8 REASONS NO ONE CARES YOU’RE TIRED: FIGHTING FATIGUE IN ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE

By Courtney Thompson of www.positiveperformancetraining.com

Most of us respond to fatigue by getting frustrated and feeling bad for ourselves. We let our fatigue take us out of our game and into a mindset that isn’t helpful to us or our team.

Luckily, I have a few tips you can use to help get out of that destructive thought pattern and back to focusing on becoming the best athlete you can be. It may sound harsh, but here are

8 REASONS NO ONE CARES YOU’RE TIRED

#1: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, SO GET OVER IT.

The fact of the matter is you play a team game, even if it’s an individual sport, and as a teammate one of your jobs is to serve your team, to do whatever it takes to make the team better. Doing so requires selflessness and a commitment every single day you show up.

If you’re tired, if you’re sore, if you’re sick, you have to choose to not let that stop you and move past it. In that moment, it doesn’t matter how you ‘feel’ because it’s not about you; it’s about making the team the best it can be. In order to do that you have to show up every day with the intention of giving it everything you have.

Put the team ahead of your ‘feelings’ and get it done!

#2: ALL CHAMPIONS EXPERIENCE FATIGUE WHEN PUSHING THEIR LIMITS. SO FEEL IT AND EMBRACE IT… FATIGUE MEANS YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY!

As athletes, we’re in a perpetual state of becoming. There is no finish line; even if you win the championship one year, your training for the next year will quickly follow. The only way to truly improve, learn, and take your game to the next level is to push the limits.

Pushing the limits can be physically, mentally, and/or emotionally tough, but that’s the beauty of sports! Pushing those limits on a daily basis is necessary to become the best version of you. It’s inevitable that in pursuit of your best YOU, you’re going to get tired, so change your attitude towards fatigue. When you feel tired and want to stay in bed—or just want to get through practice without giving it your all—remember that this is what you work for, this is what all champions feel when they’re trying to reach their full potential.

In short: embrace your fatigue. No one said success would be easy.

Embrace your fatigue. No one said success would be easy. @courtLthompson

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#3: YOUR MIND IS INCREDIBLY POWERFUL. USE IT TO HELP YOU!

You train the brain to perform just like you train your muscles. We’ve all had days where you feel more tired than usual and in that moment you have a choice: you can marinate in those negative thoughts (‘It’s too hard’, ‘There’s no way I can do this’, ‘I didn’t sleep at all’, ‘I’m not feeling my best’, et cetera) OR you can take a long, deep breath, reconnect with yourself, and start thinking right. You can choose to put your energy and your thoughts on something that will help you rather than something that will distract you.
You’re an athlete. Being tired is a part of that, so accept it and move on.  Choose to think about what you need to do to help the team in that moment.

#4: YOUR MISSION DOESN’T CARE IF YOU’RE TIRED.

The mission of your team doesn’t hear anyone say they’re tired… and it doesn’t go away. Either you move towards it or away from it with each day you train. So, when it gets hard, remember the mission and find inspiration wherever you can. For some people, this is accomplished through visualizing winning a championship every morning, or by listening to their favorite pump up song, or by watching video of their favorite teams competing.

Find what works for you and use it. (For me, I try to ‘empty the tank’ every day I compete. I want to go to bed at night knowing I did everything I could possibly do to help my team reach our mission.)

Again, it’s not always easy (and it shouldn’t be), so on days when it’s hard to remember the end goal, take a few minutes to visualize that goal—see, taste, smell, hear, and feel what it would feel like to reach it. Then, get to work! Find inspiration wherever you can and do everything in your power to become your best until the mission is accomplished.

#5: WE WON’T ALWAYS FEEL 100% IN A GAME. TRAIN YOURSELF TO BE READY FOR THOSE DAYS.

It’s unrealistic to think that we’re going to feel awesome all the time. You might have a cold; you might have stayed up all night studying for finals; you might have had to get up early to finish reading that book for class. Whatever ‘it’ is, we’ve all been there!

The real competition in sports and in life is competing with yourself to bring your personal best, day in and day out. It is unrealistic to think we will perform feeling 100% all the time. On the days you’re feeling like you’re operating at about 80%,  you still need to compete to bring your best on that day. That’s all we can do.

If you spend time worrying about the fact that you’re not at 100%, those thoughts are just distracting you from maximizing what you do have, your 80%.

Therefore, work hard to bring YOUR BEST every single day. Try not to judge where that is, but rather keep fighting the good fight by working to bring your best one play at a time.

#6: CHECK THAT YOUR BEHAVIORS ARE IN LINE WITH YOUR OBJECTIVES.

The pursuit of becoming your best is hard. Again, no one said it would be easy. People often look at an athlete who wins a championship and think that getting there must have all been fun, happy, and maybe even comfortable. Get that out of your head. It’s not.

Trying to reach your full potential takes grit, determination, commitment, perspective, and resilience.  It may be easy to say that you want to be the best when everything is going well, but the real question is will your behavior be in line with those goals when it gets hard?

It’s hard when it’s 6AM and you have to get up for weight training, or when it’s a Friday afternoon and you’d rather leave practice early than to get extra reps in on the skill you’ve been struggling with. It’s difficult when it’s already been a long day, but now you need to have a tough conversation with a teammate. Those are the real choices we have and make that determine how good we will become.

Don’t take the easy road. If you want to do something rare, you’re going to have to make choices that most people aren’t willing to make. That’s why winning feels so good when we’ve done it the right way.

Next time you’re tired and trying to decide what to do, ask yourself, “Are my behaviors in line with my objectives?”

#7: MOOD FOLLOWS ACTION. START LITTLE, AND KEEP GOING.

We’re human. Some days we just wake up tired, annoyed, and distracted. Still, you don’t have to be subject to your mood every morning.

From the start of a rough day, act in line with your goals—make just one small step—and you’ll gather momentum and come to realize you’re actually in control of your mood and your day. Then take one more small step, then another, and another. At some point your ‘mood’ will change as you involve yourself in each step, each task. You’ll realize that being productive and working to help yourself is a fun and rewarding process.

#8: REMEMBER: THE PAIN OF NOT GOING ALL OUT IS MUCH BIGGER THAN THE PAIN OF HOLDING BACK.

Teddy Roosevelt once said,

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Being a member of a team composed of people committed to becoming their best, and hopefully doing something special in the process, is an incredible thing. I’m fortunate to have been on teams that have won several championships; in high school, in the NCAA, and recently at the World Championships with Team USA. I’ve also lost my share of big games at every level. What I’ve learned is that at some point the high of winning and the sting of losing will wear off, and the real joy comes from knowing you exhausted every possibility to help your team reach its goals and whether or not you and your team were good teammates along the way.

Did you overcome failures together and push each other to work hard when it wasn’t easy? Did you enjoy the successes but continue to push each other to reach new limits?

These are the things that bring true satisfaction and fatigue is only one challenge of many along this road to success.

When fatigue pops up help each other through it because, in the end, it’s in overcoming the challenges that ultimately leads you to becoming the best you can be.

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Athletes: how do you fight fatigue? Share your secrets with us in the comments.

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COURTNEY THOMPSON

Courtney comes to Positive Performance as a widely successful collegiate and Olympic Volleyball player. While continuing to pursue her professional career, Courtney joins us to pursue her other passion; teaching life skills through sport. As a Mental Training Coach, Courtney brings extensive real world knowledge of the pressures and challenges of playing at the highest competitive level in the world.Courtney has also been featured in the documentary 'Court & Spark' (http://psrvb.org/documentary).

The Truth About Positive Self-Talk

By Lindsey Wilson of www.positiveperformancetraining.com  

There’s a lot out there about positivity and the importance of having a positive mindset: talking to yourself positively, talking to your kids positively, even talking to your pets positively. (Groan… Yes, it’s a thing!)

All this positivity can be a bit much.

And that’s saying a lot, especially coming from someone like me who’s a BIG believer in the power of the glass-is-half-full mentality. The complication with positivity is that it can be hard to distinguish what is actually helpful and what is just, well, fluff.

That’s why I want to talk specifically about self-talk today because, in my opinion, self-talk serves as the basis for so many things in our lives: our beliefs, our outlook, our confidence, how we interact with others, and much, much more. But, I don’t just want to talk about self-talk alone; I also want to dive into the research behind it to make sure this isn’t just another ‘positive self-talk is great’ article. Yay!

Seeing as our focus is athletics, I want to specifically analyze the research looking into the relationship between self-talk and performance. Basically, my big question is:

Is teaching athletes positive self-talk worth it?

So, here we go! This is what I found:

• Positive self-talk does positively affect performance.
• Self-talk effects motor skill performance more than cognitive performance.
• Self-talk is best scripted ahead of time and practiced.
• Research shows there are differences in what type of statements you should say at different times, but…
• What works for each person is fundamentally a matter of personal preference.
• Addressing yourself by name or ‘you’ is found to be more powerful than ‘I’ statements.
• Self-talk should focus on what you should do rather than what you should not do.

First, before we can talk about self-talk in depth, we need to establish a solid definition. More specifically, we need to be able to answer the following questions:

1. What IS self-talk?
2. What different types of self-talk are there?
3. Are there types that are more helpful in certain situations than others?

These questions get really specific, really fast, so let’s start with a basic overview of self-talk and go from there.

DEFINING SELF-TALK

The Mayo Clinic defines self-talk as “the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head… [that] can be positive or negative.” Furthermore, “[i]f your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist — someone who practices positive thinking.”

Positive thinking, therefore, is the result of positive self-talk, and those can offer multiple health benefits, such as increased life span and increased immunity.

The Mayo Clinic then gives us examples of both positive and negative self-talk:

Putting positive thinking into practice

NEGATIVE SELF TALK	POSITIVE SELF TALK
I’ve never don’t it before.	It’s an opportunity to learn something new.
It’s too complicated.	I’ll tackle it from a different angle.
I don’t have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m too lazy to get this done.	I wasn’t able to fit it into my schedule, but I can re-examine some priorities.
There’s not way it will work.	I can try to make it work.
It’s too radical a change.	Let’s take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me.	I’ll see if I can open the channels of communication.
I’m not going to get any better at this.	I’ll give it another try.

The Mayo’s cover-all rule: “Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else.”

Simple enough right? Not so fast. Let’s dive into this a little deeper…

TYPES OF SELF-TALK

Research shows there are 4 specific categories of performance-based self-talk:

• Calming/relaxing (“Take a deep breath.”)
• Instructional (“Bend your knees.”)
• Motivational (“Yes! Come on, let’s go!”)
• Focus (“Don’t think about anything. Just concentrate.”)

This list got me paying attention. Why? Because these categories are all so different. Even for myself, I can see one type of statement working in a certain situation and not working in another. (Leaving the research aside for a moment, this is where I encourage athletes to build up self-awareness and to practice what works with some trial and error.)

But, back to the research…

WHAT TO SAY, WHEN

In Perspectives on Psychological Science[i], a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Thessaly did a meta-analysis on 62 research studies on self-talk. Their analysis revealed that, not only did self-talk improve sports performance, but different self-talk cues work differently in certain situations.

Here is what they found:

• Instructional self-talk (i.e. “Elbow-up”) is most helpful for tasks requiring fine skills or for improving technique.
• Motivational self-talk (i.e. “Give it your all”) seems to be more effective in tasks requiring strength or endurance, boosting confidence and psyching-up athletes for competition.

It is a matter of personal preference or what works for each person; but generally, it is advised that self-talk is positively rather than negatively phrased and focuses on what you should do rather than on what you should avoid…”

Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, researcher at the University of Thessaly

A SMALL TRICK

According to an article in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology[ii], a researcher by the name of Kross and his associates at the University of Michigan did an experiment with one small caveat: participants would either use the word ‘I’ or ‘You/[their name]’ when addressing themselves with their self-talk.

This is what the experiment looked like:

Kross asked volunteers to give a speech. Catch: they were only given five minutes of mental preparation. During the five minutes, he told some to talk to themselves and to address themselves as ‘I’. For the rest of them, their five minutes was spent using ‘you’ or  by addressing themselves in the third person (using their own names).

At the close of the study, this is what Kross found:

• People who used ‘I’ said things like ‘Oh, my god, how am I going do this? I can’t prepare a speech in five minutes without notes. It takes days for me to prepare a speech!’
• People who used ‘you’ or their own names said things like, “Ethan, you can do this. You’ve given a ton of speeches before.”

Clearly, the people who used ‘you’ or their names sounded more rational and less emotional—perhaps because they were able to get some distance from themselves.

Truly, it sounds like they are coaching themselves.

SELF-TALK CAN INFLUENCE RESULTS!

Research done out of Waseda University in Japan[iii] shows again that motor skills especially are greatly affected by self-talk. The results of their research show that positive self-talk improved physical performance by 11%.

Their research was based around a simple balancing exercise. Students completed the exercise then were given 30 seconds to rest before completing it a second time. In between the sets, students were told to pay attention to their self-talk. Some students reported having negative self talk; others reported positive self-talk; still another group reported using a combination of positive and negative self-talk.

The results were shocking.

Students that reported using positive self-talk exclusively during those 30 seconds were able to hold their balance a full second longer than those who used exclusively negative or had a mix of both negative and positive self-talk.

The positive self-talk resulted in an average balance time of 9.29 seconds, while the other two groups averaged out at 8.29 seconds. This is more than an 11% increase in performance, really close to the proven 15% increase in athletic performance we see with Positive Performance’s mental training.

CONCLUSION

Based on the above findings it’s obvious that teaching athletes how and when to use positive self-talk—that is, using positive self-talk appropriately—is not only a good time investment, but a worthwhile one.

I’m harnessing the power of Positive Self-Talk with @PositivePerform. Are you?

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While talking about positive self-talk can seem merely warm and fuzzy, research shows that it is a powerful, actionable tool in achieving one’s peak performance. And, based on our own work with athletes, here are some simple best practices for self-talk education:

6 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE POSITIVE SELF-TALK

1. Self-talk should be practiced ahead of time (outside of competition).
2. While there are best practices, the focus should be less about negative/positive, or good/bad self-talk, and more about what is PRODUCTIVE for athletes in certain situations.
3. Individual preferences are okay.
4. Self-talk should be focused on what should be done, rather than what should be avoided.
5. Different situations might call for different types of self-talk.
6. It is difficult to turn off self-talk. For most people, self-talk is going to happen, for the good or the bad, regardless of whether you work on it. Knowing that, you may as well make the monologue in your head helpful… and positive!

Here’s to athletes everywhere, using self-talk as a tool to find their peak performance every time they step onto the playing field.

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REFERENCES:

[i] Girodo & Wood, 1979; Goodhart, 1986; Mahoney & Avener, 1977; Van Raalte et al., 1994; Weinberg, 1985

[ii] Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

[iii] Belief in Self-Talk and Dynamic Balance Performance.Kaori Araki (Waseda University, Japan), Joseph K. Mintah (Azusa Pacific University), Mick G. Mack, Sharon Huddleston, Laura Larson, and Kelly Jacobs  (University of Northern Iowa).

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 LINDSEY WILSON

Co-Founder of Positive Performance, Lindsey has been teaching, writing and speaking about mental training for the last 6 years. Lindsey writes regularly on mental training. Her articles have appeared in ESPN’s HoopGurlz.com, AVCA, NSCAA, NYTimes.com, VISIONS magazine, FullCourtPress. com. Contact her at lindsey@positiveperform.com

13 Lessons From the Movie ‘Peaceful Warrior’

by Mark DeNicola. of http://www.collective-evolution.com/

There are countless movies we could all think of that feature a great deal of truth, consciousness and even powerful messages. In fact in January of 2012 we actually started a list of these movies that has now grown to feature over 100 titles (SEE THE LIST HERE). One of the movies on that list, and one of my personal favorites is Peaceful Warrior starring Scott Mechlowicz and Nick Nolte. Based on a book written by Dan Millman, which was based on a true life story, Peaceful Warrior is a powerful movie experience that I more than recommend to all of you that have not seen it yet. As a nice supplementary piece to the film however I have decided to put together a list of lessons that I took from the film and would like to share with you all.

1. Fear creates restlessness and contributes to a lack of peace within your current reality –

Makes a lot of sense when you really think about it. Fear, no matter it’s trigger, takes you out of the moment by forcing you to focus on your physical and emotional reaction to it. How can we expect to be at peace with this moment if we can’t even truly look at it because we instead are run by the fear it seems to have created.

2. Doing something for an end result makes it harder to accomplish –

On the surface this may seem non-sensical since there are countless examples we can all think of where people let a desired end result motivate them throughout the entire process of trying to attain it. Why I still think this statement holds some validity is because the expectations of an end result can often discourage and downplay the process in getting there. Rather than setting an end result of losing 20 pounds in 1 month and then gauging our success on whether or not that was accomplished, wouldn’t it be easier to just choose to begin taking care of our bodies or working out and letting the results be what they are at whatever pace they occur.

3. Old mentalities and past experience define our limitations –

Who ever said that the highest you could jump was to barely touch the bottom of the mesh on your basketball net? Was it the set in stone voice of your heart/ soul? Or was it just what you have done the last few times you tried? Too often we let past results dictate what our bodies can and cannot do, rather than simply being in each attempt as a completely separate experience.

4. Rushed/ busy mentality prevents us from experiencing the moment –

We all lead busy lives. Lives that often result in us multi-tasking (eating on the go, talking while we work, etc.) This lesson simply reminds us to take some time to actually fully experience one thing at a time. No matter how mundane or complicated the task we might just be surprised by how much it has to offer when we fully give ourselves to it.

5. Don’t run away from defeat, in fact stop evaluating everything as a win or a loss (success/ failure) –

In the human experience we take something out of everything. It just seems to be a lot easier to value and enjoy what we take when it gets coupled with a favorable result. Imagine we didn’t evaluate all of our results and instead focused on what we took from the experience regardless.

6. Thoughts don’t reveal anything about you –

Thoughts are just thoughts, many of them arise automatically and can very easily be used to either falsely satisfy or beat yourself up. Rather than letting your thoughts run you, simply observe them for what they are, perhaps even take the time to see where they might have come from (what triggered them, what contributed to that view/ opinion.) We might just be surprised by how much of what we think of regularly is really quite useless and unfounded.

7. There is never nothing going on –

Boredom. We’ve all experienced it at times to varying degrees. The truth of the matter is even in those most boring of moments there is plenty going on. Next time you find yourself bored take the time to truly observe your surroundings, realize that your very existence alone is quite the thing to be going on, and see if anything in particular calls for you to get involved with.

8. Society/ media/ others love to thrust limitations on us, they only become true if we accept them –

People can say whatever they want and say that its based on whatever they choose to credit it to. It only becomes a true part of your reality if you truly accept it. Think about the countless number of people who have defied what we previously thought possible, imagine if they let our previous definition of it not being possible stop them from showing us otherwise.

9. Everything has a purpose, it’s up to us to find it –

Even the most difficult, challenging or emotionally engaging experiences in life have a greater purpose and servitude to our existence. It’s our choice whether we want to look internally and find it or continue to dwell on the outward experience it created.

10. Death does not equal sad. Sad equals the fact that some people never live –

A lot of people find a great deal of peace and strength in death, for many that is a lot more of a profound experience than what many of us call daily life.

11. Don’t give up what you love, find love in what you do –

The idea of giving up something that you love only stems from a disappointment in how it has worked out thus far. Rather than letting the past bury you, find the love in what you do and realize that no matter how it plays out it is a part of you.

12. “What if I can’t do it?” That’s the future, throw it out -

All we have and can impact is this moment. Why would we let thoughts about a future moment hold us back from doing something that in this moment we would like to do.

13. Getting caught up in wants leads to nothing but suffering –

Think about it. When we don’t get what we want we define it as a version of suffering. When we do get what we want we quickly suffer because we can’t hold onto it (it either slips from our grasp or loses its previous value shortly after we attain it.)

Whether all of these lessons were intended to be shared through the book/ film or not, they definitely stood out for me. Be sure to contribute any other lessons or favorite parts from the film in the comment section and also feel free to suggest any other particular movies that you found to be loaded with truth that you recommend for an upcoming article. You can also watch the official HD trailer for the movie here: