The Power of Self Talk (How do you handle setbacks?)
One of the more destructive obstacles in athletics or really any segment of life is the negative tapes that play inside people’s heads. Negative self talk is so destructive. Many student athletes literally talk themselves out of doing things they are very capable of doing in athletics and academically. This is all so complex. Experiences from the past have a huge impact on the way you talk to yourself and have a HUGE influence on your performance. We all develop roadways of thinking and mental pathways that can become pretty valuable tools, or very nasty habits. For some athletes their negative self talk is like a road block with no alternate route. It is crucial for athletes to be aware of their internal dialogue since it is impossible to change something you are not aware of. Many times the negative self talk will keep you from putting any effort at all into something. For athletes however, I believe it most often occurs when they get frustrated, or have setbacks. If you challenge your limits you will inevitably get frustrated.
Everyone hits the Y or fork in the road at some point. It is the frustration factor. How we respond when we get frustrated is ultimately the key to success. The patterns of thinking when frustration sets in become powerful habits. What goes on inside our head is crucial in setting the stage for the degree of success we will experience when frustrated. As mentioned earlier, the tapes that play inside your head are powerful. If you take the wrong road it is a dead end. If an athlete starts thinking, “this is too hard” “I’ll never be able to do this” “I’m such a loser” these thoughts derails any sense of determination. They shut down, give up, throw in the towel and their effort drops off the face of the earth. When frustration gets the best of athletes, it is like hitting a brick wall. They become unapproachable and never find out what they are capable of doing. So many athletes literally talk themselves out of doing things they are very capable of doing on the court, track, field, pool, gym or ice.
“If everyone did what we are capable of we would literally astound ourselves” Thomas Edison
In a study done by Tracy in 1993 it was found that most people speak verbally at about 150 words a minute. However, inside your head you can think at around 400-600 words a minute. That is a lot of information going through your head in a very short time. The first step in changing negative self talk is recognizing it for what it is and understanding its destructive power. It helps to understand some of the reasons for the negative self talk. Why would anyone have such a negative perspective? I only have one rule for teambuilding. Pretty simple, “No put downs”. Most athletes on team assume this rule applies to what you say to your teammates, and that is a good idea. If someone on your team makes a mistake, the last thing they need is someone from their own team ripping on them. When that does happen you are taking on the role of the “other” team. However, when it comes to the “no put down” rule, the most important person in that rule is you!!! Some athletes are extremely good at ripping on themselves. They don’t need anyone else to help them out they are doing a good enough job themselves. It is so important to monitor your internal dialogue… how you talk to yourself. Through out the course of a day you have many conversations going on inside your head. They are either negative or positive.
I remember hearing from a gymnastics coach about a week after I did a session with her team. She said that one of her younger athletes was on the balance beam earlier that day in practice and at one point on the beam she stopped, and had a rather puzzled look on her face. One of the assistant coaches asked what was wrong, and she said, “When Rick talked to us about positive self talk, did he say we should do that inside our heads or out loud?” The coaches got a kick out of it. I was just thrilled to hear that she was applying some of the important mental components covered during the game.
Whatever the reason for negative self talk, discouragement is always the by-product. Discouragement and motivation do not mix. The absence of encouragement is discouragement. The two hardest parts of any big project, task, challenge or mission is often getting yourself started and maintaining enthusiasm and motivation when you get frustrated or have setbacks. Once you get started, which is progress in itself, be encouraged by every small bit of progress! Celebrating progress is encouraging. If you never learn to celebrate progress, discouragement will eventually overtake you like a heavyweight wrestling against a 103 pounder.
For quite a few years I wondered why some athletes are so BLASTED DETERMINED while others seem to give up on a whim. I believe the biggest factor is self talk. Athletes with a high level of determination and persistence respond appropriately to frustration with positive statements going through their heads, not if, but when it happens. They are able to maintain their determination, in a large part because the tapes that play inside their heads are positive in nature. It is hard to take it to the next level without the right perspective. It is more likely that you’ll talk yourself out of a big step than a little one. Seeing things in parts and chunks makes the mountain so much more obtainable. Consider some of the statements made below regarding self talk and think about where you are with the tapes that play inside your own head.
POWER OF SELF TALK:
Ø Your self talk will either turn you off or cheer you on.
Ø Your self talk will either build you up or tear you down.
Ø Your self talk will be one of your biggest fans or your greatest opponent.
Ø Your self talk will either encourage you or discourage you.
Ø Your self talk will cause you to challenge your limits, or limit your challenges.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you live in hope or despair.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you live life or life lives you.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you reach for the stars or crawl under a rock.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are looking to the future or dwelling on the past.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are striving for more, or too easily satisfied.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you lift your teammates up, or pull them down.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you reach your goals or have none at all.
Ø Your self talk will determine how you deal with frustration & setbacks.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you say, “I (we) can!” or “I (we) can’t”.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are just beginning or already finished.
Ø Your self talk will determine if you decide the direction you take or let others decide for you.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are climbing or falling.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are looking forward, or always looking back.
Ø Your self talk will determine if you have a vision of where you are going, or if you are blind.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you step up to challenges, or step back from them.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether or not you help your team or hurt it.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you build up your confidence, or plant seeds of doubt.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are standing tall, or not at all.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are on the move (motivated) or stuck.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you run the race or just watch.
Your individual response can certainly have an impact on those around you. In athletes any coach would tell you that one bad attitude can swing a team in the wrong direction. A large number of attitude problems are directly related to how individuals respond to frustration. How a team collectively responds to setbacks is also crucial. One of my favorite team challenges is a marble & tube challenge. Each athlete gets a tube about 15 inches long and they stand in a single file line starting at the end of the basketball court. With 15-20 in each line they try to get the marble to roll through the tubes without the marble dropping to the floor. I put tape at the ends of each tube and they are instructed to do this without touching the tapes. This prevents them from grabbing the crease during the challenge. The activity requires everything needed to be successful on the court or field; communication, focus, leadership, patience, and determination. The objective if I was in a gym setting would be to make it the length of the basketball court and back without dropping the marble. If the marble drops, the team needs to start all over.
About a year ago I was working with a HS Boy’s Hockey Team and after several minutes working with the tubes and marble they fell apart. Every time the marble dropped they pointed fingers and blamed each other. Verbal exchanges were predominantly negative in nature. I called a time out and mentioned that the point behind the challenge was not so much about going the distance without dropping the marble; it was about how they responded when the marble dropped. When I asked them how they were doing, they knew! The coach afterwards mentioned that they exact same thing happens to them in games. Even the best athletes and teams have setbacks, but they use them as opportunities to come back! It all comes down to your attitude. Your attitude will determine your altitude. The four areas that are challenged with setbacks are as follows:
1. Focus – Your ability to fix your thoughts on the task at hand and eliminate distractions. Your ability to maintain concentration on one the process without letting your mind drift and wander. Refer back to the chapter on focus.
2. Intensity – It is all about your effort physically, mentally and finding ways to motivate yourself and tap into any reserves in order to give everything you’ve got. Webster defines intensity as : extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling.
3. Enthusiasm – Your ability to keep yourself fired up despite circumstances.
4. Determination – This is my favorite word! Determination fills the gap between where you are now and where you could be. What you can do now and what you could do. I like the manner in which Webster’s dictionary defines determination as “the act of deciding definitely and firmly; also : the result of such an act of decision; firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end”. The definition reveals the component of choice. Determination is a choice of the will. That is one reason I enjoyed the movie, “Iron Will” so much. Will Stoneman was willing to press on despite the circumstances surrounding the dog sled race.
When teams and athletes who struggle have setbacks, you can literally watch their determination crumble, along with their focus, intensity, and enthusiasm. When teams and athletes who excel have setbacks, they use them as opportunities to come back. They typically don’t lose their focus, intensity, enthusiasm and determination. In fact, they seem to be able to bring their focus, intensity, enthusiasm and determination to a higher level. Negative self talk is so destructive because it puts a halt on determination. Negative self talk and determination don’t mix. It is like trying to mix oil and water; it just isn’t going to work. Since determination is such an important component to success, it should be apparent why negative self is so nasty.
What inhibits so many athletes from recognizing the skill specific details they need to pay attention to in order to improve their skills? Our perspective on those things we call mistakes is extremely powerful. If an athlete is prone to have negative tapes playing inside their head, they are less likely to have the proper perspectives towards errors and receiving correction. It seems we are trained and conditioned to avoid mistakes instead of seeking them out! It seems as though we have a counterproductive attitude regarding mistakes in general. When you are attentive to the things you can change, it doesn’t create more things to change, and you just become aware of what you need to do. It is important to acquire the “hole in the pants” mentality. If someone tells you that you have a hole in your pants, or you notice one yourself, it would be likely that you would change your pants and make sure you fixed the hole. People young and old who make a “mistake” typically feel bad! The hang their head and often times learn absolutely nothing from the experience. They are so busy feeling like a loser that it is impossible to gain anything from the incident. In athletics mistakes are the details that will often enable us to improve, with the right perspective. Athletes are more likely to excel when they view mistakes as golden nuggets instead of big red check marks.
Think of mistakes as a GIFT! If someone gives you a free meal pass to your favorite restaurant you would not get upset and throw it away. You would say thank you and enjoy it. If someone gives you $1000 you would get excited and immediately think about how you would spend it or invest it. You wouldn’t get down and decide to discard it. If you don’t have the proper perspective regarding the concept of mistakes and see it as a negative thing, you never develop the skill of goal setting and inhibit your ability to take your skills to the next level. The key factor is taking those mistakes and developing them into higher level skills.
When you develop the proper perspective in the learning process… coaches/teachers insights are priceless and more than welcome. Coaches often tell me that they don’t feel like their athletes are listening and that they are saying the same things 15,000 times! It is unfortunate that many athletes have a “I don’t want to hear it” mentality when it comes to their coaches offering tips or insights regarding their performance. In addition to a faulty perspective on the reality of mistakes, is our inability to recognize our ability to coach ourselves. I like to ask students who their best teacher is. Various names are often thrown back at me. Then I follow up with a similar question. “Who could be your best teacher?” Sometimes students pick up on what I’m getting at and realize they need to be teaching themselves.
“If everyone did what we are capable of we would literally astound ourselves” Thomas Edison
In a study done by Tracy in 1993 it was found that most people speak verbally at about 150 words a minute. However, inside your head you can think at around 400-600 words a minute. That is a lot of information going through your head in a very short time. The first step in changing negative self talk is recognizing it for what it is and understanding its destructive power. It helps to understand some of the reasons for the negative self talk. Why would anyone have such a negative perspective? I only have one rule for teambuilding. Pretty simple, “No put downs”. Most athletes on team assume this rule applies to what you say to your teammates, and that is a good idea. If someone on your team makes a mistake, the last thing they need is someone from their own team ripping on them. When that does happen you are taking on the role of the “other” team. However, when it comes to the “no put down” rule, the most important person in that rule is you!!! Some athletes are extremely good at ripping on themselves. They don’t need anyone else to help them out they are doing a good enough job themselves. It is so important to monitor your internal dialogue… how you talk to yourself. Through out the course of a day you have many conversations going on inside your head. They are either negative or positive.
I remember hearing from a gymnastics coach about a week after I did a session with her team. She said that one of her younger athletes was on the balance beam earlier that day in practice and at one point on the beam she stopped, and had a rather puzzled look on her face. One of the assistant coaches asked what was wrong, and she said, “When Rick talked to us about positive self talk, did he say we should do that inside our heads or out loud?” The coaches got a kick out of it. I was just thrilled to hear that she was applying some of the important mental components covered during the game.
Whatever the reason for negative self talk, discouragement is always the by-product. Discouragement and motivation do not mix. The absence of encouragement is discouragement. The two hardest parts of any big project, task, challenge or mission is often getting yourself started and maintaining enthusiasm and motivation when you get frustrated or have setbacks. Once you get started, which is progress in itself, be encouraged by every small bit of progress! Celebrating progress is encouraging. If you never learn to celebrate progress, discouragement will eventually overtake you like a heavyweight wrestling against a 103 pounder.
For quite a few years I wondered why some athletes are so BLASTED DETERMINED while others seem to give up on a whim. I believe the biggest factor is self talk. Athletes with a high level of determination and persistence respond appropriately to frustration with positive statements going through their heads, not if, but when it happens. They are able to maintain their determination, in a large part because the tapes that play inside their heads are positive in nature. It is hard to take it to the next level without the right perspective. It is more likely that you’ll talk yourself out of a big step than a little one. Seeing things in parts and chunks makes the mountain so much more obtainable. Consider some of the statements made below regarding self talk and think about where you are with the tapes that play inside your own head.
POWER OF SELF TALK:
Ø Your self talk will either turn you off or cheer you on.
Ø Your self talk will either build you up or tear you down.
Ø Your self talk will be one of your biggest fans or your greatest opponent.
Ø Your self talk will either encourage you or discourage you.
Ø Your self talk will cause you to challenge your limits, or limit your challenges.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you live in hope or despair.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you live life or life lives you.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you reach for the stars or crawl under a rock.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are looking to the future or dwelling on the past.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are striving for more, or too easily satisfied.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you lift your teammates up, or pull them down.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you reach your goals or have none at all.
Ø Your self talk will determine how you deal with frustration & setbacks.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you say, “I (we) can!” or “I (we) can’t”.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are just beginning or already finished.
Ø Your self talk will determine if you decide the direction you take or let others decide for you.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are climbing or falling.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are looking forward, or always looking back.
Ø Your self talk will determine if you have a vision of where you are going, or if you are blind.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you step up to challenges, or step back from them.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether or not you help your team or hurt it.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you build up your confidence, or plant seeds of doubt.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are standing tall, or not at all.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you are on the move (motivated) or stuck.
Ø Your self talk will determine whether you run the race or just watch.
Your individual response can certainly have an impact on those around you. In athletes any coach would tell you that one bad attitude can swing a team in the wrong direction. A large number of attitude problems are directly related to how individuals respond to frustration. How a team collectively responds to setbacks is also crucial. One of my favorite team challenges is a marble & tube challenge. Each athlete gets a tube about 15 inches long and they stand in a single file line starting at the end of the basketball court. With 15-20 in each line they try to get the marble to roll through the tubes without the marble dropping to the floor. I put tape at the ends of each tube and they are instructed to do this without touching the tapes. This prevents them from grabbing the crease during the challenge. The activity requires everything needed to be successful on the court or field; communication, focus, leadership, patience, and determination. The objective if I was in a gym setting would be to make it the length of the basketball court and back without dropping the marble. If the marble drops, the team needs to start all over.
About a year ago I was working with a HS Boy’s Hockey Team and after several minutes working with the tubes and marble they fell apart. Every time the marble dropped they pointed fingers and blamed each other. Verbal exchanges were predominantly negative in nature. I called a time out and mentioned that the point behind the challenge was not so much about going the distance without dropping the marble; it was about how they responded when the marble dropped. When I asked them how they were doing, they knew! The coach afterwards mentioned that they exact same thing happens to them in games. Even the best athletes and teams have setbacks, but they use them as opportunities to come back! It all comes down to your attitude. Your attitude will determine your altitude. The four areas that are challenged with setbacks are as follows:
1. Focus – Your ability to fix your thoughts on the task at hand and eliminate distractions. Your ability to maintain concentration on one the process without letting your mind drift and wander. Refer back to the chapter on focus.
2. Intensity – It is all about your effort physically, mentally and finding ways to motivate yourself and tap into any reserves in order to give everything you’ve got. Webster defines intensity as : extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling.
3. Enthusiasm – Your ability to keep yourself fired up despite circumstances.
4. Determination – This is my favorite word! Determination fills the gap between where you are now and where you could be. What you can do now and what you could do. I like the manner in which Webster’s dictionary defines determination as “the act of deciding definitely and firmly; also : the result of such an act of decision; firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end”. The definition reveals the component of choice. Determination is a choice of the will. That is one reason I enjoyed the movie, “Iron Will” so much. Will Stoneman was willing to press on despite the circumstances surrounding the dog sled race.
When teams and athletes who struggle have setbacks, you can literally watch their determination crumble, along with their focus, intensity, and enthusiasm. When teams and athletes who excel have setbacks, they use them as opportunities to come back. They typically don’t lose their focus, intensity, enthusiasm and determination. In fact, they seem to be able to bring their focus, intensity, enthusiasm and determination to a higher level. Negative self talk is so destructive because it puts a halt on determination. Negative self talk and determination don’t mix. It is like trying to mix oil and water; it just isn’t going to work. Since determination is such an important component to success, it should be apparent why negative self is so nasty.
What inhibits so many athletes from recognizing the skill specific details they need to pay attention to in order to improve their skills? Our perspective on those things we call mistakes is extremely powerful. If an athlete is prone to have negative tapes playing inside their head, they are less likely to have the proper perspectives towards errors and receiving correction. It seems we are trained and conditioned to avoid mistakes instead of seeking them out! It seems as though we have a counterproductive attitude regarding mistakes in general. When you are attentive to the things you can change, it doesn’t create more things to change, and you just become aware of what you need to do. It is important to acquire the “hole in the pants” mentality. If someone tells you that you have a hole in your pants, or you notice one yourself, it would be likely that you would change your pants and make sure you fixed the hole. People young and old who make a “mistake” typically feel bad! The hang their head and often times learn absolutely nothing from the experience. They are so busy feeling like a loser that it is impossible to gain anything from the incident. In athletics mistakes are the details that will often enable us to improve, with the right perspective. Athletes are more likely to excel when they view mistakes as golden nuggets instead of big red check marks.
Think of mistakes as a GIFT! If someone gives you a free meal pass to your favorite restaurant you would not get upset and throw it away. You would say thank you and enjoy it. If someone gives you $1000 you would get excited and immediately think about how you would spend it or invest it. You wouldn’t get down and decide to discard it. If you don’t have the proper perspective regarding the concept of mistakes and see it as a negative thing, you never develop the skill of goal setting and inhibit your ability to take your skills to the next level. The key factor is taking those mistakes and developing them into higher level skills.
When you develop the proper perspective in the learning process… coaches/teachers insights are priceless and more than welcome. Coaches often tell me that they don’t feel like their athletes are listening and that they are saying the same things 15,000 times! It is unfortunate that many athletes have a “I don’t want to hear it” mentality when it comes to their coaches offering tips or insights regarding their performance. In addition to a faulty perspective on the reality of mistakes, is our inability to recognize our ability to coach ourselves. I like to ask students who their best teacher is. Various names are often thrown back at me. Then I follow up with a similar question. “Who could be your best teacher?” Sometimes students pick up on what I’m getting at and realize they need to be teaching themselves.