"I can't believe I let her get behind me, that goal is all my fault. Everyone is going to be so mad."
"That was a terrible shot. Wow I suck. This is why I never score."
Many of these types of thoughts just naturally occur in my head when I play. This negativity does not benefit an athlete in any way. In Abrahams' book he calls these ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). And when you get these "ANTs" you need to squash them quickly and not let them get to you (99). You do this by thinking to yourself thoughts like this:
"Stop, I can contain this girl. Goals happen, I just need to get back and stay tight on her. Keep playing with confidence. Come on!"
"Now that's one squashed ANT. You've encouraged yourself and you're helping yourself through a bad patch, through a mistake. If you don't do this then you've got a real problem. You're going to let yourself down as an individual and as a team mate" (Abrahams 99). After reading this, I applied this to when I played last weekend and it worked! After I made a mistake, like a bad pass or didn't watch my mark, I had negative thoughts (ANTs) running through my mind. So I quickly got rid of those thoughts by mentally encouraging myself, which helped me perform better as the game went on.
What kind of "ANTs" do you get? How do you deal with them?
Abrahams, Dan. Soccer Tough: Simple Football Psychology Techniques to Improve
Your Game. Birmingham: Bennion Kearny Limited, 2012. Print.
I seriously tell myself on a regular basis that, "my body today is not the same as my body yesterday" in order to motivate me past "ANTs" of feeling like something isn't possibly physically. I also always try to picture myself achieving my goal to ward off thoughts of how I will not be able to accomplish a certain task.
ReplyDeleteThose are great motivational thoughts to have for yourself. Negative thoughts can be influential in anything you do.
DeleteMy dad, who was my coach for a long time, would always say "Unlucky, next time" any time I did anything bad on the field. He knew that I already knew when I had messed up or done something wrong, and this was his way of reminding me, or giving me permission to let it go and move on. Now that he's no longer my coach, I find myself saying it in my head when I make a mistake on the field and I'm able to move past it pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteThat is good, your dad is a smart coach. Because coaches that yell and scream negative things at their players don't really help the players performance.
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