“GET YOUR HEAD IN the game!” How many times have you heard this yelled to players making stupid mistakes? You might even say it to yourself before tackling a big project. We hear this saying all the time; most of us know it means to focus on the activity at hand. But did you ever take time to think about the actual words? Getting your head in the game is not something to be taken lightly. Being able to focus and be in a positive mental state are crucial for peak performance.
So the question is, how do you do it? The solution is relatively simple but probably not something you want to hear: Truly getting your head in the game is hard work. You must apply the same discipline, time, and resources to being mentally prepared that you do physically in any sort of game, whether on the field, in the boardroom, or out on the battlefield.
“Get your head in the game” is more than just a saying used to encourage athletes. There is a concept in psychology commonly referred to as the thought–performance relationship. This means our performance is heavily influenced by our thoughts. Our thoughts evoke certain emotions, which then trigger a physiological response that directly affects what we do and how we perform. This sequence can go either well or badly, depending on the thought. For example, a negative thought such as “There’s no way I can get this job; I’m underqualified” could evoke an emotion like fear or frustration, which then makes you nervous and you flub the interview. On the other hand, a positive thought such as “I’m going to ace this test” can give you the confidence you need to excel.
Our thoughts instantly create a picture in our mind and evoke not only emotions but also memories. People carry around images about themselves in their subconscious, all of which are a part of who they are and how they perform. These “pictures” begin at birth and continue throughout life, capturing all our experiences and filing them away. These experiences reflect both the successes and failures in our lives. The manner in which they are interpreted helps your brain store them in either a negative memory slot or a positive memory slot.
If you ask people to recall their earliest memory, you will usually find that it is a negative one: a humiliation, a scary moment, or a big disappointment. The focus on a fear-inducing event makes evolutionary sense. If you are a caveman who knows that saber-toothed tigers hunt during a certain time because you came across one hunting first thing in the morning and it scared the life out of you, you remember not to go hunting at that time of day and it will help you live longer.
But how does remembering that you got a D in physics or that you humiliated yourself in front of your fifth-grade crush help you to survive? Unfortunately, we are programmed to have more negative thoughts about ourselves, our place in the world, and our daily lives. Rather than saving our lives, these thoughts undermine our performance abilities.
If an image that you pull up in a performance situation is what you do not want to happen, it will happen because you make it so. If you are a golfer and approach a hole with a water hazard in front, you might think, “Don’t hit the water.” But in thinking that, your mind creates a picture of your ball hitting the water. Your mind does not include the “don’t” part of that sentence; it just illustrates the ball going into the water, and then that is what you end up thinking.
How do you change the outcome? The solution is to change the way we think.
We all talk to ourselves. But what are we saying? Whatever self-talk phrases we have, whether they are positive or negative, when they are repeated over and over again (like a closed loop), they become self-fulfilling prophesies. Whatever you are thinking becomes reality, because your expectations drive it to happen. It is the way the brain works. It will take your thoughts and turn them into actions, making what you are thinking become true, like a prophet whose visions become reality. So whatever you “feed” your brain the most will end up being what you do the most, positive or negative.
Negative thoughts in our lives have the potential to lead to pessimism. Pessimism can lead to helplessness or hopelessness, helplessness can lead to depression, and depression can lead to suicide.
What is interesting is that as a society, the only time we intervene in the process is when a person gets clinically depressed. Then psychologists and psychiatrists will start on behavioral therapy or prescribe medication to mask symptoms. But if we backtrack and start with the negative thinking and intervene then, we can stop it from ever getting to that point.
Given the negativism surrounding so many people’s lives, being positive and having trust and confidence in your ability is really hard work. Luckily, you can retool your thought process and not think about that ball going in the water, not think about the other people who are up for the job you apply for. You can have more control over your thoughts.
One of the first parts of this process is to become aware of your thoughts. Your mind has a constant narrative running about your day. As you sit at your computer at work, your brain may be thinking, “Gee, I’m really tired. My back hurts. When should I get lunch? Should I get another cup of coffee first? Ugh, I really don’t want to have that conference call with Bill at one. My day would be so much easier if I didn’t have to talk to him. Now, where are those numbers again that I need?” You may think these thoughts are all due to your circumstances, but they are not. You do have control.
It has been estimated that up to 80 percent of the thoughts we have in any given day (estimated in the vicinity of fifty thousand thoughts per day) are negative. The reason for this could be because of our primal instincts to survive. As humans evolved over time, everything was a threat, so we always had to consider the risk of what we were doing. But in this day and age, unless you live in a war zone, there are very few things that are threatening. Yet we still have the negative thoughts and still feel overwhelmed by our prospects in life.
For instance, think of how many people fear flying when statistically flying is far safer than driving. But even knowing the fear is illogical, our brains still feel that being in a tin can thirty thousand feet up in the air is a dangerous thing.
Think of the fear of sharks. Even though very few people die as a result of shark bites, the fear of sharks keeps many people out of the oceans.
There are other kinds of negative thoughts, everyday thoughts about ordinary things like bills, traffic, housework, chores, kids, bosses, and coworkers. These negative thoughts pile up on one another, clouding our days, so that they overwhelm us with negativity, and the things that get us happy and excited tend to get lost in the shuffle.
We have to be more in control over what we think. It affects everything in our lives, and not just our ability to perform in stressful situations. Think of negative thoughts as that major distraction that keeps us from doing well and succeeding in life.
The first step in controlling your thoughts and getting rid of negativity is to become aware of what you are thinking in the first place. Become an observer in your own life. Set the alarm on your phone for a few times during the day. When it goes off, stop and see if you can remember what you have been thinking about for the past few minutes. Write it down. This exercise helps you become more aware.
I knew a woman who was overwhelmed by negative thoughts every time she pulled into the parking lot of her local grocery store. She thought about what terrible parkers people were, how people took forever to get into and out of parking spaces, and how people could not be bothered to put away their carts properly. This negative stream of consciousness played out in her head while she was shopping, and she was always in a terrible mood by the time she got back home to her kids. Once she realized where her thoughts were going, though, she made it a priority to turn off that negative tape that was playing in her head and try to have positive thoughts instead. For instance, she might look at a new car model and admire it, enjoy the fact that the sun was out after a string of rainy days, or think about how lucky she was to be able to afford and easily access the healthy food she was about to buy.
When you become aware of a negative thought, focus on stopping that thought dead in its tracks. When the brain has a gap or a void, then it typically has a tendency to fill the gap. The next step in the process of learning to change your thinking is to fill the gap with something positive. It is so important to be intentional with our attention. Say you are in a situation where you think something like, “This day is going terribly. I’ve got so much to do, and none of it is going right.” Stop that thought process! Shift it into something like, “I’m alive. I’m breathing. I can move and walk. I can come and go as I please.” Point out your capabilities as opposed to your inabilities.
Once you begin practicing control of your thoughts, it will become second nature. As you find errant thoughts entering your head (“I hope I don’t fail this test”; “I’m terrible at public speaking”; “My hair never looks good”), take these steps:
1.Concentrate on the thought for a moment.
2.Say, “Stop” to yourself.
3.Replace the negative thought with a positive counter-thought.
The trick (and this is crucial) is to have a positive, effective thought ready at hand, or else your mind will go back to your original thought. You can develop these ready-made thoughts by becoming aware of what you are thinking in these situations. Create real counter-thoughts and then practice the switch on a regular basis. You must make this automatic if you expect to use it in a performance situation. Repetition is all you need. Remember, the brain learns through repetition. Repeat the right thoughts for the right performance occasions, and they become automatic, just like your negative thoughts have.
For instance, the veterans we work with may wake up in pain from their injuries. It might be easy for them to think, “I’m not doing well today,” and want to just sit on the couch to avoid exacerbating their pain. Instead, they have to hype themselves up to be mobile. “I feel good today. I’m going to get up and get out, and take on the world and accomplish what I need to accomplish.”
When you set your mindset to adaptive thinking, your outlook will start to change. “Today is going to be a good day. No matter what happens throughout this day, it’s going to be a good day.” If somebody steals your parking spot, brush it off, stop the negative thoughts, and keep the dialogue positive. So often somebody can say something that triggers a frustrating response: doctors who do not understand, a spouse, a credit card company. Realize that it is just a moment: “This is small. I have no need to be frustrated. I can interact with these people and be more neutral.” Positivity breeds positivity; negativity breeds negativity.
When creating your counter-thoughts, use statements that will motivate and empower you. These statements will reinvigorate you to push forward with your day-to-day plans.
Let’s look at confidence for a moment. Confidence is at the heart of all successful performances. But there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding confidence. Some people think you have to be born with a lot of it; or that loud, cocky, arrogant attitudes show confidence; or that you must first succeed to be confident. None of these are true. Of course, being successful helps boost confidence, but what about the times when you are involved in something where a clear signal of success comes much later? What keeps you going? This is where you apply positive, effective thinking. This is where you make self-talk work for you.
Confidence comes from within. Do not look for it from other people. Confidence cannot be given to you. It can be influenced, but it cannot be acquired from anyone else. How you think about what is happening is actually more important than what is happening. If you think you can, you can. If you do not, you will not. (Remember the Little Engine That Could, who said, “I think I can, I think I can,” to make it up the mountain?) The reason is that our response to any event will be primarily based on our interpretation of the event, not the event itself. Remember, your mind is racing at an incredible speed.
Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re going to be right.”1 You’re going to want to get the path to the desired result.
Take charge of that little voice in your head and make it work for you.
When you know you are going to have a performance event, such as a test, an interview, a game, or a contest, you need a preperformance routine to get your mind into a state where it can stay focused and “in the game.” This involves what you do and think one hour before, thirty minutes before, and five minutes before the event. This ensures you are mentally prepared for the event.
An important part of a preperformance routine is setting up a specific cue, one that helps direct your focus toward the task at hand.
For example, here is a preperformance routine for someone with test anxiety.
One hour before, allow time to get focused. Work on your breathing strategies. Then look over your review sheet for your exam to get your mind into an academic mode.
Five minutes before, clear your mind, calm your mind, and relax your body.
When the test comes, know that if a question comes up that you do not recognize the answer to immediately, instead of viewing that negatively, move on to the next one, or put the test down, and focus on your breathing to calm down. Then pick your pencil back up and start where you left off.
When a veteran in the Apex Peak Performance Training program used that routine to take a test, the calm state he was in meant that his whole wealth of knowledge opened up, and he got an A. Previously, he would have been too anxious to take the test, envisioning failure and a bunch of questions that were too difficult, and gotten out of the testing room as quickly as possible in a fight-or-flight reaction. Here, when that anxiety reaction kicked in, he knew he had to regain his composure. With the help of breathing techniques, positive self-talk, and imagery, his results were great.
Adaptive thinking does not end with your performance. To improve, you need to take time after the event to evaluate the situation and how you did. It is extremely important not to criticize yourself in the negative. Do not think: You are an idiot for doing that, saying that, or thinking that. Find a way to appreciate the performance, and say things like, “I did the best that I could. I’ll see what the results are. I feel great with what I did, and now I’ll move on with my plans for the rest of the day.” You need to file the memory of that performance event in the positive column in your brain.
Here are some further tips:
Play to your strengths. What are your good features? Think about them often, and leverage them for confidence.
Seek the company of positive individuals. If you are hanging out with folks who are negative, you might consider hanging out with more positive people.
Surround yourself with inspirational material. It really does work. The brain takes it all in and, through repetition, makes it permanent.
When faced with setbacks, focus on what you can do to get back in the game.
The one thing in life you have total control over is what you are thinking. Make it work for you.