Loyal Blue loves working with athletes of all ages and has TWO former Division I athletes on staff ! Since it’s, March Madness, swimming, baseball, and of course, tennis gearing up for the year…I wanted to take this seasonal opportunity to connect cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with athletic performance.
The Mind Is The Athlete; The Body is The Means It Uses
Consider the following quote from the book, The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay:
The mind is the athlete; the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better…the dictum to me, “First with the head, then with the heart,” was more than simply mixing brains with guts. It meant thinking well beyond the powers of normal concentration and then daring your courage to follow your thoughts.
An athlete who is not paying attention to self-talk will learn a lot when they are up against some trouble. And so can the rest of us, whether we are sporty or not. CBT studies the things we tell ourselves, and can be used for any topic. Using counseling sessions and homework like thought records, we can document our internal messaging and examine it for cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are different families of maladaptive thinking. Some of my favorites are here in our instagram post.
“Feelings as Facts” is a common cognitive distortion, and one that is simple to catch and correct, but not easy to eradicate.
Creating a “challenge” to negative thoughts is the MOST difficult and important element of CBT. We work with athletes to help them really practice challenges that allow them to break through these moments where maintaining confidence is crucial.
Try this on your own:
Think about something you are concerned about. It can be very big (“thinking about my life”) or very specific (“thinking about throwing this type of pitch on Saturday”).This becomes the “event.”
Event: “Thinking about…trying a new position on the baseball field.”
What are your automatic and negative thoughts about this?
Chances are that these thoughts involve worries (What if I make an error?) They may also feel black-and-white (“I prefer to play X position and coach must think I’m not as good to have moved me to Y position so now I’m stuck there.”) Moreover, these thoughts don’t do anything constructive for your problem. How can you challenge these thoughts?
Challenge: “I’m going to learn about this new position when I play it. Since it’s new, I can adjust my expectations about my performance. I don’t know yet why Coach moved me and I can find out more. What’s important is that I not be afraid to try something, even if it isn’t my first choice. I won’t let this get in my way.”
Good “challenges” involve using self-compassion (validating the worry without giving into it) and the pivoting to a plan of action.
This year, for spring cleaning, go ahead and throw away the old magazines, mystery keys, mismatched socks, and clothes you’ve never looked good in. Then get started on throwing away the big stuff: outdated beliefs that aren’t serving you anymore, ideas about yourself and others that keep you in the same old patterns.
And remember: to really make new, more productive thoughts and beliefs stick, you sometimes have to get up and throw away the old stuff again: every game, every morning, every situation… until it becomes habit.
