Tag: Sports

Ideas about the mental side of sports

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

Changing Mindset: Letting Go for the Better

Dr. John Panepinto

Let’s take another look at “letting go” –a must mental skill if you want to grow. If you consider improving in any skill, changes occur on every level of being. There is a saying that you can do it (physical skill) before you think you can, and that you have to have “proof” to change your mindset. Letting go of the “old” self-image is a process–because it’s familiar and what you know.

While this may not be true for all, a common question along the developmental path of work or play is, “Do I belong? Can I compete/perform at this level?” At a deeper level, and a label I am not fond of, is, “The Imposter Syndrome,” a state that some athletes and performers feel on the developmental arc. I’m also not a fan of “fake it till you make it.” Both give away too much power to the very thing you are trying to change (past self), and to aspects of yourself that you have to let go. Both “imposter” and “fake” imply something that is negative and not you.

But who else would you be? Isn’t it better to acknowledge the process than to label the difficult aspect of change? Reframing is another must mental skill as it will present the path and the process–the future you want. Negative ideas and labels don’t belong in your self-talk or on the path of growth. Any thoughts or patterns that slow or impede growth consumes precious energy. It has to be let go.

Both “imposter” and “fake” ignore the true feeling of transformation which is not a common experience because it’s exponential growth. We are used to being informed, a process of adding to what we know, or fine-tuning skill or knowledge. Incremental growth doesn’t feel the same as transformation. They are on different levels.

Transformation is a qualitative change and the way you see yourself and the world changes. It can rock your world in a good way. In this process, uncertainty, excitement, intuition, and boundary-breaking all require trust and courage. It’s exciting but it can feel wobbly. Doubt and fear are not too far away—because they try to veer you back to the way it was, what was known and comfortable.

To be comfortable with the uncomfortable, uncertain, and ambiguous is a skill you can develop into a trait. You can change your mindset from fixed to growth oriented by focusing on what is most important…

More on that next time.

photo credit: Miguel Parera (unsplash.com)

Performance psychology

Why Can’t We Let Go?

Dr. John Panepinto

Following a brief detour about “odds,” we take another important question for this era that may seem or look different:

“Why can’t we let go?”

We often hear “let it go” in many contexts. We are quick to give this advice to others, yet we may say to ourselves, “I know I should let it go but…”

Why is it so hard?

Our lifespan has changed in the blink of the universe’s eye, yet we have extremely new and unexperienced aspects of mind that help us time travel. This is a unique human capability and one that only fully develops in the middle of our third decade on the planet. Until that point, our typical state of mind orients toward the present time and short-term products. And only slowly do we develop the ability to time travel beyond our New Year’s resolutions.

The image of “letting go” matters as we understand and find meaning globally in images and forms. It’s a wordless and intuitive space that continually fills us in on ourselves, our relations, and what is happening in the world around us (this connects with the question of self-guidance). Context matters but we often don’t make it wide and deep enough. So, we struggle with understanding how letting go does NOT diminish us—as long as we are following our goals and aiming toward our future self.

Letting go is a form of saying “no” to one path while saying “yes” to another. A reason we struggle to let go is we are open systems existing in systems that are complex and have a great deal of uncertainty. Donella Meadows, in her book, Thinking in Systems, offers:

“Systems surprise us because our minds like to think about single causes neatly producing single effects. We like to think about one or at most a few things at a time…. But we live in a world in which many causes routinely come together to produce many effects.”

The “mind” that Meadows refers to can be highly influenced by the ego, a mental structure that filters and manages experience. It’s the structure that chirps loudly when things don’t go your way. But a main feature of the ego is that it works from what it already knows–a fixed identity. It is not very open to change, editing, or accommodating new information. And it’s certainly going to resist transformation.

The ego works from “I believe” and “I expect” and is a worthy helper—but not a good leader at all. Not letting go and wanting more of the same are two of its main energizers. Yet growth requires beliefs and expectations to align with higher goals, values, and principles. Which means a lot of letting go in order to grow, in order to make space for complexity and growing capacities.

It all starts with understanding. Understanding deepens and widens what you know and what you can come to know. In this, the ego becomes a servant of the mind. And self-mastery, which requires healthy portions of letting go, becomes a central goal regardless of the endeavor.

photo credit: Brett Jordan (unsplash.com)

Psychology

What Are the Odds?

Dr. John Panepinto

Having a large sample size with three decades of experience, I have always been fascinated with how people perceive “odds.” People in certain positions will throw the statistics and odds around as if they are facts. They never are and they only exist in probabilities. Here’s a fun example from a recent NFL game:

If you’re the Philadelphia Eagles and living in probabilities, you feel great, and the odds of a win are with you for about 98% of the game.

Then you lose.

Odds and probabilities have their place. But you can’t measure potential. It can be intuited, but it remains in abstract form. Something you sense, something you feel. Yet potential is just as real to the individual as any other thought or feeling. The subjective experience connects with the future in some way not presently describable in high resolution. But this is so with all intuitive experiences. You just know.

The other narrative ignored by taking odds as facts happens when you follow intuition—when you act on potential. The legendary martial artist, Bruce Lee, offered an idea about this: “A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

When we place odds inappropriately on the individual, we place a unique life into a general context. We place unmeasurable potential against measured actualities that are not of the same quality. Here’s a snippet from the NCAA on baseball trajectories sourced from high school and college surveys:

While data explaining “surprising confidence” isn’t offered, the part of the story that will never be measured is how much the other 92.7% learned about themselves, relationships, and life by having a goal of “going pro.” Having “something to aim at,” as Bruce Lee says. And how applicable the qualities nurtured were in their development. Aiming high may not be reached, but it provides meaning and direction in the process of uncovering an evolving sense of identity and purpose.   

In the final analysis, you make it, or you don’t. But “making” it is not as important as who you are becoming along the way. If you are true and live by true principles of development, you are always “making it.”

Sources: ESPN.com; NCAA.org; 2018-19 High School Participation Survey

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)