coaching is worth mentioning – though I understand that Rick – and not me – is the primary attraction!!)

Several European players, including guys playing in U.S. colleges during the season, told me that they have a personal coach they work with during the summer.  While this can be valuable, in my estimation what this kind of work primarily does is help guys execute better IN PRACTICE!!!  It is NO GUARANTEE of how they are going to perform IN GAMES – WHEN IT MATTERS!!

In my opinion… a big reason that an athlete would not take advantage of a situation that can help him step up his game is that he is NOT READY TO VENTURE OUTSIDE OF HIS COMFORT ZONE.  Working with his personal coach is kind of a predictable affair. It is kind of like when trainers say that after a while if you run the same distance at the same speed day after day your body adjusts and the continued benefit becomes increasingly minimal.

Sure, venturing outside of our comfort zone can be uncomfortable… but I have never talked to an athlete who regretted having done so! Hmmmmmmmmmm……

So what do you think? 

SEE THE NEXT ENTRY ON THIS BLOG… “Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone” … to help you explore some of your own possible resistance to taking steps that could help YOU to step up your game.