Sports Psychology Part 2: Releasing Negative Thoughts

by Teige West

Mindfulness is a practice to used center yourself, but sometimes we have recurring fixations that we feel impact on our performance, life, work, school and relationships. These nagging worries can also rob you of your present joy and make you feel angry, irritable and depressed. As an athlete, you’ve made a big commitment to your sport—in addition to the rest of your life, you’re trying to fit in a proper diet, work your training into your schedule, and continue to become stronger and faster. You should commend yourself for putting in the work.

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Any athlete in any sport, no matter what they’ve accomplished, will deal with some recurring fear, and below you will find a method for reprogramming your mind to not dwell on whatever nags at you. And this exercise isn’t just for your hurdling anxieties, but can be applied to any type of repeating worries in your life.

If you’re experiencing a lot stress, anxiety or depression, always go talk to someone—a parent, friend, or your coach. And remember, your life is more complicated than the average person, so if you need to see a professional, do so. There’s no shame in asking for help.

 

Step 1: Recognize Negative Thought

 

This step requires the present awareness that was discussed in the mindfulness article. If you haven’t read that article yet, go find it before continuing with this one, unless you already have mindfulness experience. There is a daily exercise at the bottom of the article that will help you recognize thought patterns.

Realizing that you’re having a repeated thought or obsession may be difficult when that thought has become a habit. You may no longer even notice that you’re thinking about this thing that bothers you so much because it is now a background loop playing over and over again. When you practice present moment awareness, you will notice these ideas in your mind, and you’ll notice the frequency with which those ideas appear. Identifying your fear is the first step of conquering your worries. Take special notice of phrases like:

• “I’ll never _____________ (get faster, lose weight, win a race).”
• “I’m so ______________ (slow, heavy, lazy, stupid, bad at this).”
• “I can’t ___________.”
• “I’m not _____________ enough.”
• “I know __________ will happen again.”

These statements usually fall into three categories: comparison, judgment and exaggerations/worst case scenario.

Comparison statements are so common for athletes because you’re competing with one another for the best time. So, naturally, you’re going to look at your fellow hurdlers and evaluate what they do well, and then you’re going to determine whether you can do those things better—or worse. That’s natural, and normal. When you begin to internalize those statements as commentary on your self-worth, or if those comparisons begin to influence how you feel about your abilities and your sport, it’s time to take a big step back. Yes, you want to win, but your main goal should be to get better than you were a month or a year ago. You’re really competing against yourself, honing your skills to continually increase your performance. Comparing yourself to another athlete should be a form of motivation that you, too, can push yourself to that level.

In addition to comparison statements, be aware of judgments where you place a label on yourself because of something that has happened. If you fall during a race, you’re not “so stupid.” If you eat a cookie when you shouldn’t, you’re not “so fat” or “so bad.”

And finally, be aware of statements that expect the worst possible outcome. Just because you clipped a hurdle last time doesn’t mean you will this time. Just because you were sick and didn’t perform well in your last competition doesn’t mean it will happen today. And just because you came in second in the last two races doesn’t mean you won’t be first tomorrow.

 

Evaluate the Thought

 

When you recognize repeated thought traps that negatively affect your life, you need to evaluate those thoughts for truthfulness. Again, just because you have a thought doesn’t mean your immediate judgment of that thought is sound.

A good first step of evaluation is to ask where the thought it coming from. In the previous mindfulness article, we discussed how unsolicited information is pushed to your mind all day long by friends, family, media, society and technology. Naturally, a lot of that information is at best unhelpful, at worst harmfully untrue. So, when you have a repeated thought, ask yourself why do you think that? Are you being unfairly hard on yourself? Is someone close to you (parent, friend, partner) criticizing you unfairly? Did a coach, teacher or person in authority once say this to you? If you can pinpoint the source of the thought, you can better understand why it is repetitious, and you can determine whether this is a relevant criticism or not. If your childhood soccer coach told you that you’re a slow runner and you’re now 25 years old, is your coach’s opinion really relevant now, when a decade or more has passed? Probably not.

After you evaluate the credibility of the source of your thought, ask yourself whether the outcome that you fear is truly likely. Have you taken steps to prevent this outcome? If you’ve been slow out of the start, but you’ve spent two weeks working hard on your speed explosion, can you leave open the possibility that your start will be much better—and that as you continue to work, your start will continue to improve? A really solid way to defeat negative thoughts is not to pre-determine your outcome as absolute. Allow yourself to be open to the possibility that your fears won’t be realized.

When you make these evaluations, it’s very easy, and even satisfying to put yourself down. But you must be objective. If you’re afraid of falling and you rarely do, then let your fears go. Besides, if you do fall (everyone does!), you’ll get back up and carry on.

 

Stop the Thought

 

When you’ve gone through the process of recognizing a thought pattern and you’ve evaluated the likelihood of your feared outcome, you may find that even though the probability of this thing happening is low, you still have that nagging worry. Thoughts can become habit, especially if you have a repeating loop that’s played in your mind for longer than a few days. So, don’t get discouraged that your distress didn’t immediately dissipate after running through an analysis. There are two further steps to break the habit: you must stop the thought, and then bring in a positive idea as your focus.

Let’s say that you’re afraid of clipping hurdles and leaving a wake of dropped barriers behind you. You’re fixated on this fear—you picture yourself tripping over one after the other. You’ve recognized this repeated thought pattern, and you’ve evaluated it as a fear rooted in one race from two years ago, yet that race has stayed in your mind. From now on, every time, and I mean, every time you bring up an image of that race, actively stop the thought with a cue:

 

• A visual prompt: You can picture a large red stop sign, a red traffic signal, a ringing bell
• Verbal cues: You can mentally (or out loud, if appropriate) shout STOP! You can mentally repeat a mantra, such as “this is in the past and does not affect me,” or “I’m focused on the future, not this fear.”
• Tactile cues: lightly pinch yourself, clap your hands, lightly pull your ear

 

If you’re a visual person, as you replay the race in your mind, a visual stopping cue might be the best choice—picture a big sign in your race to bring you back to the present. Many people combine these cues; they picture a stop sign and then repeat a mantra to bring themselves back to the present and out of the thought trap.

 

Replace the Negative Thought with a Positive Thought

 

After you stop the thought, actively replace it with a positive thought. In the above example, if you fixate on that old race where you tripped several times, think about a race where you didn’t trip. Visualize going through the hurdles again, cleanly moving over each barrier and then reaching the finish line. Look back and see your success, so that your brain reprograms to remember that your fear hasn’t always happened.

If your fear is relatively new, let’s say you tripped in your last race and now that’s in your mind, replace your thoughts with a positive memory of achievement, even if your thought isn’t about hurdling. Maybe you’ve had trouble with your start, and you’ve improved after working hard—dwell on that improvement. Maybe you’ve just gotten a promotion, or someone gave you an unexpected compliment; replace your fear and think about the positive.

Another way to replace negativity with positivity is to think proactively. Instead of dwelling on what you did wrong, think of the ways that you can prevent your feared outcome. If you run of out energy when you approach the end of a race, work on endurance drills. If you’re slow out of the starting blocks, practice explosive speed and add in strength training. If you’re often too tired to train, look at your diet, or your training schedule or take an extra rest day.

And finally, if you continue to dwell on your fear, talk to someone. You may find that when you verbalize your anxieties, the power of those fears is diminished. Another person can bring a neutral and realistic viewpoint, and can also provide ideas for how to proactively address your worries.

 

Remember: You Are Not Alone

 

When you experience negative thoughts, it’s easy to assume that you are the only athlete who has this preoccupation. But you’re not, so keep in mind that everyone has the same, or similar, struggles. All of the competitors in your race share your fears, even if they walk up to the starting block smiling and confident, even if they assure you they don’t. They do. When you look beside you, you see the exterior of a person—you have no idea what thoughts are spinning through that person’s head. Isolating yourself, assuming that some personal defect will realize your fears is common, but try to remember that everyone is struggling with their own individual challenges.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Positive, motivating thoughts are important to your performance. When you set aside repeating negative thoughts, you can more effectively and realistically focus on your talents and your future. Your thoughts do impact your life, even if those thoughts are way off base because they are based in fears that have a low probability of actually happening. Negativity takes energy—energy that would be far better spent on realistic evaluation and planning. You may be in a place in your training or your life where you feel overwhelmed by what you want to do better. You can dig out of those thoughts by evaluating your fears, stopping them and actively replacing them with positive thoughts. You train hard, and you have made a big commitment—don’t forget to give yourself credit for how far you’ve come. And remember, the scary ‘what-ifs’ of life are not reality, but only possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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