There was a client I worked with who in the beginning asked me the question, “How can changing my thinking actually help me play better?”
It was a very powerful question because changing thinking is the basis of sport psychology. As a mental performance coach I work under the pretense that, if you change your thinking, you can change your performance.
But just as the athlete asked me, we need to understand why that is.
In this article, I’m going to explore the connection between our thoughts and our performance, and how by changing your thinking you can improve your level of play.
It all starts with understanding how thinking drives our actions and behaviors.
The Thought-Feeling-Action Cycle
When the athlete asked me the question about how changing our thinking can improve performance, I first responded by asking him to think of a worrisome thought he had while playing. He is a linebacker in football and so his answer was, “I hope I don’t get pancaked.”
That was one of the big worries he had.
If he ran after the ball carrier and got blocked by someone who knocked him flat on his back, that would be getting pancaked…a very embarrassing thing to have happen to him.
I then asked him how that thought normally makes him feel. He said it makes him feel scared and nervous. This makes sense because he is thinking about what he doesn’t want to have happen.
The last question I asked him was how he normally plays when he is feeling scared and nervous. He said he hesitates and does not play as aggressively.
What I was doing with him was beginning to create a connection between the thoughts he has pre-snap and the actions he takes during the play. Because he was thinking about not wanting to get pancaked, he felt scared and then played in a scared way.
We then looked at an opposite example, where he is thinking more confidently pre-snap. The thought he chose was him telling himself, “I’m going to run through my blocker.”
He then explained to me how that thought would make him feel more aggressive and he would then play in a more aggressive way on the play and give more effort on the play.
Those two examples helped illustrate to him how our thinking impacts our actions on the field. And how by thinking differently he could get himself to play differently.
Now the changing of the thinking part is much easier said than done, but it helps us see just how powerful our thoughts are.
It’s not that positive thinking is magical and if you think positively when you play you’ll automatically play well. You still might play poorly.
It’s all about how our thoughts create our feelings and how our thoughts and feelings (attitude and mindset) influence our actions.
This is known as the Thought-Feeling-Action Cycle
How Thinking Hurts Your Play
When you’re having negative or anxious thoughts, this will lower your level of play. We saw this play out in the first example I gave where the football player was thinking about not wanting to get pancaked.
As worrisome thoughts filled his mind, he felt more and more scared, and as a result, he played timidly.
Playing timidly and hesitating are the result of you playing to avoid mistakes or anything else negative you don’t want to have happen.
This type of an avoidant mindset is driven by your thoughts.
Due to the thought-feeling-action cycle, we know that our thinking is influencing our actions on the field or court. So, if I’m thinking about how I don’t want to make mistakes or have coach bench me or get mad at me, my actions will mirror this type of thinking. Meaning, my actions will be timid, scared, and I will be playing to avoid.
When you play to avoid mistakes you will underperform.
And the reason you are playing in such a way can be traced back to the type of thinking you have before and during the game.
How Thinking Helps Your Play
In a similar way to negative thinking hurting your play, positive and confident thinking will help you play better.
Let’s say you’re thinking positive thoughts such as, I believe in myself and I know I can play well today. That type of thinking will result in more confidence and a better feeling about yourself.
The more confident you are, the more aggressive and more freely you will play.
But it’s not only positive thinking that helps you play well. It can also be that you’re thinking more about the process of your game or you’re thinking more about how you can learn from your mistakes.
There are many ways your thinking will increase your performance, but it’s all tied to the idea of the though-feeling-action cycle.
There is no way for this cycle to be avoided.
Your goal is to simply ensure there is a positive cycle in place, rather than a negative one that is holding your back.
How to Use Your Thinking to Elevate Your Play
Now that you understand how the thought-feeling-action cycle works, it’s time to focus on how you can leverage positive and productive thinking to increase your performance.
To do so, we need to break down the different types of positive thinking that athletes can have.
As a mental performance coach, I view positive thinking as any type of thinking that positively impacts your performance. This will vary from player to player and sometimes may not even seem as positive as you might think.
There are four key categories we want to focus on: confidence building thoughts, process-focused thoughts, encouraging thoughts, and mistake-focused thoughts
Confidence Building Thoughts
These are the thoughts most people think of when discussing positive thinking.
Before and during games, but also just on a daily basis, you want your core thoughts to be working to build confidence.
It’s easy for our core thoughts to be negative. Most of the athletes I work with have negative automatic thought patterns. Unfortunately, as we discussed earlier, those negative automatic thoughts lead to a negative thought-feeling-action cycle.
So, we want to work on having more confident thoughts.
These will be thoughts like…
- I know I can do this.
- I believe in myself.
- I am a great player.
- I trust in myself and my skills.
Process-Focused Thoughts
It’s important to spend more time thinking about the process than the outcome. Outcome-focused thinking drives fear and anxiety. Process-focused thinking keeps your mind present and on what actually leads to the outcome you want.
These types of thoughts will help you stay focused in the moment. They will remind you of your objectives for the day and keep your mind from drifting into the future.
Examples of process-focused thoughts include…
- Stay low and move my feet.
- Just focus on the ball, nothing else matters.
- Stay present and focus on my breath.
- Have a nice follow through.
Process-focused thoughts keep your attention on the process of your game. A place all athletes should have their attention the majority of the time.
Encouraging Thoughts
Imagine you’re trying to push through a grueling workout, what would you tell yourself?
Or maybe it’s a tough game and your team isn’t doing so well, what would you tell yourself to stay motivated and to believe that you all can come back?
That’s what I mean by encouraging thoughts: thoughts you have that push you to keep going.
The interesting thing about encouraging thoughts is that they may not always appear positive. For example, I’ve worked with players who need to tell themselves, C’mon, you’re better than that.
Now that statement doesn’t appear too positive on the surface. In fact, it could be seen as a negative thought. However, under certain circumstances and for certain players, it is a form of good self-talk.
Because it encourages them to elevate their effort or level of play.
Some examples of encouraging thoughts include…
- I know I can do better than this.
- Keep pushing, you’re almost finished.
- We can still come back.
- Don’t give up now.
They are simple thoughts you have that encourage you to keep going, no matter what the obstacle is that you’re facing.
Mistake-Focused Thoughts
These are thoughts you have following mistakes. One of the most important skills for any athlete to develop is bouncing back from mistakes.
We all make mistakes and know we won’t be perfect. In fact, trying to be perfect usually does more harm than simply making mistakes.
But how do you go about bouncing back from mistakes and responding to mistakes in a productive way?
It all comes down to your thinking.
Can you think in a good way after you mess up? Can you remind yourself to learn and move on?
Here are a few examples of mistake-focused thoughts…
- Learn from it and move on.
- Forget about it, reset, refocus.
- It’s okay, everyone makes mistakes.
- Let it go and get the next one.
How to Take Control of Your Thinking
Now that we’ve gone over how your thinking impacts your performance and the importance of focusing on the different types of positive thoughts you want to have, let’s explore how you can take more control of your thinking as an athlete.
It’s natural for our thinking to be a reflection of what’s happening around us. If we’re playing badly, for instance, our thoughts will likely be negative.
But if we want to have stronger minds and more control over our emotions when playing, our thinking needs to be more proactive.
This means we choose what to think instead of our thinking being a reflection of our current situation.
To gain such control, you want to take a long-term approach to altering your automatic thoughts patterns as well as having an in-the-moment strategy to shift your thinking.
To learn more about how to take control of your thinking as an athlete, click here to read a comprehensive article on the topic.
Final Thoughts
There is no way to avoid the impact our thinking has on our athletic performance.
Due to the thought-feeling-action cycle, our thoughts are impacting our feelings, and the way we’re thinking and feeling will affect our actions.
Your goal is to have a positive thought-feeling-action cycle in place, which requires you to gain more control over your thinking.
If you find yourself currently struggling with many thoughts of self-doubt, anxiety, or fear, click here to learn how one-on-one mental performance coaching can help.
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
