As human beings, we are goal orientated creatures. Every action we take is done so for a purpose. Whether it’s walking to Subway because you’re hungry or simply finding a comfy place to sleep because you are tired. Your body requires certain things for survival and when these urges arise, your mind and body start working together to create action.
If we aren’t careful about managing this mind-body connection we leave ourselves susceptible to poor decisions. It’s often the case that when we get hungry, angry, lonely, or tired we begin to make poor choices. Parts of our brain go offline which causes us to forget our past mistakes and lose sight of our long-term goals. And in these moments of mental weakness, we make decisions that we will later regret.
In sports, it’s even more frustrating when our performance suffers due to poor mental toughness during competition. And the worst part is the fact that we know we are capable of being better. We perform well all week during practice, but then under the pressure of the game, we get in our own head and make stupid mistakes.
But why is that? Where is there a disconnect between training and competition?
The main culprit for our poor performances lies in our self-talk. Self-talk is essentially the things, ideas, and phrases we tell ourselves. And more importantly, self-talk has the ability to either improve or damage confidence. It has been scientifically proven that athletes who have negative self-talk will perform worse. And conversely, those with positive self-talk and have positive performance ques are more likely to experience success.
So how can athletes harness the power of self-talk?
Through something called a Performance Statement.
In his book 10-Minute Toughness, Dr. Jason Selk outlines a pre-competition routine aptly named “10-Minute Toughness”. (Note: If you are looking to improve your mental toughness and perform better under pressure, I highly recommend you check out this book.)
One of the key components to Dr. Selk’s program is the Performance Statement. Which is an incredibly simple, yet powerful way to help athletes stay in the moment. It’s a specifically designed form of self-talk. Where instead of letting your mind run wild with ideas that you think your mind needs to hear, it’s a predetermined statement that reminds you of what’s important. And best of all, it was created when you had a clear vision and sense of what matters most.
To boil it down to the essentials: A performance statement is a type of self-talk that is designed to help athletes zoom in on one specific thought to enhance performance consistency.
In order to give you a better idea of what a performance statement is, here are a few examples:
Baseball: When Hitting: Track the ball, smooth and easy.
Basketball: Hustle every possession; attack every rebound, drive, drive, drive.
Gymnast: Quick hands, tight legs, squeeze.
Hockey: Relaxed and smooth; my shot is compact and powerful.
As you can see. There isn’t a whole lot to it. It’s simple, yet concrete. But its power comes from the fact that it identifies the process of what success looks like or what is required for peak performance.
Why do I need a performance statement, I always have great self-talk?
For a lot of us, when we really take the time to reflect on our self-talk we will start to notice that it’s often not as positive as we think. When things aren’t going well and it feels like everything is going against us, it’s very easy to let your mind go down the spiral of negative thinking and self-defeat.
And even when we do get on the track of positive thinking and find ways to be better, we screw that up as well. We do this by getting into the habit of “Don’t” thinking; which is an ineffective series of thoughts where an athlete focuses on what he or she does not want to do rather than on what should be done.
“Don’t” thinking often sounds something like this:
- don’t screw this up
- don’t swing too hard
- don’t hit the ice before the puck
Sound familiar?
This type of thinking may appear to be helpful because it seems like it’s reminding you of the most important things to avoid. But by bringing those thoughts to the forefront of your mind, they become the only things you can think about.
Your brain has a limited ability to think multiple thoughts at once. According to the author of Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler, “Conscious processing can only handle about 120 bits of information at once”. So, if you are using that thought space to fill it with negative “don’t” thinking, that will become what your actions emulate. And this will only increase stress and anxiety.
Not only does a performance statement reduce automatic negative thinking, but it also diminishes the amount of mental clutter floating around as well. These are the random thoughts and ideas that go through someone’s head and they typically will interfere with focusing in the present moment. Mental clutter usually becomes an issue when an athlete simply doesn’t know what to think, and they lack any clear directives. As a result, their mind wanders.
A performance statement is designed to help clear up all of these forms of self-talk. And if you want to take your mental toughness and focus to a new level, today is the day you create your own.
Creating Your Performance Statement
Creating an effective performance statement can sometimes be challenging. It seems like an easy task until you start thinking about it. And what often happens when we try to break down the keys to performing something properly is that our minds run wild and we overcomplicate it. The key, then, to an effective performance statement is simplicity. It doesn’t have to include everything, just the fundamentals.
Again, here are a few examples:
Baseball: (Hitting) track the ball, smooth and easy. (Defense) set, stay down, watch into the glove.
Basketball: Hustle every possession; attack every rebound, drive, drive, drive
Gymnast: Quick hands, tight legs, squeeze.
Hockey: Relaxed and smooth; my shot is compact and powerful.
The best method for creating a performance statement is to imagine a real-life scenario. Take yourself into the seconds before a pressure moment and think about the way it would play out.
Use the following questions from 10-Minute Toughness to create your own performance statement:
Question 1: Imagine that you are about to compete in the biggest game of your life, and the best coach you’ve ever had is standing right next to you. Sixty seconds before your competition begins, your coach looks you in the eye and tells you that if you stay focused on this one thing or these two things, you will be successful today.
What one of two things would the coach name? (Be as specific as possible, and remember to avoid using the word don’t.)
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Question 2: You are in the exact same scenario, but this time you are both the coach and the athlete. Sixty seconds before the competition begins, you as the coach look at yourself, the athlete, and say that if you can focus on this one thing or these two things, you will be successful today.
What one or two things would you, the coach, say to yourself as an athlete? (It’s okay if the answer is the same as before. Trust yourself, you are the expert here)
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Based on your answers to these previous two questions, create a performance statement that makes the most sense. Use the space below to create a performance statement for each aspect of your sport. Some athletes only need one, others need multiple due to the fact that their sports are very dynamic.
Performance Statement: ______________________________________________________________________
Performance Statement: ______________________________________________________________________
Performance Statement: ______________________________________________________________________
Performance Statement: ______________________________________________________________________
Performance Statement: ______________________________________________________________________
It will be tempting to simply log this away and tell yourself that when the time is right you will summon your performance statement. But if you’re honest with yourself, you know that’s not true. That would be the equivalent of expecting to be able to dunk a basketball in a game even though you’ve never done it in practice. Or throw a 100mph fastball when the most you’ve ever done was 70.
If you are going to rely on a performance statement to help you perform better in competition, you have to use it in training and develop the habit of positive thinking during every moment. If you don’t practice doing it when it’s easy, you won’t do it when it’s hard.
Final Thoughts
Make a promise to yourself to use your performance statement every time you catch yourself in a spiral of negative thinking. There is no need to get down on yourself and worry about all the things you don’t need to do. It’s important to address your mistakes as to ensure that they don’t happen again. But once you do that, move on, and think positively about what needs to be done next in order to achieve success.
