12/31/11

“When you love what you are doing and know where you are going, fears become minor little setbacks, trying times that turn into learning experiences.”

-Theresa Jordan, PhD and Peter DeMichele, Overcoming the Fear of Riding

Knowing where you're going is the master key to success. Having clearer goals allows you to enjoy the journey you're on so much more than when you're following someone else's game plan or no game plan at all.  Spend the time to choose a worthy goal.  Commit to being the best at whatever level it is appropriate for you. When you know that your actions and activities are purposeful you are likely to find more joy in them.  Push-ups done on your knuckles may be difficult at the time but when you know that will make your punches that much stronger it is worth it. Training hard makes you that much more resistant to pain when sparring. In the New Year you can attack your exercise regimen with greater enthusiasm.

December 23, 2011

“I've learned that failure precedes success, and the right decisions are extension of the wrong ones.”

-Alex Spano, NFL Owner, San Diego Chargers

Failure sucks. It hurts and it feels so final. It’s natural to want to avoid mistakes. No one consciously seeks to make wrong decisions. Becoming fearful about making mistakes can become a big problem for an athlete. That fear can lead him or her to not making any decisions. How may times have you seen someone hesitating about making the choice and paying a heavy price? One of the best examples I can think of is a quarterback fading back to pass and hesitating and then getting sacked. Knowing that a decision needs to be made doesn't make the choices any fewer or easier to make but a choice must be made.  You may disagree. However, not making a choice is also a choice. It's called paralysis by analysis. I know I've dealt with this particular problem over the years. Chances are you have too. We have to remember that are human and as humans we’re bound to make mistakes. Some are large and some are small.  It's inevitable. Accept it. But just as small successes often lead to larger successes, small failures and even the not so small ones can also lead to victory.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a personal change technology that I use a lot with athletes. One of the things that it teaches its practitioners is that failure can be looked at simply as feedback.  Coming in fourth in an Olympic event is feedback. Getting knocked out is feedback. Getting beaten in straight sets is feedback. No setback in sports or in life ever need be final. There's something that can be learned, there's feedback that can be analyzed. Once that information is studied, a new approach or new set of tactics can be devised and that can lead to a big victory. I tell my clients that one of the best things that you can do is to learn that there are no bad decisions. After the fact we have hindsight and it becomes so obvious that we’ve made a mistake. But you have to remember that everyone, including you and me, is making the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. As we grow in maturity and gain experience, the quality of our choices improves. Second-guessing ourselves really doesn't help. Gen. Colin Powell was quoted as saying that in business and battle more money is wasted and more lives are lost from making no decision rather than making the wrong decision. Sometimes it'll feel like a numbers game when you understand that the more mistakes you make the more right decisions you can potentially make.

We are all going to define failure differently. Maybe for you it's coming in second place, being forced to tap out in the match, or being cut from the team. For others it might be failing a course, divorce or getting fired from a job.  Although it feels like it, none of these things are the end of the world. Your so-called failure is never final. You will make other better, informed decisions in the future. Maybe you’ll decide to hire a strength and conditioning coach, get a consultation from nutritionist, watch more game footage or start practicing self-hypnosis. There's always a way out or a way back.   The most successful people, whether in sports or in business have made some very poor choices.  Who was the genius that dreamt up New Coke?  How many millions that the Coca Cola company lose because of that decision?  The key to quick recovery involves two steps: 1) stop looking at those situations as failures and 2) quickly make a new and better choice. Reactions such as embarrassment, anger and frustration are normal but the champions are able to turn those into more productive emotions and remember the decisions they made the helped put them in the winners circle.

December 17, 2011

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control.
-Tom Landry, NFL Coach, Dallas Cowboys

Have you ever had a really good teacher? Someone that you really looked up to?  I had a great teacher in first grade.  Her name was Ms. Green.  She was so kind, patient and loving.  She never seemed to bring any negative feelings from outside.  Our classroom was a haven of positive energy.  I realize I draw on examples I learned in her room in my role as a father, husband and back when I was a high school history teacher.  Even now I can hear Ms. Green’s words guiding me in my hypnotherapy practice. Believe me, I’ve had my share of teachers who didn’t always react to well to difficult situations or difficult students (like me) but that’s another blog post.

There was a situation today at the high school across the street from my home.  When I was out for my walk I saw the school was surrounded by police cars and there was a white news van on scene.  I figured this couldn’t be good.  My first assumption was that some kind of gang violence had erupted.  It’s not that big a stretch of the imagination.  I’ve seen my share of violence in school.  The first public school I taught at in Brooklyn back in the early 90’s had metal detectors and police officers patrolling the halls.  The year before I arrived several students and even a teacher had been shot.  After asking a few students who were milling around outside, I got the scoop on today’s shenanigans. There had been a scuffle but it was between two teachers!  Apparently, one had stabbed the other several times with a screwdriver.  The attacking teacher had been taken away in a police car and the second teacher had left in an ambulance. It’s hard to know what could push one professional educator to such a response.  No statement had been released so all I could do was ponder what could cause a veteran English teacher to attack a peer. All I had were questions. How do I feel about this as a parent?  What if my child was present? How would I help them handle this?  What could I possible say to her?  How would I have reacted to something like this when I was in high school?

There are always issues when people are involved.  We don’t live in a perfect world.  Maybe there was bad blood between the two teachers. Maybe there were problems at home and she brought them to school. It’s all speculation.  I'm not here to judge. What I will say is that teachers are leaders and although teachers are human beings students in their care will always look to them to figure out how they're supposed to handle things.

It's not always possible to have control of the situation but as young people mature they're taught to have a certain measure of control over their words and actions. When we resort to violence in response to a conflict that we have with a colleague, neighbor or family member it symbolizes our lack of control. When a leader is promoted to that position is with an understanding that he or she will be able to demonstrate a level of control over their words and actions and thereby inspire the same within the people that they are leading.  Leadership is no great mystery. It's hard work and often the rewards are few, kind of like being a teacher. Few people have what it takes to be a true leader because few people have self-control.  We don't see coaches throwing tantrums on the sidelines at basketball games the way we used to in the past. They're growing up and exhibiting greater self-control. True leaders model composure under stress and show their team how to find that same strength within themselves. Your calm, courage, and composure are infectious. In the same way, your agitation, fear and “frazzledness” are catching.

Leadership is not about having the title of “boss”. This post is meant to remind you that you have the same potential to be a great leader like Tom Landry. Whether or not you are a coach, teacher, parent or supervisor. Especially if you don't hold any of those titles you can remind the people around you that they possess more inner control than they might suspect.  The confident manner you exhibit today is likely a result of difficult experiences when you were less than confident. But you made it to today and you've accepted the mantle of leadership (even if you don't have the title). Hopefully, if you’re a parent you'll never hear from your child that one of his teachers attacked someone in the hall with a knife.  Regardless of what you may go through, self-hypnosis allows you to mentally practice behaving in a calm, composed manner in difficult situations.  Use it before a crisis occurs in your gym or dojo.

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December 7, 2011

“The great athletes don't have to think about it. They just go out and do it. The ones that don't have as much ability have to convince themselves that they can play.”

 -Jimmy Cefalo, NFL wide receiver, Miami Dolphins



In the martial arts this ability to perform without conscious thought is known as “mushin” or no mind. Athletes have rituals and unique moves that they do to get themselves psyched up for a game. Some are more elaborate and obvious than others. When it’s “go time” and there is no time for the longer version, champions can put themselves into a proper mental state by just repeating a key word like “flame” or“Spartans”. Would you agree that when we play without physically warming up, injuries are a frequent result? If so you will surely agree that when we don’t mentally prep before a game it can lead to less than stellar results. I love this Cefalo quote because it taps into a widely held belief about sports champions. But I would like to challenge that belief. Is it true that the great ones just roll out of bed and onto the gridiron? Are there champions who don’t really have to psych themselves before they head into the Octagon? The myth is that the champions are always ready to go. I don’t believe this. If it is true for a select few, how do they achieve this? I mean, really? How can you guarantee you’ll always be in a prime mental state knowing you can win before

every physical contest? I don’t think that’s possible. If you are the exception to this rule let me ask a follow up question. Were you always able to bring that level of confidence and composure? You probably didn’t have it the first day you picked up a football or put on a uniform.

My point is the ability to let go of all thinking and perform at a high level is a mental skill rather than an inborn attribute. Generations of great football players like Namath, Theismann and Manning have all exhibited it but they learned how to do it and then practiced it. Whoever you admire in sports it is unlikely they had their current level of confidence when they began their professional career or when they competed at the high school or college level. The ability to just go out there and do it is something that is developed over time. This is the one of the reasons to engage in mental skills training. Don’t be intimidated because you don’t have the unstoppable mental state of your football hero. Make it a priority to develop in this area. If every athlete spent one half the time they spend on cardio, weights and other sports drills on some form of mental training they would see a radical improvement in performance. No athlete is born with total athletic confidence and composure. They are developed from a combination of physical training and mental training. Through rigorous physical training skills like passing, rushing and kicking field goals become second nature. With consistent mental training, attitudes like confidence can also become second nature.

Quotes like the one we examined this week perpetuate the myth of the “sports superman”.  If we look beneath the surface we will learn that these great players are not superhuman. All the greats mentally prepare themselves before important matches and just because we do not see that preparation does not mean that it does not take place.

November 28, 2011

“If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. The quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life …”

-Chris Evert, Hall of Fame tennis player

Playing a sport can be like riding a roller coaster, sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. And the highs can be very high and lows can be extremely low.  Every player knows the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The rush that comes with winning is so powerful it’s almost addictive.  Many athletes submit themselves the difficulties of rigorous training and competition in order to feel that feeling. That winning feeling is so remarkable and special.  We chase it day in and day out.  On the flip side, the feelings of failure when we suffer a loss can be devastating.  The depths to which an athlete can sink when he has lost an important match is like the deepest, darkest sub-basement you can imagine. It goes down so far the elevator can’t even take you there.  If you’ve been in the game for a while, you’ve probably been there.  The depression, the loneliness, the shame and guilt… This is where an athlete begins to question not only his performance on a given day but his role on the team, within the sport and even his value as a person.

In sports like tennis or boxing you can lose one round or set then turn around and win the next one and win the whole match. If you lose the first set and your reaction is very strong it cause you to lose the whole shebang.  When your emotions are running high it can be difficult to perform as needed in the second set. There’s plenty of time to reflect “when the deal is done.” But just like in poker it’s not advisable to start counting your money too soon, in the combat sports like wrestling or boxing, you don’t want to get carried away prematurely with celebrations or tears.

Professionalism in sports is not limited to people who get paid for playing. Professionalism is an attitude.  It stands for many things like objectivity and maturity. A professional has a certain way of looking at the game and stays composed. Things like bad calls, adverse weather conditions and even defeat never ruffle them.  On the positive side, money, fame, or world records don’t cause them to lose their center. Keep a positive attitude.  Don't change your attitude no matter how many wins or losses you have stacked up. Strive for balance. No matter how gifted an athlete you are the number of years you will not be actively competing in your sport will far outnumber the years that you did compete.  For that reason it's important to learn this lesson and not allow yourself to be pulled into an emotional roller coaster ride because of wins or losses.

November 20, 2011

“The difference between successful and unsuccessful athletes stems largely from the differences in their use of verbalization, imagination and concentration.”

-Jay Mikes, author Basketball Fundamentals    

When we look at the most successful athletes in the sport of MMA: Wanderlei Silva, Georges Saint-Pierre, and Randy Couture. These men are masters of the mental game. We all have the same 24-hours a day to work with. Every coach has access to the latest information on nutrition, flexibility and functional strength training to take a fighter’s game to a high level. What most coaches don't teach is the positive use of verbalization. It’s an overlooked piece of the MMA puzzle. Most fighters’ self-talk is negative. Most of our conversation is about what we can’t do rather than what we can do. We talk about our mistakes and failures rather than our successes. The same is true for positive visualization. If we do visualize often it's a worst-case scenario. Don’t get me started on concentration. The attention span of athletes seems to get shorter with each generation.

Commitment to a regimen of mental skills training is essential in the traditional martial arts. Meditation was once a part of every martial arts class. Meditation was time that fighters spent focusing on positive imagination, positive verbalization and the development of concentration. Meditation on the surface appears to be old-fashioned and outdated, however, the ancient art of meditation bears very close similarities to the modern science of sport psychology. The mental edge that Olympic level athletes get from working with a sports psychologist are the same benefits that you derive from meditation. When you relax and gain a more focused state of mind, you achieve more. Meditation can pay untold dividends on and off the mat. You will find you have a stronger ability to see yourself winning-imagination. You'll find that your words are more positive-verbalization. You’ll find that an increased ability to concentrate will serve you well in the critical moments of a match. These positive words and images lead to a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.