The 10 Essentials: Essential #6
The sixth Essential is learning to Adjust and Be Flexible. No matter the sport, every athlete has a game plan, a strategy for how they are going to approach their competition so that they can achieve their goals. Depending on the level you are competing, this game plan can be in great detail. Often, there is the initial game plan, which is the ideal version. However, most athletes have developed several variations to that game plan to account for the various factors that may interrupt the implementation of the initial game plan. A large part of competition is about making adjustments…to the weather, to the opponent, to the officials and any other number of things that can impact performance.
Just like you have a game plan for what you are going to do on the field or court, you need to have a mental plan for how you are going to deal with the mental challenges that may come up. Think about it like a traffic light:
Green = everything is going well
Yellow = things are starting to be challenging and your performance may be faltering
Red = lots of challenges and performance has gone sideways
To create your full mental plan, you need to identify both the signs and strategies for each level. At the green level, what are the signs that let you know things are going well? What are you doing, thinking, and feeling? How is your performance? Now, think about what strategies you will use to KEEP yourself in the green. Are you keeping it simple? Connecting with teammates? Focusing on your controllables? List out both your signs and strategies for the green zone.
Now think about the challenges that might arise that would shift you away from green and towards red. These would be those first smaller challenges that can get you off your game and place you squarely in the yellow zone. Maybe it’s an undesirable outcome or bad call. Maybe it’s a shift to start thinking negatively or a sense that you are trying to force an outcome to happen. List out the things that may trigger you and identify the signs that push you into the yellow zone. Once you have that list, go through each one and identify a strategy to combat against that trigger. If you have a poor outcome, maybe you go through a recovery strategy. Or maybe you create a checklist to determine whether the doubt that creeps up has any merit.
Lastly, how do you know you are in the red, where everything seems to have gone sideways. Is this when you’ve lost all ability to manage your emotions? Are you stuck in the overthinking cycle? Is any attempt to adjust performance met with failure? Identify the signs that let you know you are in the red zone and think through the possible triggers that shifted you from yellow down to red. Just like before, go back through that list and create a strategy to address each specific challenge or trigger.
Now you have a complete mental plan. You know what signs to look for AND what strategies to implement. You’ve done all the work on the front end so that you can seamlessly put this plan in place in the heat of competition.