“I like to be against the odds. I’m not afraid to be lonely at the top. With me, it’s just the satisfaction of the game. Just performance.”
-Barry Bonds, MLB player, San Francisco GiantsPerhaps you are a student of the game. It doesn't really matter which game, it can be baseball, basketball or boxing … everyone loves an underdog. It’s a deep paradox in sports but when two teams or two individuals seem to be mismatched we almost always end up rooting for the underdog. It's kind of weird. On the one hand, people expect them to lose because they’re outclassed but there's something in our spirit that holds out hope that even though that other team has less experience, an injured quarterback or a shorter forward somehow they have a chance to win.
Different athletes respond to being the underdog in different ways. The most successful athletes thrive under that pressure. Being the underdog brings out the best in them. It’s very likely that in their teen years if someone said they couldn’t do something like make the varsity team they ignored that person whether it was a teammate, coach or parent. Almost immediately they pulled out all the stops to prove that other person wrong. Later in life, they continue to prove their critics wrong in the world of professional sport. It's a character trait that successful athletes have but it's more than just being stubborn or even being optimistic. It has to do with self-esteem. It’s all about how you view yourself. A person with high self-esteem will feel capable of doing something he or she wants to do even if that's something that he or she has never done. People with extremely high self-esteem will feel that it's possible to do something that no one's ever done before. A person with low self-esteem will doubt their ability to do something even if others before them have done it and sometimes even if they've personally done in the past.
The good news is that self-esteem can be improved. There are many tools available to the Mental Coach that can allow a player to think and act like a Barry Bonds. Some techniques like direct suggestion under hypnosis can cause an immediate turnaround in the confidence of an athlete or team. Earlier this week a mentor of mine shared a story about an underdog college football team in California. They were set to play one of their division rivals on Sunday and going into this game they had an abysmal record of zero and 10 but after working with the hypnotist they went out and faced the other team and blanked them by over 40 points. They just wouldn't stop. In their minds they were unstoppable. Their ability to play football had not changed dramatically in the week leading up to that game, only their attitude and belief.
Are you one of those people who are negatively affected when the odds are against you? When others have low expectations of you does it bring you down? If so, use self-hypnosis to get fired up. See yourself as the underdog and own that. Realize that the world of sports is filled with stories of underdogs who believed in themselves when others did not. Maybe the coach didn't believe in them. Maybe the fans didn’t believe in them anymore but the team continued to believe in themselves even when it wasn't logical. Believing in yourself doesn’t have to make sense but it’s a necessity. When things go against you, it obscures your ability to see who you really are and what you really have. Don’t get stuck on statistics: your win-loss record, your age, your height, your weight or your bank account. The numbers don’t matter. Your creative ideas, your discipline, your character, and your fighting spirit cannot be put on paper but they count for more than you can ever imagine.
In this New Year you may be approaching situations in your sport or in your business like an underdog but that's okay. Accept it. It is what it is. Choose to be a pit bull rather than a toy poodle. Don't take anyone's so-called good advice about what you can and can't do. As the saying goes: it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Rrrroooowwwwf!!
Master Mental Coach
Creator of the M.E.N.T.A.L. Games ™ system of sports enhancement
“Sports success begins in the mind.” ™
845 240-6470
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