Tag: focus

Performance psychology

“Getting Back to the Truth: Nothing is Free”

Dr. John Panepinto

Trends offer valuable information especially if you dig deeper into the patterns. One trend that’s been mirroring the rise in access to technology is the belief that you can gain what you need for next to nothing. Search engines and AI offer lots of data for the price of a few keystrokes. And you have more computing power on your smartphone than the Apollo space flights.

But there’s something else going on here. With information expanding at an exponential rate, some have offered that information should be “free.” What does that mean? And what are we missing?

Information may be cheap, but relationships are not free. Regardless of the type of relationship there is a currency. And life is a process of relationships. There always is a give and take that speaks to the quality of the current flowing between.

Alive?

Information is not a relationship. Sorry, Siri. Artificial intelligence may be an exciting informational advancement. But it’s not a relationship. Relationships are living, open, dynamic systems. You can’t plug them into a socket. Even virtual reality requires coming back, at some point, to “real” reality.

Even “cheap” has a price and typically it’s someone else’s back. My immigrant grandmother worked in a sweat shop and received a pittance for pay. I witnessed the damage to her back firsthand. This occurs daily all over the world…

As information expands, the number and quality of relationships changes as well. You may have 500 followers or “friends,” but how much do they influence your life? How many of the hundreds you only know by “likes” truly know what you’re like?

Information may be cheap or free, but it won’t do the work for you. Every role requires effort. You may find a “how-to video” but unless it has something to do with a “thing” like changing a tire, the advice is typically worth the price you paid.

You always have to earn trust and competence. Deep and trusting relationships are developed over time with intense commitment. Your road to a championship, a title, or a spot on the Olympic team will require your time, sweat, tears, and willingness to fail, learn, and change.

Even the opportunity isn’t free because for every champion there are multitudes who don’t get the chance or have the resources to even try. In the words of Thomas Gray, “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Many…

If you are looking for free and easy, think twice. Who you become in the process of “paying the price” for excellence and deep, meaningful relationships is… priceless.

photo credit: Simon Lohman, unsplash.com

Performance psychology

Win or a Non-Loss? Keys to Empowering Your Mindset

Dr. John Panepinto

A win or a “non-loss” are the same— if you only look at the result. It may seem trivial given the results-focused world of competition, but that’s far from the truth. The underlying mindset of each, playing to Win (Growth Mindset) or Non-loss determines the arc of development, how far you rise and, believe it or not, how much you find joy along the way.

Performance from a non-loss mindset puts loss in the primary position. This denies the fact that every event starts at the beginning, and no one has anything to lose. You only have something to gain. Points, runs, or goals—you start at zero and go from there. Even in events where performance is penalized, you have a chance to earn all the points.

Centering on “non-loss” focuses on what you don’t want. Losing connects to powerful emotions—all with a negative valence. Fear, anxiety, worry, and desperation don’t provide the best headspace for executing, noticing, problem-solving, and reflecting. Performing well is challenging enough, and negative emotions piling on becomes just another obstacle.

Even deeper, a “non-loss” mindset operates from a position of vulnerability because your sense of self is tied significantly to the result. This is the danger of having only one goal, only one outcome that will reflect who you are. The problem with this mindset is, even if you win, you are back to…

Nothing.

With a “Growth Mindset” there are many ways to experience a “win.” Since the mindset in this case is a process, every step in the journey has value. Every choice and action connect to what you are striving for. You can get better and still lose. You can meet several performance goals and still lose. You can play less than your best and still win. All because the entire event offers the opportunity to earn and grow in many different ways.

The connection to the developmental arc reveals the difference. Focusing on improvement rather than losing makes practice and play “feel” different. Because it is. Like the saying says, “It pays off in the long run.”

Lastly, a “non-loss” approach diminishes the feeling of enjoyment during the event. Fun is an aspect of freedom, so how you experience challenge matters. With a non-loss perspective, fun isn’t around much. And it’s very black and white. The fun may come at the end with a win but the feeling/state leaves by the next practice.

Not true for a Growth Mindset. You always have something to look forward to because it’s a process and a journey you enjoy.

This represents a very underrated concept that’s rarely mentioned. Each developmental milestone offers challenges that some won’t find “fun” or enjoyable. What some say is “hard work” others will find exciting and rewarding. If you can’t find joy and freedom in pushing your limits, chances are you’ll grow tired of the process. That’s the other side of, “it pays off in the long run.” Because there’s always a price to pay to make the long run.

Photo credit: Hester Qiang; unsplash.com)

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

Straight From the Top

Dr. John Panepinto

Much like the drudgery of cleaning out the attic, going through old emails makes you wonder why you saved them. In a strange way, going through years of your “inbox” resembles a journal. People and events have come and gone. Things that once seemed important, well…

That’s the quality of the future. You move into the future each moment, and the flow is seamless, but memory is a different story. So is our ability to predict what our path will bring, let alone do this for others. Our memory can change with one new perspective, and our future can pivot on a single event. Hard to predict.

So, what do we steady ourselves upon?

When we aim true and steady, in each role, we lead with faith, hope, and love. Faith that we are guided in a meaningful direction. Hope that we will be worthy of and actualize what is best and unique in us. And love for what we give and who we are with.

Oh, back to the inbox. I came across a reply to an email I had sent on Monday, March 03, 2014, at 1:27 PM. Like I mentioned about memory, I don’t remember sending it. But the words rippled into the future and touched others. To a player I coached back then, I sent this quote from tennis Hall-of-Famer and eight-time grand slam champion, Andre Agassi:

“It’s a different mindset being someone who is expected to win versus somebody who is an underdog. Eventually you learn it doesn’t matter whether you are the favorite or the underdog, it doesn’t matter if you are No.1 in the world or No.100, the only thing that really matters is: are you getting better?”

A reminder to ask the right questions. Straight from the top. And well worth considering every day…

Are you asking the right questions? Are you getting better every day?

photo credit: Igor Kyryliuk & Tetiana Kravchenko (unsplash.com)

Performance psychology

Finding Flow and the Freedom of Play

Dr. John Panepinto

(This article originally appeared in Tennis Pro)

During the stress of performance and competition, there is a strange tension between thought and feeling, and process and outcome, that stretches the routine constructions of the mind. Despite the innate wiring maintaining the equilibrium of mental functions, it can be hard to recognize when we immerse in patterns that lead to poor decision making. An awareness or thinking about thinking is a meta-process that allows reflection about choices and the roots of decision making. Then we are not automatons and can consider the ‘dialogue’ in mind, on our way to mastering the process of ‘noticing’ or being a level above the information.

To notice is to be a witness to the workings of our mind and body and is at the heart of self-awareness. This is the ultimate reason for reflecting on practice, competitions and life in general. In this practice of self-reflection, we can untie the knots that are barriers to progress, as well as intensify the aspects that are moving us forward.

The tension between process and outcome has a distinct influence on play, and therefore the quality of performance. If we take a moment to truly notice what is happening in play, we observe that when we feel we are playing at our best, the process is close to or in ‘flow’. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi brought the concept of flow into light and has written numerous works on the topic. He described several elements of the state, but I would like to look at two in particular.

• Our sense of time transforms and either speeds up or slows down.

• There is a merging of our actions and our awareness so that we are not thinking self-consciously about performance. We are simply in it.

From these two elements, I want to suggest that in flow, we are experiencing play in a different way. First, in not being self-conscious, we are not critical of self and not engaging the cycle of thinking and feeling about outcomes. It is not that we don’t notice them, but rather they are part of an overall process and of a different quality.

Second, in flow we are truly in the present, a witness to actions rather than immersed in expectations. What happens… happens, and we continue to flow. A simple change in description may be helpful; products or outcomes are in phrased in the past or future, such as “I won” or “I lost” or “I want to win.” Process is phrased in the present, such as “playing” or “executing” or “moving.”

While this may seem a play on words, it is not. It is noticing the power of language and its impact on beliefs and expectations. The second you merge process and product, you begin to fool with your sense of time, as well as actions and awareness. The mind plays tricks and thinks the outcome can be “lost.” Feelings that accompany a sense of loss are then inevitable. But consider that in the moment you have nothing and therefore nothing to lose.

For the outcome exists in a future time – not now.

Now, I am not saying that you do not script, set outcome goals, visualize and mentally rehearse. These are all important and reinforce key mental and physical aspects of performance. What I am saying is to trust in the moment – in muscle memory, working memory, and other executive functions; focus on playing versus being played by the desire for an outcome. The moment desire enters the mental space it gets crowded, and tense, and the dialogue begins. For thoughts and feelings play an imaginary pinball game with the future and the past and invite desire’s closest friend – fear.

Consider a pure image of being in the present and deeply into the process — children playing. How free they are and absorbed in the moment without a sense of time. And though it seems like there may not be a plan or a progression, there is, for play is thematic and not chaotic. The major difference is that in the purest sense play is the goal in and of itself. Once you expect something out of the process, you are in a difference space. At times we may step back and measure to get a sense of where we are in the process, but the vital skill remains being able to let it pass and let go of any desire for the outcome to be now.

The present moment calls for competing, adjusting, executing, strategizing and the like. And in flow, the motivation is intrinsic and self-rewarding. In maintaining this perspective, you will find this space is one lacking in fear and pressure and all energy draining attributes. This has nothing to do with lack of caring, effort or intensity. It has everything to do with the freedom in this private space, and the beauty of meeting the moment as it arises.

For coaching and teaching players of all levels, we can inspire the process of ‘playing’ and promote improvement, growth and development. We can help athletes to notice thoughts and feeling and patterns of choices. We can use language that helps players notice the process that produces the outcome, as well as the conditions of flow. Goals and vision are extremely important for they guide the process. But, in the end, it comes to the only control we have…

What can you do right now?

Photo credit: Adam Kring, Unsplash.com

Mental Health, Performance psychology

Pressure

Dr. John Panepinto

Recently, one of the greatest athletes in the history of sports had a meltdown during an important stretch of one of the most important events of the year. Purposely, I am not naming names, because it doesn’t matter. This player is a champion who does the work, puts in the time and effort, and has a superior mental attitude. If there is such a thing as checking all the boxes, this athlete does it in every way possible.

Still, pressure caused an eruption, an emotional volcano, and a temporary lapse of direction.

I offer this piece for one reason.

The work is never done.

If you think fear is outgrown, or that demons can be locked away in the attic, or negativity is for the weak-minded—think again.

Everything exists in the tension of opposites.

You can’t set a goal without some sense of what failure is. You can’t perform well without knowing what poor performance is. You can’t be positive without the counterforce of negativity. You can’t make a good choice without knowing what the wrong one is. And conscience is all about informing us of darkness and light.

The heroic only occurs with a dragon to face up to. Pretending there aren’t any dragons is a fatal flaw. There will always be obstacles. The greater the task or adventure the more obstacles there will be. And the greatest challenge will be the one inside you. Best to be prepared rather than hope the obstacles don’t appear. Or worse, making believe they don’t exist.  

Take your mental approach to the next level with my sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

Photo credits: Ben Turnbull; Caroline Pimenta; Gabriella Clare Marino– Unsplash.com