Unique Original Articles » How Can Performance Coaching Make You A Better Athlete?

Athletes who have had performance training understand the damage that can be caused to their game when they allow negative thinking, or what is known as "defeatist thinking,” takes hold. A losing team more or less gives up or possesses a losing attitude that affects performance. A marathon runner, for instance, is plagued by thoughts of his inadequacies and becomes sure he can’t make it for the duration. The strength of thought is often neglected and not given credit for all kinds of poor performance issues, missed plays, and even entire losing streaks and seasons.

Many renowned responses from people whose business is performance coaching are futile strategies that might help initially, but, over the long-term, in fact work to empower the very unconstructiveness that the athlete is trying to tackle and defeat. Slogans like “think positive” or "believe in yourself” are great catchphrases, but they have very little to do with athletic performance, and as answers to errant ideas, they simply do not work. Actually, an athlete who continuously engages a negative thought with the hollow phrase, “I think I can, I think I can,” like the infamous little engine that could, is simply affirming the pessimism by engaging with it and allowing it a place on the stage.

In other words, in performance sports training, using catchphrases, or efforts to redirect negative thoughts, gives lifeblood to negative thinking and takes one’s attention away from the act of the performance. This kind of mental coaching tends to enable the pessimistic thoughts, making them something that require to be handled instead of a voice on the sideline that can be acknowledged then understood.

Negative feelings might, in fact, serve another purpose - they assist you see, with clarity, where you have to improve. So if you attempt to wrestle them down with positive affirmations or visualizations, you make them genuine, and give them the power to truly influence you.

In short, the best way to deal with negative thinking and improve your team’s performance is to comprehend that negative thoughts and feelings are normal, necessary, and possess an often neglected positive. They are an intuitive sign that our thinking (not our life) is off track, and if we do not look in a new direction we’ll be certain to steer into a hard time. Therefore, energizing negative thoughts by turning them into something that should be avoided is the last thing an athlete, or any performer, ever wants to do.
Garret Kramer is the founder and managing partner of Inner Sports, LLC. His revolutionary approach to performance has transformed the way players, coaches, professional teams, and even parents view the athletic and life journey. To know more about Garret and performance sports training visit http://garretkramer.com/ NOW.
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