Building Confidence

When you say to yourself with total conviction, "I can alter my life, by altering the attitude of my mind," you have started on the path to confidence.

For an athlete to perform well it is crucial for them to feel confident.  You may be the strongest, tallest, most powerful athlete on the field, but if you aren’t confident in your abilities, you’ll have trouble reaching your goals. Athletes need to work on improving their confidence just as they work on developing sport-specific skills.  Improve your confidence and your performance will soar.

How can you increase your confidence?

First off it is important to realize that confidence fluctuates. Confidence for all athletes — even at the highest level — ebbs and flows. Confidence is not all-or-nothing. It’s a state of mind that goes up and down, so don’t beat yourself up when your confidence is lower. Just focus on improving, and your confidence will follow suit.

Secondly, focus on yourself, not on others. Instead of thinking about how well your teammates or opponents are doing, think about your own performance and how you can improve. This is your athletic career, so you need to focus on what you need to do to improve as an athlete. And when you improve as an athlete, your confidence will increase.

Thirdly, focus on day-to-day success. When you have success every day in training — even the smallest of successes — your confidence rises. If your confidence rises a small amount each day, just think where you’ll be in one month, six months, or a year!

Fourthly, concentrate on the process, not outcomes just as we do when setting goals for training and skill development.  When you focus on improving your performance — the process of improving — you become more confident because you’re focusing on something you have control over. You can’t control outcomes — you may play your best game ever and still lose. If you focus on process you may still be disappointed if you lose, but your confidence will remain high because you will know you performed your best.

Fifthly, focus on what you’re doing right. Learning from your mistakes is important, but you don’t want to fixate on them. If you spend too much time thinking about your mistakes, your confidence will wane. When you focus on what you’re doing right and correct your errors, your confidence will rise.



~H

Self-talk

One of the simplest concepts to understand in sports psychology is positive self talk. However it is also one of the hardest skills to master.

So often I receive the question...Am I crazy if I talk to myself??  My answer...Not necessarily :)

The reality is that all day long, the vast majority of people have a running dialogue with themselves. If you actually stop and listen to these messages, you may wonder how you accomplish anything at all. How many times in a given day do you find yourself mentally rehearsing the worst possible outcome, tearing yourself down, laughing at yourself or telling yourself you can’t do something, or it's too hard?

Getting a handle on our self talk is one of the hardest things many of us will attempt to do, whether we play sports or not.  For an athlete, negative internal messages and thoughts are among the biggest contributors to pre-competition jitters and performance anxiety.

So how can we reduce these negative messages? In sports psychology, the goal is to replace the negative self talk with more positive messages.


An example of negative self-talk would be an athlete who tells themself "I'm too small, I'm not strong enough, I'll never hit the ball," etc.  That athlete needs to replace those statements with, "I have worked hard for this, I am a gifted hitter, I will succeed, I have an amazing glove, quick feet" etc.   While this may not seem like it can work, over time and with repetition an athlete can develop a new habit of thinking positive statements and thoughts and expect a more positive outcome. It is this connection between the words and the belief that is the ultimate goal of this technique.  I love the statement by Mohammed Ali where he said he was the greatest even before he knew he was.  That is the point!  So often people look at me like I'm crazy for telling them to say positive things about themselves even if they don't believe it YET or it is not true.  It is somewhat a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You may not be a great hitter yet, but if you tell yourself over and over that you are - I am confident you will improve!

Another important factor of positive self talk is that it must be possible and believable. Getting a hit in a game is a very real possibility for most players, but hitting 3 homeruns in a game is not very likely at all.  It is important for the self talk to be believable at some level.

Research supports the theory that an athlete who continually practices positive self talk will improve his or her sports performance. Succumbing to negative self talk is a sure way to reduce performance and sports success.

Here are some steps to help you start developing a more positive self-talk habit

Choose a "mantra"

To get started with creating more positive self talk, choose one or two mantras you can use during your training. This could be a simple affirmation, such as "I feel strong," or "Go, Go, Go," or another simple, positive phrase you can repeat over and over.

Practice multiple scenarios

Once you have developed the habit of repeating this phrase during practice to the point where it is automatic, start expanding the dialogue so that you have familiar and comfortable statements for a variety of situations during your sport. For example, if you are fielding a grounder, you might say, "I am a wall, nothing gets by me," or "I’ve done this a million time before".  If you miss the ball you can say, "It's not over yet, find a way to cover and communicate!! Don’t let up."

Create a positive mental image or visualization

The phrases and words you choose should be those that you can immediately call up and create a visual picture of yourself doing exactly what you say. The image along with the words are a powerful combination that creates a positive message tied to a belief.

Giving up

 

Anxiety

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way" ~ Babe Ruth

Anxiety is a very common emotion in sport and life.   Uually a moderate amount of anxiety is beneficial for some players however, too much can be crippling.  Here are some strategies for managing anxiety in sport and in life!  They may be super helpful for those of you have many exams to write in the coming months!

1. Learn to recognize your early signs of anxiety. It is easier to manage mild to moderate anxiety than severe anxiety.  Everyone is different, but early signs can include shallow breathing, tightness in your chest, sweating, lump in your throat, racing heart beat, racing thoughts.

2. Observe any tension in your body and release it. For example, if your hands are gripping the bench, bat etc... relax your hands.  Progressive muscle relaxation is excellent for teaching a person to release tension.

3. Take a couple of slow breaths through your nose. As you inhale say things like, “peace, calm, confident, you can do this”.  As you exhale, repeat things such as “let go of tension, fear, doubt.”

4. Distract yourself by talking to another person. This will take your mind off your anxiety symptoms.

5. Focus on the present. Look around you; pay attention to your environment and look at: people, cars, cleats, focal points etc.  We often get a bit "floaty" or "spacy" as we become overwhelmed by our anxiety.  Focusing on present objects serves to ground you and take your mind off your anxious thoughts.

6. Do something physical to expend energy and adrenaline.  Go for a jog, do some push-ups, jumping jacks, cycle etc.

7. Don’t fight your anxiety – accept it and go with it. Resisting your feelings just makes them worse.

8. Use reassuring self-talk. " I can do this", "I have trained hard", "I believe in myself", "This is normal anxiety", "I can perform through this"

9. Anger and humour can be effective in reducing anxiety. Speak directly to your fear “Go away", “Chill out.” “So what.” Create your own statements and use what works for you.

10. Pat yourself on the back for helping yourself manage the anxiety. It will get easier as you continue to practice your skills.

~H

Concentrate!

Over the Christmas Holiday we met as a team and worked on a few of our mental skills.  One of them being concentration.

Concentration is THE KEY to athletic excellence. If you want to compete at your best, then you need to learn to control your focus both before and during your performances. When you concentrate on the right stuff, you stay calm, confident and will play to your potential. When you allow your concentration to drift to the wrong stuff, then you'll get nervous, be flooded with self-doubts and consequently, under perform.

Some athletes with excellent focus will concentrate on different things and thus have different performance outcomes.  So what do you concentrate on?

It is so important to learn that when you go into a competitive situation you need to keep your concentration on those things that are important and let go of all of the internal and external distractions. Essentially you have to develop an awareness of where your concentration is and when it shifts away from what is important. The mental muscle that is concentration has two parts: First, be aware of when you lose your focus, when it drifts away from what's important; Second, you have to immediately bring your concentration back to what is important.

The thing that hurts most athletes isn't necessarily that they lose their focus. What hurts them is that after they lose their concentration, they do not immediately bring it back to what's important. It's the extended break in concentration that does the real damage to your performance. If you get distracted, but immediately bring yourself back, then there will be little to no negative effect on your performance.

This mental skill of recognizing when you drift and immediately bringing yourself back needs to be developed and fine-tuned so that you can do it automatically, without thinking. The only way that you can master this "recognize and return" skill is through consistent practice. Use the following exercise to develop winning concentration:

Place a softball 4-5 feet away from you. Sit comfortably with your feet flat on the floor. Allow yourself to pick one specific spot on the ball and put your eyes gently on that spot. As you focus on that spot, allow your breathing to remain relaxed and even. As you inhale and focus on the spot, feel your breath coming in. As you exhale and feel your breath going out, repeat a word or phrase to yourself. This word or phrase is called a "concentration cue." It can be anything you want like "ball," "relax" "focus," "let it go," etc. As you do this your mind will naturally wander. You will get distracted either by your thinking or noise/movement around you. Whenever this happens, quickly recognize that you have lost your focus and bring yourself back to your spot, breathing and the concentration cue.

Do this part of the exercise for two minutes in an environment free from distractions.

Next, take the softball and place it on the top, center of a TV set. Turn the TV on with low volume on a channel you would never watch. Sit where you'd normally sit to watch TV and then put your focus back on your spot and breathing. As before, when you inhale you want to feel the breath coming in and as you exhale, feel the breath going out as you repeat your concentration cue to yourself. Every time that you get distracted by the sound or images from the TV, catch yourself and bring your focus back. Do this part of the exercise for about 1.5 minutes

Regular practice of this two part, 3.5 minute exercise will help you systematically build your concentration muscles. Remember, if you can learn to control your pre and during game concentration, you'll increase your chances of playing your best when it counts the most!

~H

Strategies for Peak Performance

Here are some strategies to try to achieve the best arousal/activation level for you!

These strategies are to increase arousal levels. You will likely need to try this if you are playing an opponent in a league game where you always win, or perhaps you are bored of playing them way too many times. Also try this if you are at Nationals or Provinicials and you are playing a very weak team. Finally, you may need to try this if you have a lot of other things in life that are taking up head space and sapping your motivation.

• Goal setting: Write down some challenging performance goals that you want to focus on. Put your goals in your pocket or bag so that you can review them before or during your performance.
• Visualisation/imagery: Spend some time recalling past positive performances.
• Self-talk: We are what we think – use the power of your mind to motivate and energise yourself. Try repeating positive words or statements to yourself, having a positive quote or motivational picture in your pocket, reading a motivational book, or watching a motivational movie.
• Body language: Try to project a positive, energised, confident image.
• Environment: Surround yourself with positive people and place yourself in an environment where there is some activity.
• Music: Listen to some high-energy music.
• Physical activity: Get up and move – go for a jog, or practice/warm-up your skills.

These strategies are to decrease arousal levels: You would likely need to try these if you are playing a team you really dislike, you are desperately wanting to prove yourself, or when playing high level provinicial or national competition.

• Reduce your mental load: Share your thoughts and feelings with someone in your support network or write about them in a journal. Talk to other sport and exercise performers and ask about their experiences with anxiety/high arousal. It's ok to be nervous – every performer experiences anxiety/high arousal at some stage!
• Distraction: Talk about things unrelated to sport and exercise, or engage in a distracting task (i.e. listen to music, go for a jog, talk to a teammate, read a book, go on facebook - although sometimes the drama on facebook causes more anxiety, so use that one cautiously!).
• Environment: Distance yourself from anxiety-provoking people and situations. If you are extremely anxious, you might want to remove yourself from the environment (i.e., go to the bathroom, for a walk, or a drink of water).
• Focus: Remain focused on the things that are within your control – yourself, your performance, and the present moment.  Stay within the here-and-now context in your thoughts. Focusing on either the past or future makes things worse.  Focus on doing the best you can - not on winning or losing. Try to play “within yourself,” not against an opponent.
• Thought control: Reduce or “switch off” any inappropriate or negative thoughts. Try to decrease the amount of time you spend thinking and allow your body to perform automatically. Keep a positive and constructive attitude. You are already over-aroused. Should you become increasingly negative or angry, the situation will quickly become impossible.
• Visualisation/imagery: In your mind, rehearse performing well and feeling confident and relaxed. Create the strongest mental image that you can of yourself playing “in your finest hour”. Recapture that feeling as best you can.
• Physical activity: Some people find going for a run or doing some physical activity helps to get rid of nervous energy.
• Relax: Engage in activities that relax your mind and body (e.g., deep breathing, listening to relaxing music, meditation, having a laugh, or massage).  If muscles become overly tight, first contract and then relax those muscles. Dangling your arms and hands to your sides and vigorously shaking frequently helps to “shake out” excess tension.
• Preparation: "Leave no stone unturned" with regards to your physical and mental preparation, plan your performance, and be organised.
• Routines: Stick to your normal routine before and during your performance to help you stay focused and feel comfortable. You may have to force yourself to take more time doing everything, and deliberately slow down.
• Try to have fun and enjoy yourself. If you can momentarily step back and gain this perspective in your mind, negative activators quickly diminish.

 

It's a good idea to trial several different strategies over a period of time. Keep a notebook and record what strategies you have tried and rate them on a scale of 1-10 as to how effective they were. The goal is to try to find the strategies that help you reach your optimal activation level and achieve peak performance.

I know I say this all the time, but every serious athlete should have a notebook where they write down what is working for them in every area of their game.  It is impossible to expect your coach to remember what works for every athlete on the team (12-15 of them) in every area of the game (hitting, fielding, pitching, catching, baserunning, motivation, focus, activation level etc...).  There are way too many areas!  You need to own it!  Take the initiative and become more serious about your development!

A note for coaches:  I am certain you will have games where you are over activated and it may negatively effect your team (I know I've been there MANY times!).  Consider trialing some of these strategies on your self!

~H

Peak Performance

How do you achieve your "peak performance" when you need it?  A lot of it depends on your arousal (aka activation) level as this is one of the most powerful factors affecting participation and performance. 

Activation is a term used in sport and exercise to describe a performer's level of mental and physical activity. Many things can affect a performer's level of activation, such as performance expectations, negative thinking, self-doubt, motivation, injury, preparation and readiness, general life stress, as well as external factors such as weather conditions, facilities, and spectators.  One of the best models that has been used to explain the relationship between arousal/activation and performance is the Yerkes & Dodson (1908) Inverted-U Hypothesis. According to this model, the relationship between arousal and performance approximates an inverted U shape (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Inverted-U Hypothesis

The theory is that when an individual's arousal level is low, performance is also low. The mind and body aren't energised and prepared to face the demands of performance.  This may look like an athlete who is over tired, hungry, unmotivated, distracted, without goals - going through the motions.

As activation level increases, performance increases up to an optimal point. However, when activation increases past this optimal point to a very high level, an individual begins to feel anxious and performance is expected to decline. It has been shown that very high physical activity (i.e., increased heart rate, respiration, sweating, blood flow, and adrenaline) interferes with the body's ability to perform – muscles “freeze” and become tight, coordination and skills break down, and early fatigue sets in. Furthermore, increased mental activity makes it difficult to concentrate, think clearly, make decisions, think positively, and feel confident.

As a result, athletes face the challenge of finding and maintaining an “optimal” activation level in order to achieve peak performance.  It is important to note that each individual's optimal activation level is different.  Some athletes need to have a higher level of arousal (more energy, focus, motivation etc) than other athletes.  Athletes also have activation "ranges" for peak performance.  What that means is that essentially you are likely to have a slightly lower activation level for a common league game than you would in the final at Nationals - although you may perform equally as well in both!  You can see the range in the chart above (from blue line to blue line).

It is extremely important for not only the athlete and the coach to be aware of a particular athlete's optimal activation levels, but also for teammates to be aware.  For example, consider a pitcher who is so nervous she seems about ready to vomit.  In her warm-up she is all over the map with her pitches - she is over throwing (over aroused).  It is very important for her catcher to identify this and help her employ the strategies that bring her back to her optimal level of activation.  The same goes for every position - teammates need to help eachother out so they can achieve their common outcome goal!

Typical signs of over-arousal

1. Muscles become too tight and rigid
2. Fast heart rate, shallow and irregular breathing, often accompanied by a racy, accelerated feeling.
3. Legs feel weak and rubbery.
4. Difficulty in concentrating and focusing.
5. Everything appears to be going faster than it really is.
6. Inability to think clearly and accurately.
7. Attention gets fixed on one thing and refocusing is difficult.
8. Feeling of high anxiety and/or fear.
9. Become fatigued very quickly.
10. Become increasingly negative and self-critical.
11. Decreasing emotional control.

Stay tuned for post number 2 on peak performance strategies

~H

Goals goals goals

 Goals setting is an important part of preparing for success. 

 "People with goals succeed because they know where they're going."~Earl Nightingale

No Goals, No direction!

There are three types of Goals:

• Outcome goals:  focus on a result, winning, gold medal etc
• Performance goals: specific performance objectives like hitting .400, ERA of 1.0 etc
• Process goals:  actions needed to be carried out to achieve performance related goals.  These are the most important goals to focus on as they are the key to achieving your performance and outcome goals.  For example, when throwing a ball, a process goal may be to step towards your target every time you throw (so as to increase your accuracy and your fielding percentage).

GOALS need to be SMART:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. 

Specific is the What, Why, and How of the SMART model. 
WHAT are you going to do? WHY is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish?  HOW are you going to do it?  Ensure the goal you set is very specific, clear and easy. Instead of setting a goal to "get in shape" set a specific goal to "achieve level 8 on the beep test".

Measurable: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Setting a goal to "hit further" or "hit better" is hard to measure, but it is easier to measure "hitting 5 more extra base hits" and "increasing hitting consistency by .050".  It is standard to track how many doubles/triples/homeruns a batter hits, as well as their batting average which conveys consistency.

Attainable:  When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them.

Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. Although you may start with the best of intentions, the knowledge that it’s too much for you means your subconscious will keep reminding you of this fact and will stop you from even giving it your best.

At training we often set a goal to do at least one more click jump than your Personal Best.  This is attainable with extra effort and focus.  To set a goal of beating your PB by 7 (while a good long term goal) would not be attainable in the short term.

Realistic:  This is not a synonym for easy it just means do-able. It means that the learning curve is not a vertical slope and that the skills needed to achieve the goal are available. For example, Val setting the goal of beating Nikki Bell on the Beep Test, while noble...is not realistic. (sorry Val!)

Be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort! Too difficult and you set the stage for failure, but too low sends the message that you aren’t very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement!

Timely:  Set a timeframe for the goal: for next week, in three months, by second year University.

Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.  Without a deadline you all would procrastinate! (how do I know this?  I listen to you all talk about school!!) Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.  Time must be measurable, attainable and realistic.

Starting Setting Goals NOW!

 

~H

Focus Plans

More on focus!

Athletes cannot just show up and hope that their focus will kick in and be effective when the competition day arrives.  Focus needs to be practiced.  So we need to devise a plan for how to work on our focus so that eventually focus becomes a natural part of our sporting routine.

Every athlete is very different and thus there is no set technique or plan that will work well for all; rather you need to become self-aware and discover what works well for you!

To get you started, ask yourself...

• When you have performed well in the past what were you thinking?

If there was a statement or word that you were thinking that aided your performance, then you want to replicate that on a regular basis.  Especially in situations where your focus is lacking due to lack of energy/sleep/fuel, poor weather, negative teammates, coaches and/or parents.

• What do you need to be feeling to perform well?

Identify the feeling so that you can identify when you are NOT feeling that way.  What I mean is, if you perform well when you are feeling calm and confident and you notice that you are feeling anxious and doubtful before a big game, then we need to put a plan in place that you can use in that moment to help you feel calmer and more confident.

• What do you do to manage yourself when your opponent performs well?

Do you have strategies that you use to keep yourself on task when you are losing?  Are you able to stay positive, and motivated to keep fighting for the win?

• What distractions must you manage in order to perform well?

List all the things that distract you in a games and the strategies that you have used to control them.  If there are distractions that you have not been able to manage well, brainstorm some things you would like to try and/or talk to one of your coaches to see if they have ideas for you.

• What do you see when you hit/field/throw/pitch well?

Can you recall the feeling of being so "in the zone" that everything in the periphery is a blur?

• Do you have natural focal points when training or competing?

Focal points help you minimize distractions and avoid the tendency to engage in left-brain thinking (the side that is associated with logic, analysis, criticism, fears and doubts).  It's important to select focal points that are constants as you don't want to pick a point that is at one field, but absent from another (the score board at Blumberg would not be good as it is not at Moffat Field...get it?) 

An example of a focal point would be a pitcher who walks up to the mound, looks down at her lead foot (that's the focal point) on the pitching rubber before she looks up to receive the signals from the catcher.  Or perhaps it is the batter who looks at a point on her bat before stepping in the box or a fielder who looks at the palm of the glove before getting into ready position... The simple act of looking at these points, taking a breath and using them as cues for the task ahead is enough to bring a player to the present moment, release unnecessary emotion like anxiety and fear, release physical tension and increase performance!

Hopefully these questions make sense and are meaningful for you.  Ultimately, how you answer these questions will provide the framework for your personal focus plan!

~H

FOCUS: Squirrel!

The longer I coach, the more fascinated I am by how much today's athlete has on the go.  They are bombarded by thousands of distractions every day and unfortunately they often come to training mentally tired or distracted.  It can be very difficult to optimize your performance, training or practice when you are in that state and that is why it is important to train yourself to mentally focus.

In the movie "UP", squirrels are the ultimate distraction

 

Athletes often lose confidence and choke in competition because they focus on the wrong things or don't focus on anything at all.  Focusing on outcomes, who the opposition is, how tired you feel, how badly you did on an exam or other distractions can pull your attention away from the process that will lead to your success.  Focusing on nothing and just going through the motions is also detrimental to performance and training.  Purposeful training is always more effective than just doing a drill for the sake of doing the drill...
  

Focus is usually harder to maintain when doing a drill or activity that is boring, or repetitious.  For example, throwing warm-up!  There are few players out there that have wonderful throwing technique (or quick exchanges) and yet every time I observe throwing warm-up, I am shocked at how athletes simply go through the motions.  Although we call it warm-up that is not the only purpose of it!  It is also an opportunity for you to make adjustments to your technique, accuracy, speed and for you to work on how you receive the ball.   So remember, every time you pick up a ball to "warm-up" pick something to focus on!  If you have good technique, it can be as simple as throwing so accurately that your partner doesn't have to move their glove even an inch.  Perhaps you should focus on your overhand throw,  your side arm, dart or ground up throwing.  There is always something you can do to mix it up.  You can pay attention to the basics of throwing - your release, your wrist action, your elbow, your shoulder, your glove hand, your feet, your follow through.  Pretty much any area you focus on will increase your awareness and aid in your development. 

Stay tuned for some focus strategies, but in the mean time find a focal purpose in every drill you do!

~H