Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Thirty-Two – The Fear of Breaking a Winning Performance
Hello and welcome back to Brain In The Game. Brain In The Game is a podcast that's specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are out there looking to do their sport just that little bit smarter. Brain In The Game stimulates those neurons and improves performance, and I'm your host Dave Diggle.
Often we talk about when things go wrong – but what about those pitfalls when things go right? When you're on track, things are working, you're on a high, there are still some pitfalls we can fall into as performers. In this episode we're going to look at those fears of breaking a winning performance.
When we're performing really badly or something's not going right, there's a lot of information out there for everybody to access to help you get back on track. There's people dealing with athletes who have had injuries, or who have performance anxiety. But what about when we are winning, on that climb, and at the peak of performance? You're probably thinking “If I'm working really well and things are going right for me, there are no issues.” When things are going well, often an athlete has in their mind “When is that bubble going to burst?” It's a fragile place to be. There's a fear in their mind of “when is this going to end? What's going to happen to me when it does? What do I have to do to stop it from happening?” They become paranoid, neurotic nervous animals, looking at every shadow and waiting for it to come along and snatch away this high they're on.
In there lies a huge issue we face. We don't want to be at the bottom of the pack. But when we get to the top, for once in your career you're on top and feel 100%, there's still that digging doubt in your mind – the area of your brain that goes “What if?!” What are some of the strategies we can apply when we're at the top and worried about the bubble bursting?
The most important thing is, we stop moving. If we're too paranoid about not wrecking or changing anything or improving anything because it's working – and I understand that psychology – but we stop wanting to grow and become close-minded to input on our development. To extend ourselves and push our boundaries. All out of fear that if we do anything out of the ordinary, we're going to break it. Those athletes trying their utmost to not change anything are constantly looking for the negative influence – “What's going to come along and take this away from me? Who's going to break this for me? My coach? My partners? My family? My peers?”
We become fear-focused, with everything as a potential threat. Our focus becomes negative, looking for breaks or chinks in the armor. We no longer move forward because we don't want to risk going backwards. What happens is the world catches up and passes us. Even though we don't change, even though we're consistently performing, we're not consistently growing. As the world goes past us, we feel we've gone backwards. There's an innate issue there of momentum.
Often athletes start to use habitual behaviors – “When I won that competition, I had red undies on, so I'm going to wear red undies for the rest of my life” or “I touched the door handle three times before I went out” or “I laced my left boot before my right”. When you've performed well, you ask yourself “what was different?” Lucky hand guards, luck boots – whatever it is, we try to hang our success on something other than ourselves. Something we have control over. That's what habitual behaviors are, our mechanism to control things. We can put stuff in the way that we can use, that manifests, that we can create control over.
And because of this, we stop trusting others. They get in our way, we look for them as being potential enemies for us. Or we look at them and think “They don't understand the fragile nature of this performance. While I'm on top here, I'm not going to let them near it! I'm going to take complete control, mwahaha!” And this mentality of isolation disallows us from being retrospective on what's going on. We lose the ability to look at “How did we create this? How do we replicate this?” We become a cloaked environment where we don't want anybody in or anything to change.
If you're an athlete and you've been listening to this and you think “Oh lordy, that's me, I've done that! I've been there... when things have gone really well for me it's almost more frightening than when things aren't going well.” When things aren't going well, you are the bottom, you can look up and go “I know where I want to go.” If we think about someone like Roger Federer, who was at the top of the tree for such a long time, he had limited places to go. Now he's slipped back down the ranking, and knows where he wants to be, he's been there before. It's much harder to stay at the top than it is to climb to the top.
Staying at the top has its own innate fears, inhibitions, and hurdles for us to overcome. Don't think when you get to the top that it's all plain sailing. In fact, when you get to the top, that's where most of the mental game comes in. Getting there gives you something to chase. When you're there, it's very hard to create your own environment around you that enables you to keep growing and keep that momentum forward without losing focus on what's working for you.
That's some of the issue we have with good, well-performing athletes. How do we overcome those? Anyone can become that neurotic athlete that doesn't allow anything around them to influence them, who becomes so internally-referenced that they eat themselves alive. We talked before about becoming stagnant, not having that growth mentality. When we think about that – and if you remember some of the things we talked about in the past, like athletes looking at their feet and only thinking about the now – when you look forward instead of at your feet, you have a greater perspective, a greater depth to your ability to see and process now, the next step, and the future.
Keep your eye on the big prize. If you're on the top, what do you want to achieve next? How do you then create a structure to get there? Momentum makes it easier for us to keep moving and keep our eye level up higher. We're not looking at our feet and worrying about every inch we step; we've got a bigger prize above and beyond where we are. We don't want to be a one-dimensional athlete once we get to the top, but to be multi-faceted and have depth to our performance. Therein lies our growth as an individual. Keeping our eye on a bigger prize, always wanting bigger and better, enables us to keep momentum.
We talked about not wanting to break it, it being almost 'fragile'. But if we understand how it's made, how that success is created, we have a sense of ownership to it so it doesn't become so fragile but a part of us. “I created this, and when things aren't going wrong, I created those things too. If I can create the good and the bad, I can choose to constantly create the good.” That's an option we have, and takes away the fear of somebody always waiting to come in and take it away from us.
It's not an object, it's a mental framework we've created to create an ultimate performance. We need to have that student mentality. When we're training and developing, we're constantly wanting to grow and improve. When we have a pure athlete mentality, we go out and do the best, most concentrated and focused performance we can. When we step out of that and analyze that process, we look for replicability. “How did we make that happen? What can I do differently to make it better?” Stepping into the student process of “I want to learn and grow this. I'm okay about making mistakes, because if I make a mistake, I can do it better.” or “If I've done something really well, how can I do it even better?” Enabling that student processing perspective allows us to keep that momentum.
When we talk about momentum, we have to have a calibration system that works. Something so regular in our environment that we keep a constant eye on our path. What worked, what didn't work, how do I recreate or replicate this – it's a finely tuned engine. If you talk to someone in the motorsports industry, they'll tell you, no motor is perfect. There's always some tweak they want to do to it. Our brain is no different. If we look at the best performance we've ever done, we then want to improve on that. It's always a tweaking mechanism. Having that clear, precise calibration process enables us to not only understand what is and isn't working, but how to constantly improve and grow that process. Calibration is so vitally important, especially when we're at the top of the tree.
Habitual behaviors, we've talked about them being 'just our way of feeling comfortable, something we can replicate'. If you set up your red socks and undies or your lucky tee shirt, as a mind coach I don't have an issue with that. That's telling me the athlete really does want to control their environment. They're looking to get the most out of it, and to replicate what they've done. What I try to do is take the focus off the red socks and undies, and put it on a trigger. When you go into a competition environment, by having the same physical and audible trigger, it can be the same as having the red socks and undies. However, we can associate more things to the trigger.
Having habitual behaviors are not a major problem unless they're inhibiting your performance. Having structured trigger points is a far better way to go. If you're prone to using habitual behavior – having those lucky undies, or a latte before you go in, wearing a special hat, whatever it is – not only are you focused on replication, but we can do that smarter. Your mind is already open to using specific triggers, we just have to use the right one for you.
Not trusting anybody – this is one that makes me concerned. When we look at an athlete and talk about their entourage team, with the athlete in the center, we need people around them. It doesn't matter how talented or good or financed you are. If you haven't got the right team around you, the likelihood of you reaching the top is minimal. Even someone like Roger Federer is constantly looking for the best team to put around him. Sometimes he changes coaches, sometimes his sports strength conditioning coaches, sometimes he trains with different sports psychologists or mind coaches – whatever it is, he's constantly looking for a better team to make sure they support him and make what he does his best.
Every athlete at the top of the pile is exactly the same, whether motorsport, winter sport, tennis, baseball, cricket, or football. Every one has a team around them. Who are you putting around you? If and when you get to the top, is that the time to start saying “don't touch what I've got! It's perfect!”? If something's not working, absolutely change it. However, if you get to the top and that team's helped you get there, becoming neurotic about “don't break what I've got!” is only going to help you tumble down that much quicker. Share you rewards – make sure you recognize when you get there, how you got there. Who got you there? What skill sets enabled that to happen? What were the right people's mental and emotional support that enabled you to feel positive? Recognizing and audibly sharing that acknowledgement helps you not feel so isolated or encased in your success.
When we create that good, it's us. Don't forget. If we succeed in something, it was us that made it succeed. But the same goes, when things don't go right, we've probably had a hand in that too. Keep looking at what worked and what didn't work, and how to move forward. Even when we suffer a setback, think about getting back on top and then going further. There is no 'top'. If we get to a 'top' and say “Alright, that's it. Nothing else to do now.”, people will overtake you. Striving to continue to grow and develop will give you the momentum forward to keep growing and striving.
What are some of the mechanisms we've applied over the years to give our athletes that kind of continuity and stability to create the sustainable momentum to continue that long journey? We've talked in the past about journaling. That's our ultimate calibration tool. That daily referencing of those specific questions enables you as an athlete to keep an eye on your development. When the wheels get wobbly, you can adjust and get some stability back to your environment. When things get tough, you can isolate the things that don't work for you, and have ultimate control.
Then we've talked about the mental debrief process. Recognizing successes that create momentum for us, that give that buzz of going “I'm doing something right!” so you can continue to do that, and continue to grow. We also have to recognize what's not working – and that's fine, because it gives us an ability to correct and grow and do something different. Then the whole “What do I do different?” – we go straight into that problem-solving mentality. A place where you go “how do I make this better? What's the physical thing I'm in control of? Do I put more people around me, or is it something that's down to me that I need to do different next time?”
An exercise we talk about, maybe not as much as others, is the '3D Coach'. The idea is seeing something through your own emotional eyes; seeing what someone else what see, or mechanically; and what's the big picture in reality? Those three different dimensions give us perspective: an emotional perspective, a mechanical perspective, and a progressive perspective.
Then there's the ultimate one, the Decision Matrix. If we get to the top and think “That's it, we're here”, then clearly we haven't set a new decision matrix. All four of those mechanical aspects to what we do, the structured templates, are available free to download through our website, www.braininthegame.com.au and www.smartmind.com.au . You can apply them in your training and help add that structured stability and momentum to your program.
When you strive to get to the top, don't think that's the end of the journey. When you get there, it just gives you a new platform to strive again. That keeps us growing, and keeps us hungry. I hope you've enjoyed this different perspective on success. Until the next episode of Brain In The Game, train smart and enjoy the ride. My name's Dave Diggle, and I'm the mind coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
https://www.smartmind.com/
