THE BIGGEST BATTLE – WITH YOURSELF !
It is a well known fact that the biggest battle you have in any sporting domain is with yourself. However hard you train physically, however much you know technically and strategically, it is extremely hard to feel you are always performing at your best ! Why ? Because you don’t win every time and if you did you would not be reading this ! The fact is nobody and I mean nobody wins every time, but how you handle your losses and how you grow your confidence and resilience are in your control to master. You just need the skills as much as the technical and physical.
It is hard, very hard to maintain a healthy balanced mindset at all times as there are often new or continuing challenges you face each time you compete, both external factors and personal ones e.g. injury, fatigue or indeed emotional triggers.
Unfortunately defeat in any form is generally a negative experience and if for any reason the defeats happen a little more frequently, the way the mind stores this information turns what was maybe a one off negative experience into a reinforced belief. Beliefs are a little harder to shake off than a one off. So the battle begins with oneself … Can I do it ? I want to do it ? What if I can’t do it ? But if I try really hard ? But I didn’t do it before… and so it goes on and on and on. The self talk of the mind is brutal and if you were to watch two other people having the same conversation you would probably laugh and wonder what they were even doing going into competition ! But it is easier said than done when you view someone else, facilitating your own mind is not at all easy and this is where I come in.
So what can we do together ? How do we create a robust healthy mindset that you can count on in times of challenge and build your enjoyment of your sport ?
I adopt a very structured method of creating the mindset you desire and it will be totally unique to you. No two people are the same and everyone’s belief systems are based on their own unique life experiences. So although there is structure there is complete adaptation to each individual competitor. Everyone has their own ‘thing’ whether it be nerves before or loss of controlled thinking during or complete performance assassination afterwards ! There are many areas to cover and many techniques to deploy to counter the negatives, remove the limiting beliefs and adopt new and positive strategies to take with you into your special sporting arena.
*** 5 * Review ***
‘Tanya supported my journey towards achieving my personal goal of competing in Ironman Barcelona. By means of identifying barriers and positive contributions, Tanya offered an easy to understand and implement positive mental approach to this endurance event. Dark times during the marathon were quickly overcome through simple techniques enabling me to achieve my goal of successfully finishing. Thank you Tanya.’
CHILDREN IN SPORT
Having spent quite a bit of time observing the distress of junior tennis players over the years competing in matches ranging from club to national events, I became very sensitive to the effects of competition on the mental state of young people. It became very apparent that the time spent coaching the technical and physical skills did not equate to the time spent on mental skills, to the point I believe, it is not really brought into the equation till quite a way into the professional journey. Humans will tend to orientate to the quick fixes and the visible improvements and it is very hard to ask a person to spend time practicing a skill that cannot be seen. The fact is once the very high level of elite sport is reached the defining margin between the very top and the rest is in fact the mental state. It cannot be copied, it cannot be verified, it is the ultimate top secret weapon as it is truly invisible. But that is hard to sell to a child because it isn’t bright and shiny and now !!!
But the children are the first to suffer the traumas of loss and I did witness shocking scenes from complete breakdowns with tears, to verbally abusing opponents, to resorting to cheating, to throwing rackets, the list goes on. What’s worse was the impact it had on the parents and the coaches, I saw many parents tearing their hair out and tearing strips off their kids when they came off court and the coaches standing around looking embarrassed or worse reprimanding their students too. I find this hard as the coaches should have integrated the necessary skills in the kids before they went out into the brutal arena that is tennis. It is an individual sport with no where to hide and for a child with limited control or understanding of their emotions to be put through the pressure and sometimes humiliation of playing where they shouldn’t be is not something that should ever happen.
Children tend to have quite volatile emotions as this is the time where their belief system is being constructed and the emotions are strong and clear to cement the beliefs in place. If a negative experience is repeated and reinforced enough times, the belief becomes stronger and stronger and the brain ends up getting pretty good at running the same emotional program when triggered. Hence the same behaviour will manifest time and time again, no matter what mum, dad or coach has to say about the matter. That is unless there is intervention and these behaviours can identified and traced back to the
feelings and thoughts that created them. The beliefs can then be revealed and
you have a base point to work from.
The good news is and there is good news ! The time factor is so important here, children have only had these belief systems in place for a relatively short time and down to the wonderful pliability of imagination and the strength of emotions it is not so hard to reprogram the negative programs to positive ones. At the end of the day, the subconscious mind works to two ends, to protect and to get pleasure for its human. If the sport is not threatening the player then the next best thing is to actually enjoy it !! A player ultimately does enjoy the sport or he /she would not be doing it now, but to maintain that pleasure and particularly to maintain that pleasure through the tough journey to professionalism takes some special skills and ones that all young competitors should have access to.
So if your child is competing or would like to compete in their sport and you believe like I do that the mind skills are an essential component of their journey, then maybe you would be interested in my Mind Performance Program. If you are, do not hesitate to contact me and we can have a chat about your child’s specific sport and how I may be able to help.
