Tag: planning

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

Reflective Coaching Practices

Dr. John Panepinto

The expression, “Nothing fails like success” offers a good mental space to reflect on what is working, not working, and why. And the connection to the future. The mind loves and thrives on patterns. It does its best to regulate and create equilibrium. But once a pattern becomes so engrained on the level of unconscious competence, we can easily confuse the sense of automaticity with balance. In other words, there is a significant difference between static and dynamic balance along the growth curve. 

Reflective coaching practices go beyond the data that describe aspects of practices and performances. It’s an exercise in quality that unlocks potential for the coach—and the athlete. Data and outcomes often miss the relationship between the context and the content. Data has to be abstracted from the whole. Reflective practices look at the whole. Data is often isolated and limited in scope. Reflected practices are inside-out and broad in scope. Both are useful, yet the latter is less used. Over the next few posts, we will look at these reflective coaching practices that have the potential to increase the quality of what is given and received in the player-coach relationship. 

Each reflective practice starts with a question that opens the internal dialogue critical to the powers of reflection. Leading off, and perhaps the most important:  

Reflect on the Emotional Level. What was the emotional tone of today’s coaching experience? Broadly, every practice or teaching session has an emotional valence. While we may experience the ups and downs during a session, there tends to be an overall tone of negativity or positivity.

Emotions move us and send meaningful messages in the moment and emotional intelligence is fundamental to our awareness of self and others. At a very basic level, our emotions are either managed or they manage us. Reflecting on the emotional information and tone of the practice increases our understanding of the learning conditions we create, as well as the ability to tolerate the roller-coaster of a very challenging task: improving. This implies we can both grow—player and coach—within the practice space.

Lastly, emotions also tell us if we are immersed in meaning. If the practice or performance was flat, chances are the opportunity the event presented wasn’t fully engaged. Looking backward from future self emphasizes that the path is short. Hockey legend and all-time leading scorer, Wayne Gretsky, emphasized this when he talked about skating each shift like it were your last. As a competitive athlete there is always the chance it could be. Injury highlights this point. And as Gretzky states, each shift is one shift closer to the last one.

Opportunities are not infinite. Such is meaning and such is the importance of emotion. Everything we do is connected to something we value. Reflecting on this and connecting to the emotional background of our efforts vitalizes the challenges and victories and, importantly, connects the short and long-term vision.

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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Images credits (Unsplash.com): Mario Azzi, Roger Bradshaw, Donald Giannatti, JC Dela Cuesta

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

What Do You Hear?

Dr. John Panepinto

An important part of performing under pressure is to make sense of the voices in your head. In certain situations, they may seem louder that others. When things are going well, they can be particularly encouraging. Maybe not so when things are not going well.

Such is the nature of self-talk, and important aspect of self-regulation during performance. If you haven’t worked on making self-talk positive and productive, you are missing a key aspect of elite performance.

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Simply put, your self-talk needs to serve you. You get to decide whether your thoughts are facilitating or hindering the pursuit of excellence. Without doing the up-front work, there can be many characters up there telling you different things at different times.

Starting off, self-talk can be much like handling the trash-talkers in any sport. They try to push your buttons, get you thinking of things that you shouldn’t be thinking of. A change of state ensues, and focus is gone. But a resilient competitor finds the way to make sense of this one way or another so that nothing effects your composure.

So, what do you hear? And when do you hear it? Consider the guideline of: positive and productive. First, positive is not necessarily the cheerleader’s voice. Positive means clear, affirming, and without negatives. Our mind does not do well with negative commands or prompts (Example: Don’t think of a purple rabbit… what happened?). And productive means moving along the proper path or process towards a goal or objective. Thinking about failure is not productive.

Self-talk affects state. It can be your internal coach, guide, and friend. Or it can cause chaos and degrade performance. Here are three ways to improve self-talk during practice and competition.

  1. Notice any negative self-talk. Don’t fight it– notice it and take it apart. What is it that you want in that moment? Consider how you would coach a good friend in that moment. What would you say?
  2. Script particularly stressful situations. Have a stock phrase that keeps you composed and on track. Keep it short and sweet.
  3. Don’t get caught up in outcomes. Self-talk is about the process such as effort, focus, guiding, planning in the moment, etc. Avoid shoulda, woulda, coulda conversations in your mind.

Then…practice, reflect, and refine!

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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photo credits: Morgan Sarkissian (unspash.com)

 

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

The Practice-Performance Connection (Part 2)

Dr. John Panepinto

When we think of transferring skills, habits, and knowledge from practice to performance, it’s good to take a look at the process. This transition plan needs to include aspects of all areas of performance. But, how do you create such a global plan? How do you practice focus? Frustration tolerance? Adaptation? Analysis? Decision-making? How do you know when you are at the edge of your development and what comes next?

The truth, on some level, is you are practicing all of these aspects of performance when you practice, but often your attention is on something different. Typically, awareness is external, or on a short-term performance goal and noticing the quality of outcomes. In other words, the mental skills mentioned above have an autonomous quality (like driving a car or tying your shoes) and one thing research tells us is that anything on automatic pilot tends to remain the same—because that is the very nature of its automatic quality.

It seems to me the missing piece is that no practice or performance, match or event is ever the same. So, if we put awareness on autopilot, we are, in effect, turning the uniqueness of the event into a pattern we already know, can perform, but most importantly, can control.

Sounds like a good thing, right?

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On some level, the control we feel reduces anxiety, stress, and allows the self-talk to run its prerecorded recordings. Again, even the pain of a poor performance is something of a pattern, something known, and we get over it. “I had a bad day.” “Nothing worked.” “He/She just played better.”

Still, a good thing, right?

Well, it turns out that this slice of experience is only a small part of a bigger picture. This compartment of a bigger, global perspective is structured to maintain the compartment and it resides a comfortable distant from the edge of your development. The bigger picture is where the more advanced version of yourself exists. In other words, in the bigger picture where your vision resides (a more evolved, capable version of yourself), your mindset is of a different quality. This is evident in thinking, processing, and in language.

The underlying principle is: You can’t solve problems on the level they were created.

This is the essence of goals. You can do something different because on a fundamental level, you are something different.

Why does this matter? This process of practice to performance, practice to performance, is the place of greatest leverage for player development. Unfortunately, it is also the place where plateaus are created, solidified, and become enmeshed in a player’s identity. It is the off-ramp to development, careers, and premature exits. Because a part of our mind innately rationalizes anything in this “compartment” to save us from pain, effort, and (here is the tricky part) to keep things the same (also known as a sense of “control”).

How do we prevent this? How do we keep the boundaries of the “compartment” malleable? How do we keep pushing the edges of development?

We’ll explore that in the next post…

 

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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photo credit: Diana Parkhouse (unsplash.com)

 

 

 

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

The Practice-Performance Connection

Dr. John Panepinto

 

In the next series of posts, we will look deeper into the mental aspect of the practice-performance connection. You may have heard sayings such as “You play how you practice” or “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail” and the like, yet the connection and feel between practice and performance has subtle threads beneath the surface that players may not be able to hold in awareness.

For the sake of simplicity, there are two processes occurring during practice and performance. One (1) is very linear, logical, and limited. It comes in parts and is sequential. There is a sense of order and the need for control because B follows A. The second (2) is wider, intuitive and contextual. It’s the whole which the parts are made of—but there is more to it than just the parts. A may follow B and A is related to C and many other interconnected variables. The first (1) makes use of words, the second (2) is wordless and has a global feel to it. For the latter, think of a time when you were in flow (or in the Zone) and then later tried to describe it. The words do not quite capture the experience. There is so much more, and you can tell just by watching the face of the describer as they appear to be elsewhere. And they are.

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Let’s take a deeper look into this second flow-like process and the practice-performance connection:

Lightness. Even when performance is intense there can be a lightness to the experience. Why? Chance are “outcome” is out of the picture. There is nothing at stake—or so it seems and autonomous abilities flow. If you are truly practicing, what is at stake is improvement. Yet, improvement is possible only with a focus on quality—which is subjective. It is something more sensed than measure. Challenge: Notice the lighter quality of practice and allow it to flow in performance. Focus on quality and sensing the performance.

Awareness. Even team sports have an individual skill-set and this connection is something to try on your own. Whether you are practicing a skill or a pattern or a play, center your awareness on something different. Shifting awareness and focus is a crucial performance skill and often our practices are so scripted we do not get enough practice at shifting. As our attention span is shorter than most would believe, re-focusing is an extremely important capacity. Challenge: Consider the connection you have with the ground (footwork, movement) or the connection with your center of gravity (somewhere around your bellybutton) and notice your sense of balance. Both of these are valuable internal cues and provide important feedback. Widening awareness and shifting awareness are keys to unlocking higher levels of performance.

More to come in the next post…

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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photo credit: Stefan Cosma (unsplash.com)

 

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

King of Clay

Dr. John Panepinto

Tennis great, Rafa Nadal, made it an even dozen championships this June at the French Open. He has won this major event in his teens, twenties, and thirties. Although the accomplishment inspires awe in the present, the true magnitude of the feat will grow over time. History needs to lend perspective to present unfolding of the accomplishment—and it’s very possible the undisputed “King of Clay” can add to his trophy case in the years to come.

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What can we take away from this truly remarkable story?  Here are just a few…

Vision: Rafa is right-handed. Early on his first coach, Uncle Toni Nadal, envisioned the advantages of playing left-handed. Unlike baseball, you must hit from both sides in tennis—and at the highest level both sides must be strong. In Rafa’s case his natural right side became one of the greatest backhands of all time. For many the backhand side prevents players from the upper echelons of achievement. For Rafa on this side he could go toe-to-toe with a righthander’s forehand.

Adaptation: The saying “Nothing fails like success” speaks to the mindset of extinction. In competition, there is always someone preparing to dethrone the champion, there is always someone about to make a break-through. Adapting represents a break-with what is familiar—and this is particularly hard for the body and the mind. Equilibrium is favored, but excellence requires comfort with pushing limits and limiting beliefs. Rafa has improved all areas of his game and continues to add new wrinkles along the way. Where he was once was average at the net, now Rafa is excellent coming forward. He’s added power and versatility to his serve. Recently, he’s worked hard on angling groundstrokes rather than always hitting through the court. His evolution continues…bad news for his youthful peers, but a path they would do well to follow.

 Effort: The one thing we can always control is effort. We can’t control the weather, our opponent, the crowd and a million other factors. But deep inside we are the only ones who know if we have given our best. While Rafa is his only true judge and jury, from the outside and from the observations of his opponents, he has always given his all. One thing appears consistent throughout Rafa’s career, is that in terms of effort he plays each point the same: full throttle.

Humility: Rafa is a graceful champion. He has the utmost respect for the game, his team, his opponents, and the venues he plays. While confidence is important to the mental game, humility lends a perspective beyond competing and winning. Many factors beyond the athlete’s control have to all fall in place for an individual to have a long and prosperous career—let alone the chance to try. Rarely said or admitted, there are individuals out there who have the heart and the talent to compete, but never the opportunity. On some level, spoken or not, I believe Rafa knows this and understands this. And on some level, spoken or not, those who understand this truth play with the humility and the grace of having such an opportunity not afforded others. Rafa represents the opportunity very well.

Long live the King… Vamos!

 

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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