Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Twenty-Three – Building Mental and Emotional Resilience in Athletes
Hello and welcome back to Brain In The Game. Brain In The Game is a podcast specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are looking to do their sport a little bit smarter. Brain In The Game is like an oasis for the mind, and I'm your host, Dave Diggle.
In this episode 23, we're going to look at the mental and emotional resilience of an athlete. Before getting into the nuts and bolts of this, I'd like to start with a story. During the week, I was working with an athlete and a coach. The athlete I had been working with only a short period of time, but the coach I've known a very long time, and have the utmost respect for – they're very knowledgeable about their sport, they've got some great results out of their sport, and they've been around a long time; so I know they know how to coach.
While I was working with the athlete, I asked the coach to do what they'd normally do, to coach the athlete so I could observe the interaction, and work out what I could do to make it more effective and efficient. When I was watching the coach, and the athlete doing some specific skills, the coach clearly had a great technical knowledge he was imparting to the athlete. You could see the athlete actually adored this coach and hung off every word they were saying. Every time they gave an opinion, thought, or directive, this athlete was key to apply what they'd just learned.
As the coach turned around to walk back to observe this athlete doing what he just told him to do, the coach made a flippant remark, and I watched this athlete completely deflate. The performance wasn't what we'd expected. The athlete was down, no longer was processing information, but was focusing on this flippant remark. I've seen coaches over time create a reaction in their athlete by saying inflammatory things. They do this to try to evoke an emotion. For some athletes, it works. For most athletes, it has a negative outcome. It may initially give you the reaction you're after, but the sustainability is short-lived.
This coach made this flippant remark, turned their back, walked to the side of the gym and watched the athlete perform this skill. When I watched the athlete perform, and they under-performed, and I could see the emotional weight they were carrying with them, I asked the coach if they knew what they had just done. The response was they had no idea. They'd given information, made sure the athlete was aware of what to achieve and how to achieve it, and then in their mind, the job was done.
I then asked the coach what their role was. They turned around and said “My role is to coach and teach.” I asked them to be more specific and the coach was silent. Like I said, this coach has a long history of success in the sport. They have a great technical knowledge of the sport. They knew how to coach, and how to get a result for his athletes. But what he didn't understand was the key role he played. When I explained to the coach that their role was to give information and make sure they athlete takes it on in a way they can use, see relevance to, and have a tangible application of, the coach didn't see it in that way.
When I highlighted the throwaway comment and the reaction from the athlete, the coach could see what they'd done was give all this great information, made sure the athlete knew what was expected of them, and then undone all of that with one comment. Where does that leave of as a coach? Does it mean we have to be conscious of every single word we have to say? In a way, yes. Does it mean we can't joke and have that human interaction with our athletes? Of course not. It's part of the responsibility of the coach, and part of the athlete, to make sure they understand what they're getting and what they're giving.
From the coach's perspective, you need to be aware that once you give information, the comments you give will be associated to an emotion. If you give information that makes the athlete feel really good about that, they're more likely to apply it. If you give off information and they feel great, then you give a parting comment that changes the associated emotion, you no longer have a clear and concise application of that information. That all sounds technical, but what it means is if you want your athlete to do the best thing, you have to leave them with a positive emotion. Making sure you've left them feeling comfortable when trying to apply something new will let them use that information in the most efficient format.
From the athlete's perspective, it comes down to having emotional and mental resilience. I teach these athletes this in a couple ways. For the older athletes, it's more about recognition of the relevance of the information. They take a logical approach of “This is what I need for this skill, let me sort that from my coach”. The relationship from the coach to the athlete has to be equal in communication. The information needs to sit well, and they have to have an open relationship of good communication.
When I'm working with younger athletes – teens and lower – the way I get them to build emotional resilience is asking them to see things through a 'protective layer'. We all have filtering systems that have developed over our life spans, and are formed by things we've experienced in live. They're influenced by ourselves, our parents, our social groups, our peers, etc. These are our inbuilt, cultivated filtering systems.
How do we tweak these filters to become more relevant in the here and now? Part of this process for the younger set is to teach them to create an image in their brain. When anyone is trying to give them information, they need to have a set of filters to put that information through, in order to keep the relevance of that information.
I want to go through a process of creating an image in your mind: think of yourself standing inside a huge glass dome. This means you have a protective layer around you that you've created. You can pass things in and out at will. Bare in mind, the information you give out is just as relevant as what you let in. Think about the information that's going to come to you in 4 different categories: relevant and interesting stuff; things I need to keep for later; things I do need right now; and then trash, things you're never going to apply. When information comes into your life, you need to categorize them in those 4 stages.
Thinking back to these younger athletes, I ask them to create a box in front of them, and it can be any colour they want. It's normally a colour that's 'interesting' to them. On the front of that box, there's a title “Interesting stuff”. This is where you go “that's interesting... I might need that, I'm not sure. I'm going to put it in that box and sort through it later”.
I then ask them to create a filing cabinet. We know these things, we need to keep them. We know they're relevant, they're important to us, and we're going to need it as some point in time. Again, we get to add a colour to it.
The last part I ask them to collect is the directly now stuff. Truly relevant information, where you go “that's the exact nugget of information I needed right now to make that difference.”
So the 3 things we have inside our dome are an 'interesting stuff box', a 'to-keep filing cabinet', and a way of 'absorbing' the stuff that is relevant to us right now. The concept of the dome is to repel what we don't want: the emotion that comes with some things, or information that is in no way relevant, or negativity that someone gives you.
Going back to the athlete that was working with the high-level coach, before I taught them this resilience process, what would've happened was when that coach gave the throwaway comment, it would either be relevant right now, interesting and boxed, or filed for later. Now, that throwaway comment would just go 'dink' off the side of the dome, and wouldn't negatively affect the information the athlete received. This resilience process gives the athlete wider control over the information they receive, and to apply the bits they need, or put it away for later. It also allows the athlete to unemotionally bounce the negativity away. We ask these athletes to create this image in their brain. Initially, it will be a clunky process, until they become familiar with it.
As a coach, how do you give your information? Are you undoing all that great work with your throwaway comment, or not making information relevant? If you're an athlete saying “That's me! My coach has made me feel really negative even after giving me great information...”, then you need to be more proactive about managing that information, and be more aware of what you need to use, to keep, to store, and to bounce off.
You also need to be very conscious about the questions you ask. If you ask in a certain way, you're more likely to get the response in the same way. If you go out asking very emotionally-charged questions, you're more likely to get emotionally-charged responses. How you ask questions will often dictate how you receive the answer.
Once I explained this to the coach and athlete, and I explained how the coach could better give the information and utilize the emotion being used, their relationship changed, and it become a far more productive relationship – and the performance reflected that. This process of emotional resilience is about being specific with what we get, how we get it, and how we used it; and letting all the other stuff that comes with it go.
Until the next training session, train smart and enjoy the ride. My name's Dave Diggle, and I'm the Mind Coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
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