HOW MENTAL COACHING CAN HELP YOU

The goal of MENTAL COACHING is to help you acquire the mental skills which are key to playing your best with greater consistency in each and every game.  This includes helping you strengthen and add to the tools in your mental skill set, including

• Self-confidence
• The ability to stay focused throughout competition
• The ability to quickly recover from mistakes and slumps
• Overcoming negative thinking
• Setting effective goals and monitoring your progress
• Staying motivated despite the ups and downs of competition
• Effective use of visualization and mental rehearsal
• Learning to manage stress and intensity of play
• Coping with and recovering from injury

TYPICAL OUTCOMES FROM MENTAL COACHING INCLUDE:

• Greater personal satisfaction in practice and games
• Greater sense of control in reaching personal goals
• Improved production (stats) AND quality of performance
• Acquisition of skills applicable to other areas of life - like persistence in the face of obstacles, self-confidence in challenging situations, effective communication skills with colleagues and supervisors)
• Increased opportunities for those pursuing professional careers (team offers, salary)

For more information, contact BigMan.MentalCoaching@yahoo.com
Mental coaching can be conducted via Skype, Facebook, phone or email.

ALL CONSULTATION SESSIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE IS 100% CONFIDENTIAL

A LESSON FROM THE HEROES OF 9/11

WHAT WE LEARN FROM THOSE WHO WERE THERE FOR US AND FOR EACH OTHER

Today is 11 September… the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, along with those at the Pentagon and in an airplane in the skies above Pennsylvania, reportedly headed for the White House.

Reflecting on the tragic loss of nearly 3,000 lives, people of every race and color, along with the heroes who saved many other lives or gave their own lives in that effort…. It is worth noting what one firefighter said when rushing into the burning towers.  “It’s my job … and some of my fellow officers may be in there and need my help.”

Apart from the honor which their memory asks of us, I mention this because I have found those thoughts to be very relevant to athletes who look to succeed and are often faced with challenges and obstacles.

“It’s my job.” Not all ball players have things go their way. They don’t always get the minutes they would like. Sometimes they don’t get the ball passed to them by selfish teammates.  It can be very frustrating!!

One way to overcome that frustration and keep the game positive is when a player reminds himself about the value of being a professional, the kind of player who accepts the bad times along with the good because “it’s my job.” I once worked with a team where we spent some time exploring issues of team leadership.  It turned out that one player, who only got into games when the team was up by 25 points, was seen by his teammates as one of the players whose leadership meant the most to the team’s success. He could have easily become frustrated by his lack of playing time… but he always chose the attitude of “doing his job” over feelings of frustration.

Being ready to help your fellow officers. – or your teammates – is also an attitude that can mean a lot. In wars, from World War 1 to the present-day, soldiers have often reported that the one thing they kept in mind during the heat of battle was to be there to help the guy next to them.   (See my previous post "Lessons from our Fighting Forces")

A ball player who was frustrated by mistakes he would make, and by the yelling he frequently got from his coach, sometimes found his game spiraling downward. After talking about things, we decided that a good way for him to stay motivated to play his best was to tell himself “I am out here to help my team as much as I can.” When he took the focus off of his individual play and put it on the team instead, his play tended to stay at the top level, and he also reported feeling better about things when he was out on the court.”

Eleven years ago we were reminded that some things are much more important than sports. But if we are able to draw inspiration from the heroes of September 11, it seems to me that is a great way to keep their memories alive.

DO WE REALLY LEARN MORE FROM OUR LOSSES?

The Waiter and the Unpaid Bill 

Many a coach will be heard to say “We learn more from our losses than from our wins.”  True, from a psychological point of view there is SOME validity to this statement … though I often wonder why you never hear them say anything like this after a win!  (If it is true , wouldn’t that make the worst teams in the conference the smartest???) But understanding why it might be true UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS can provide some helpful insights to both coach and athlete alike.

How we deal with the frustration of a bad game

Consider that, after all, the goal in any competition is to win. Thus, when we win we have accomplished our goal and the effort we put in is then relegated to the record books. After a win we are delighted and we sleep like a baby (or party like an idiot!). On the other hand, when we lose, we failed to accomplish our goal – and so the matter may continue to bother us.

As human beings, when we are frustrated, we are hard-wired to seek a resolution to this frustration – some way to eliminate it. (How many coaches have yelled at their players after a loss as a way of dealing with their own frustration? One coach I know yelled at his guys for 45 minutes after a loss … though you know sure as hell that they tuned him out after about two minutes!!!)  Saying that we learn more from our losses is one way to deal with the frustration of the moment – but the key to SUCCESS is to actually follow up and do this in a systematic way.   

So the loss creates a need in us that doesn't exist after a win. And that "need" exists until the goal is achieved, and then (and pretty much ONLY then) we put it out of our mind. The real question, however, is what follow-up steps will be employed to insure ACTUAL learning. 

What happens when we don’t achieve an important goal?

Back in the 1920s, a professor named Kurt Lewin, who taught psychology in Berlin, would gather with some students

in a café after class where they would continue to discuss the topic of the day’s lecture.  The waiter would take everyone’s order… and return sometime later for the next round, until finally he would come to take the final payment. The group noticed that at any point the waiter knew (without the benefit of a calculator) exactly what the tab was… but once the bill had been paid he could no longer recall the amount even a short time later. They concluded, and later demonstrated in a series of experiments, that mentally we hold on to matters as long they represent an unfulfilled goal (such as paying the tab or winning the game) but once the goal has been met we put the matter behind us and move on.

A good example is that of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but could only think about the two events in which he HADN’T won the gold, and THAT is what motivated him to train so hard for the next Olympics four years later. LeBron James and the 2011-12 MiamiHeat are another good example, after the unfulfilled hopes they had put into the previous season, when they lost to Dallas.

Lewin referred to this as being in a state of tension (with respect to a still “active” goal that has not been achieved) – and this tension exists until the goal is achieved.

A player or coach who has lost is like the waiter who has not yet been paid... the matter is still very much in his mind. A good example is Olympic swimmer, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but could only think about the two events in which he HADN'T won gold!

And so – coming back to the famous (or infamous) coaching quote about learning more from our losses than our wins, the question is how do we use the so-called tension that results from the loss in the most effective and productive manner?

Doing the actual work of learning from our losses

It can help an athlete or team to figure out the obstacles that prevented them from playing to the fullest extent of their ability.  After all, if a team played the very best of which they were capable and still lost – to a stronger team – what would there be exactly to learn? But that is rarely the case.  Did the team lose focus at some point – or rush shots out of desperation – or miss defensive assignments due to being flustered?    Did they fail to maintain trust in one another? Or work at cross purposes by letting egos get in the way? Did an athlete get down on himself and mentally give up or lose the grit and determination to go hard in the final minutes and seconds?

So what should we learn after a loss? The athlete or team who views a lost game as indication of talents that need to be further developed will emerge with greater toughness, increased resilience, and an improved quality of performance. After the 2012 NBA Finals, LeBron said that it was by embracing the pain of the previous year’s Finals that brought him to the Championship moment; that he “owned” how it felt to fail. Kevin Durant noted when the Thunder, too, were struggling some years back, “We weren’t losing – we were learning (what it takes) to win.”

And finally (as Professor Lewin would say) when we DO achieve success, we can use our victories to re-set the bar ever higher in our quest for competitive excellence.

In the end, the champions aren’t the ones who make the fewest mistakes but the ones who are best at letting go of the mistakes the quickest when they do make them. When a player misses a shot – for example a lay-up – and continues to focus on it as he heads downcourt on defense – he risks the possibility of missing his defensive assignment and allowing his opponent to score – and then becoming further 

taken out of his game as he goes back on offense. (A made basket is quickly forgotten, not so a missed one.)  Such a player would do well to develop strategies to quickly and effectively let go of the missed shot by mentally overriding the built-in tendency to hold on to the moment.  When we accept adversity (such as the frustration of a loss) as an opportunity to explore how we need to grow as a player or a team – we are taking an important step in the direction of joining the ranks of those very champions.

© 2016 Dr. Mitch Smith

FROM LOSERS TO WINNERS: AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP

HEAT'S NBA VICTORY: FROM LOSERS TO WINNERS

The Mental Side of a Championship Season

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 failure can lead to turning 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 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.

© 2012 by Dr. Mitch Smith

MONITORING YOUR GOALS TO STEP UP YOUR GAME

Joe is a 25 year old post player currently playing in Spain. At the start of the current season he told me that one of his goals is to do a better job of catching and finishing in the low post.  Joe had identified this as one of the things that would make him a better player overall, help his team win more games and be a key factor in moving his career (and contract) to a higher stage.

While it is always important for an athlete to select aspects of his game to work on – it is also important to have a plan for monitoring and measuring his progress – as was discussed in Parts 1 and 2    of this series on goals.  Having such a plan considerably increases the likelihood of the player making serious improvement – doing
it sooner – and insuring that his efforts are effective.

What I suggested to Joe was that he imagine a scout in the
 stands watching him at games, and that the scout would rate Joe’s abilities in terms of catching near the rim and finishing on a scale from “1” to “10”, and make notes as to the reasoning behind the number he would assign to Joe’s current game performance.

With this number as a baseline, Joe could figure out where he wanted to be (realistically) in four months’ time – and what he needed to improve about his performance.

As we discussed this, Joe noted that one of the things he needed to improve was his rhythm and timing in his moves.  He had a problem with rushing things and consequently not finishing the play. 

So I asked him how much of this he thought was “technical” – meaning getting the motor-skill aspects of his play stronger…
 and how much was “mental” – in terms of rushing things because of stressful thoughts which would enter his mind and take him out of his rhythm.

Not surprisingly, he said he thought it was some of each. As far as working on this in practice, Joe started to formulate a plan for this.  I told him that his best chance for speedy improvement would include using visualization as well. I suggested he start by spending time picturing some examples from last season where    he was happy with his performance, and some examples of where he failed to finish.

As he pictured examples of each in his mind, he would start
to note what was happening when he was on his game – and by comparison – what was happening when he came up short – in terms of the thoughts in his mind, the fluidity of his movements, the level of his confidence, etc. 

The second step would be to spend more time seeing himself make the kinds of moves he wanted to be making in games – and as he continued to do this – to come up with a key word, phrase    or thought that he would associate with catching the ball and going strong to the rim.

“Should I try to see how I am playing – or should I try to feel it – or what?” Joe asked.

“Actually, both,” I told him. “See yourself as if watching through your eyes – what we call INTERNAL VISUALIZATION – and also see yourself as if you were sitting in the stands and watching yourself on the court – what we call EXTERNAL VISULAZATION.  Spend some time visualizing yourself as if in practice – and the other half of the time picturing yourself in game situations where you are being defended.

But ALSO, try sometimes to imagine the physical feelings of your body – more than what you picture with your sight – as you go through the moves.  Feel the way your body moves – feel the rhythm of your footwork, the feel of the ball as you catch it, the energy surge as you make the move to the rim and put the ball through the hole.”

With this in mind, I told Joe to take 15-30 minutes once a week to write down his reflections on how things were coming along with regard to improving his abilities to catch and finish, with an eye toward rating himself once again on the “1” to “10” scale in one month’s time.

SUMMARY:  Whatever particular skill you have identified as key    to improving your overall play, the following steps will likely help you to identify the necessary efforts that will help you reach your goal in the most time-efficient way:

1. If the best players would rate a “10” on this skill, where do you think a coach or scout would rate your own abilities at the
 present? It is important to remember that you may never reach a 10 – the question is: are you doing the most you can to reach the highest level of your own ability?  Also, it is critical to ask yourself what it is about your performance – what you are doing well and what you could be doing better – that produces that particular rating at present?

2. Identify the steps – both technical and mental – that you can take in the coming weeks or months to make the best progress in this area.

3. Reflect once a week on how it is going – and follow your progress once a month by rating – in writing – how you are doing … and what particular steps that you took made the difference.

Wishing all athletes a great season in 2014-15!!!

© by 2011 by Dr. Mitch Smith.  All rights reserved

MAINTAINING COMPETITIVE FOCUS, Part 3

Switching Allegiances

IN A PREVIOUS POST ON THIS TOPIC, I talked outlined a number of problems that often take us out of competitive focus, providing the example of Jay, the team captain.  It is the exceptional athlete who doesn’t find that he loses his focus at least some of the time. As with Jay, so with most athletes – a closer examination reveals that it isn’t so much a matter of losing focus as it is of our focus being re-directed.  In Jay’s case, he found his focus being directed to concerns with his coach, or with pro scouts in the stands, or with what he worried his teammates might be thinking about him.

There are a number of ways to get back on task when this happens, and you might have found some ways that work for you.  In general, successful ways to re-focus involve not only directing your thoughts away from something (the distraction), but directing them towards something else (the task at hand).

To be successful, the (positive) thing you want to direct your thoughts towards has to be more compelling than the distracting thing that is commanding your attention at the moment.

The captain of another team reported experiencing problems in refocusing after finding herself frustrated during games in which her team was losing. She reported wanting to have more control over situations relating to her role as an experienced player on an otherwise rookie team. Seeing her teammates make errors which would cost them the game was getting under her skin.  After dealing with this problem for some time, she came upon a creative solution.

I am rather proud of my re-focusing strategy, primarily because I found it all on my own, and also because it works. One night as we were lined up by our bench, standing facing the scoreboard while the national anthem was being played, it came to me.  I focused on the scoreboard, and below where the scores are indicated, I noticed an “Enjoy Coca Cola” sign. That’s when I said, “Ah-hah, that will be my cue.  Since I’m always looking up to the scoreboard during the game, why not benefit from it!

So each time I felt frustrated (or more like swearing, and losing my cool) I’d look up and see “ENJOY” printed there as a reminder to – above all – enjoy myself.  Even if the score indicated a trouncing, there would be the rest of the board telling me … just enjoy the game! Much to my delight, this strategy, to this very day, is most effective.”

Human emotions are such that we cannot experience joy and frustration at the same time (just as one cannot be relaxed and anxious at the same time) so the decision to focus on enjoying the game has the consequence of blocking frustration as an alternate response to the same situation.  So once you have found a compelling focal thought which is positive and energizing, it will more or less take over your mind, leaving no room for the worrisome thoughts that were previously de-railing your focus.

And THAT is the thought to which you want to maintain allegiance.    

© 2008 by Dr. Mitchell Smith.  All Rights Reserved.

WHAT DO YOU KEEP SCORE OF WHEN YOU'RE KEEPING SCORE?

I Should … I Must … I Gotta

  Jeremy, a post player I was working with, was frustrated that he was unable to play in competition the way he knew he could. As his team’s starting center, he was getting plenty of playing time, but he was going through a stretch where he was playing well below his potential. In particular, whenever he would miss a shot, he would stress about it – typically saying to himself something like “I SHOULD have had that shot.” This would lead to the next thought: “I MUST make the next shot.”  This was especially the case when it came to missed dunks and the thought that he had missed the one shot that was a sure thing –  the one with the most dramatic flair attached to it – and missed it in front of a LOT of people to boot! “I’m 7’2!” he thought to himself.  “I’m SUPPOSED to make that shot.  How embarrassing! Goodness only knows what people think of me now!!”

  He had more or less found himself in a mindset where a made shot gave him a sense of relief for not having missed. The idea of missing a shot weighed more heavily on him than the satisfaction of a shot he made.

  When we feel we MUST do something (and we consider failure to do it as a blow to our self-esteem) we add to the PRESSURE involved in the task.

  Try finishing the sentence starting with “I MUST ___________”  (like… “I MUST dunk the ball to show everyone I am a ‘player’ ”), and ask yourself how that makes you feel as you hear yourself saying this sentence.  As you become aware of this, you may notice a tightening of the muscles somewhere in your body (core? shoulders? arms?). That stress and physical tightening that occurs when you feel the extra pressure is obviously going to get in the way of your performance.

  Now try saying to yourself:  “I CAN ____________”,  (completing the sentence the exact same way as before – the same task). What feelings/sensations does THAT induce? For most athletes, changing your thought from “I MUST ___” to “I CAN ___ ” is likely to result in the tension giving way to feelings of muscular relaxation, a feeling of readiness and positive energy.  WHAT DO YOU NOTICE?

  Jeremy felt that a contributing factor in his situation was that he was very competitive, and if he didn’t have a good game or do a good job he felt like he had failed to come up with the goods (play to his potential).  So I issued Jeremy the following challenge: I asked him to think about which player on his team seemed to have the most fun in practice and games.  I challenged him to compete with that player in the task of having fun, and after a week to report back to me as to how he was doing. At least in part, the focus was removed from finishing shots to having fun.  THE RESULTS: JEREMY STARTED TO MAKE MORE OF HIS SHOTS.

   Another post player, Carl, was a reserve post player who didn’t get much playing time. This was, of course, a source of great frustration, and as often happens in such cases, started to have an impact on Carl’s level of motivation. It was hard for Carl to put forth his best effort in practice when it seemed like nothing he did made any difference.

   It was as if Carl was saying to himself, “I SHOULD be playing more; I MUST get into games.” Not actually getting to play, Carl was become more and more frustrated, and it showed.

                                                                                                        

   To Carl I issued the following challenge: to think about which player on his team hustled the most in practice, and to set for himself the goal of reaching at least 90% of the hustle level shown by that teammate – and to rate himself on this at the end of every practice.

   While there was no change in Carl’s minutes, and this continued to frustrate him – his motivation level improved, and he brought more intensity to practice. This happened because Carl shifted his focus from something he couldn’t control but tied his hopes to (“I MUST get playing time”) to something over which he had complete control (giving total commitment in practice) and which – if he thought about it enough – DID matter (“I am giving 100% and can feel proud of that – I’m not a slacker”). And even though Carl’s minutes didn’t improve much (there are a number of reasons why this might have been the case – not all of them necessarily having to do with Carl directly), his attitude about his situation did improve. THE RESULT: CARL STARTED ENJOYING PRACTICE AGAIN.

   Jeremy had the talent to be a big-time player, but his stress was getting in the way of playing his best. Carl was losing his motivation because of his frustrations with not getting playing time.  In both cases, a shift in focus and mindset – coupled with a challenge which asked them to keep score on some aspect of their play which was different from what they usually focused on, was helpful in altering their situation for the better.

   IN BOTH CASES, the athletes were able to step up their game when they learned to stop worrying so much about things that were outside of their control by shifting their focus to other matters over which they COULD exercise control. Once they did, they addressed themselves to mastering THOSE areas, which left them feeling MORE EMPOWERED – and ultimately MORE CONFIDENT in their ability to play at their highest level of proficiency (and to have a lot more FUN in the process!!)

© 2010 by Dr. Mitchell Smith.  All Rights Reserved.