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Self-talk is a form of suggestion. The words, sentences and
dialogs that go on inside our heads exert a powerful influence on our
behavior through the power of suggestion.
In my work with players, I have found that the most challenging obstacle
they face in the pursuit of excellence in performance is themselves, in
particular their minds.
For some reason, most of us are quite critical of ourselves. We quickly
conclude that we are not tall enough, thin enough, fast enough, strong
enough…the list goes on and on. One
positive aspect of this perfectionism however, is that we push ourselves
to achieve. Although, more
often than not, we see the negative side, which is the mental beating we
give ourselves when we miss a pass or a shot or we do not perform to our
potential. You can see the anger and frustration on a player’s face; you
can read it in his body language.
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Players need to develop a discipline in what they
say to themselves, as their body responds to what information the brain
feeds it. For example, I can recall a player who always told himself “Don’t
get nervous”. Little did he realise that his brain ignored the
word DON’T,
and only heard the word, NERVOUS.
Consequently, he became so nervous, that he put himself off his game. He
was feeding his mind negative thoughts and as the saying goes, put rubbish
in, and you’ll get rubbish out.
To
help your players to improve performance, try some of the following
techniques:
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Ask the player to keep track of any
negative thoughts for one week, get them to write them down and see
what key patterns emerge.
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Next, ask them to list what
emotions are connected with each negative thought. Is there a pattern?
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Get them to work on disputing their
primary negative thoughts. For example, if they tell themselves that
they are not fast enough, get them to make a list of all the people
whose speed they surpass. If
they tell themselves, that they cannot make a particular pass, get
them to make a list of all the times they have successfully made that
pass, in spite of their worry and anxiety.
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Finally,
get them to write down the newly developed positive statements (even
if they do not yet believe them) and repeat them to themselves daily
to replace the old negative thoughts.
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