Are you a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to your sport?

When it's not going well does your confidence and self esteem go too, affecting other areas of your life?

Do you train even though you had a bad night sleep, you feel exhausted, your muscles are sore and to be honest you know your not eating properly?

May be you punish yourself in some way, physical or psychological?

So think about it, do you equate your self worth with your performance this is very common. Let me explain ...

What I mean by self worth and self esteem is - who you think you are or how you see your self. This is different from self - confidence because you can have confidence in your ability to perform and still have very low self esteem or the opposite.  

So when you take away the sport part of you, what do you see? 

The ideal is high self esteem and self confidence in your abilities.

Some clients tell me that being really into your sport, whether your competing or not,  is like taking on a role. When you cross the white line or put on the trainers you are into role but many will judge their performance and then take that as 'how they are' into other areas of their life, there is no separation. Imagine just for a moment giving up the judgements, you can understand your errors and learn from them but imagine being able to stop being the critic and judging yourself all the time. It is possible, I know I see it in my work.

Of course you are your biggest critic and often much harder on yourself that any team member or sports coach. Many limiting beliefs are accompanied by the inner chatter, the thoughts that cross your mind to remind you that 'it's not good enough', 'you always do that' etc.

A lot of my work is about first raising awareness regarding limiting beliefs and the self fulfilling prophesy. Then changing beliefs or eliminating them and replacing them with positive and empowering beliefs. So as Tim Gallwey's lovely equation shows: - 

P = Po - I

Performance equals potential minus interference

I work on the interference to diminish or eliminate it, so purely working on positive mind skills that anyone can learn and adopt because, as we know we are what we think.

How about some kindness and going easy on yourself for a while? I wonder how that would feel.

Competition nerves and anxiety.

One area that comes up often when working with my clients is the concern about getting very nervous before or during competition.

I listen hard to this as the words my clients use are very important to me and the way they use them. I hear statements like - I get knots in my tummy, I just can't see ahead, I can't eat the day before, once I miss a goal it all goes down hill, I'm really scared of getting hurt.

There's lots more but you get the idea and may have such feelings, thoughts or sensations yourself.  I will ask my client to recall a time when they were very confident, a time when they know/knew they are the ‘bees knees’ and they got the result they wanted. I love this because the change in their demeanour is huge and of course we all love talking about our successes even if it's in secret and it shows in the face, in the body and in the voice.

Sometimes I invite them to recall a time when they were nervous and once again the change is very big, change in the voice, the body, the actual words. At this point after asking some very incisive questions to bring about self-awareness of the two very different states we discuss the effects of the two extremes on the body, heart, breathing, mind etc.

It’s very important to be self – aware not just mentally but physically – notice how your body changes how your face changes, your breathing, your shoulders and of course your thought processes.

Then wouldn’t be amazing if you could choose between such states -  when you want? 

Recalling two very different experiences highlights that the fear of losing is not such a good motivator as the desire to achieve, although at first glance they sound similar however if you think about the two opposite states mentally and physiologically they are totally different.

 

Imagine starting a game/race: -

1. Really anxious about being too slow or just cocking it up. Trying not to think about the last game and trying not to see Jane because you think she’s better than you. Getting worked up because you don't like the referee etc.

OR …

 

2. Focused on the success, knowing anything is possible and you can see it and feel it already (through regular visualisation). Knowing what you want to get out of the race or game and knowing how it sits with your long term plans – clarity.

 

The most disappointing aspect of going into a game or race with an 'avoid failure' attitude is you’ll avoid challenges that may just give you those points or get you that faster time. The internal voice will go something like “I can’t do that not now, I’ll look really stupid if I miss, I mustn’t miss.” Your sub – conscious is really amazing at getting you what you want, that deepest driver to avoid failure is rooting for you. Plus this thought pattern brings muscular tension … “I must not ..”

 

The exciting aspect of going into a game or race with a strong desire to achieve (to win) is you will find your self taking on those challenges, those risks because your more confident. This mind – set has an impact on your physiology - you’ll notice the difference. This amazing part is it can be learnt!

I hope this helps and sheds some light on what I do and is it time for you to start choosing your state after all we are what we think?

  

“If you’re afraid of losing, then you daren’t win”. Bjorn Borg