What Does 8 Seconds Mean To you?

Life is often about perspective and especially so in performance coaching. Some people find they look at defeats as magnificent learning opportunities that will only improve them in the 'bigger picture', others can't get out of bed for days afterwards replaying the painful experience over and over in their minds. After Lauren Fignon lost the 1989 Tour de France by only 8 seconds he would continually recount the lost 8 seconds over and over in his head. Over time this counting ritual consumed him and he would replay the pain almost daily and at times hourly. Although I acknowledge a huge event in his career he had nonetheless lost perspective on this experience.

Often it is how you look at a situation that defines the meaning you take from it. We coach with the presupposition that you can look at everything from the perspective of a curious child learning. Regardless of your wins or losses the important question is, how much did you learn from the experience? This works for two reasons, the first being when things don't go well it allows you engage your rational and logical thought process and thus attach less emotion to the experience enabling you to be pragmatic; secondly when things go well it keeps you grounded and rational avoiding the potential for arrogance or situational focus loss, once again enabling pragmatism when needed. Which ever race your winning or losing there is always someone winning or losing a bigger race - it's all about the perspective you adopt to view the experience through your frame of reference.

Let me demonstrate....

Read the following extract from top to bottom, as naturally as possible. Once you have done this take an audit of how you feel and also your perspective of this experience.

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be obtained
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say that
Today was a good day!

Now do the same but read from bottom to the top and rethink your mindset when finished.

Often it is the way we see the world that defines the meaning we attach to an experience, is your glass half empty or half full?

Fighting Natures Hardwiring

Thoughts are an interesting thought; with even more fascinating consequences. Similar to alcohol you can have both positive and negative experiences often within moments of each other and when intoxicated they can govern your behaviour. One second the mind can be flooded with ‘good’ thoughts acting like high performing fuel feeding a Formula 1 engine. The next moment it’s like the fuel has become contaminated with salt water and the engine misfires and grinds to a sudden halt. A stray negative thought at a crucial time can have a devastating consequence to a person’s performance, and often does. Some people wrongly believe these limiting thoughts that contaminate our confidence are unavoidable, they are quite wrong with this thesis.  The brain is like any other muscle in the body and needs exercising, and like the rest of the body the more it is exercised the stronger it becomes. It has always amazed me how little time some athletes dedicate to strengthening their mind, many do not take time to understand their own thoughts which I find confusing.

In Dr Steve Peter's book 'The Chimp Paradox', he explains the primitive parts of our brain, which really are dedicated to preserving our life. The Chimp, which is the limbic part of the brain, often makes decisions that should really be made by our ‘human’ part of the brain. The real paradox is since the cognitive revolution we have accelerated our mental evolution faster than nature. Although our brains can design and build space shuttles we are still mercilessly governed by our primitive hardwiring which protects us from predators that seldom exist in a modern world. These thoughts rattling around our brains, which can be positive or negative, are usually born out of an innate desire to self-preserve. The inner thoughts, which tell us not to expose ourselves with public speaking, are without doubt a self-preservation effect of neurological hardwiring. It is in these moments of self-preservation that the demons can whisper the loudest, and have their most profound effect on performance. Added to this even though we’re hard wired by nature we still find the time to reinforce the message with children, often at a subtle and unconscious level. This precariously balanced confidence is mercilessly subject to external influences, a casual glance by a competitor, an intended word of encouragement from the coach, that is then distorted by the athlete into pressure to perform, and even losing your ‘lucky’ underpants! The ‘human’ part of the brain will think with logic and facts, the ‘chimp’ part of the brain will work with emotion - and is stronger.

Consider for a moment how many ‘emotionally’ led decisions you have made which you very quickly regretted, the chances are you have been ‘hijacked’ by your chimp.

The challenge for our athletes is to understand through education how their minds work, only when you make sense of something can you control the outcome. Under the extreme pressure of competition emotionally fed decisions can sabotage much of the prior preparation of an athlete. The whispers inside quickly become stronger, these whispers can be controlled through logical thinking.

You can ask questions to yourself which will help organise the human brain. What will be the outcome of this decision?  Do I feel rational or am I gripped by emotions, and if so can I consider a logical route to a decision? Will I regret this path should I take it? Is this going to produce the outcome which is best for me in the long term? All of these questions are a presupposition of logical thinking, so even asking them of yourself will lead you into a more rational state of mind.  

Allowing thoughts to sabotage your results is like re-hydrating during a 100-mile bike ride with neat whiskey, performance levels will rapidly degenerate and you’ll definitely regret it for days!!! 

You wouldn’t fuel your body with whiskey so don’t fuel your mind with negativity.

phil.quirk@hbp-training.com

www.hbp-nlp.com