Skyrocket Your Mood and Performance By Transforming Your Inner Dialogue
Becoming a great teammate in a solo sport
Why did you do that?
You’re not good enough.
What were you thinking?
Do any of those sound familiar?
Chances are, they sound familiar because you’ve said them to yourself — not because others have said them to you.
It’s a mistake to speak to yourself like that, and it’s costing you your happiness, your progress and even your self-esteem.
Does an employee work well by being yelled at and belittled? Does a child respond well to negativity and punishment? Does an athlete improve performance by their teammates bringing them down?
So what’s your goal with that tone?
It’s not an option, you need to change your approach if you want to raise your performance ceiling, improve your mood and become a happier person.
You need to transform your inner dialogue and foster a positive and peaceful place for your spirit to reside.
A life lesson from the court
Sports is the greatest metaphor we have for life
— Kobe Bryant
I was playing pickup basketball one afternoon with a Slovakian friend of mine — Branko.
In basketball, there’s a term for players who go on long stretches of playing amazing, and stretches of playing poorly — streaky.
Branko is streaky.
Streaky means inconsistent — and what inconsistent really means is that the mind isn’t steady. When you’re high —you’re super high — nothing can stop you. But when you’re low, you can’t claw your way out of the hole you’ve found yourself in.
He has stretches of being unstoppable, and stretches of disappearing. Body language completely changes. He becomes passive and reserved.
The court has the same finish. The ball is the same shape. There’s no wind or external influences. No outside factors have changed — only internal ones.
We ended up on the same team.
He’d miss a shot, hang his head and profusely apologise. “What are you sorry for? You should be sorry if you don’t shoot the next one.” — I said.
He missed again.
“Shoot it again”
And then he made it. And made the next. And the one after that. He was back on form. He was unstoppable.
You can imagine what his internal discussion was before I intervened:
“Why am I missing? I’m letting the team down.” — something along those lines.
All it took was an outside voice to positively reinforce him. I was able to give him the unbiased, logical advice that he needed to hear.
But he can’t rely on me.
He has to cultivate a good teammate within his mind. He needs someone on his team 24/7 to give him the encouragement to keep pushing. He needs someone to maintain his excellence when he’s high, and give him a boost to get out of the hole.
He needs to be his own greatest teammate.
Be the 24/7 teammate
We’re all like Branko.
I’m actually worse than he is. I see myself in him when he gets down on himself — and that’s how I knew how to solve it.
We have moments everyday where we’re negative — even self-loathing. We lose our self-confidence, doubt creeps in and all of a sudden our performance is 1/10th of what it could be.
Frustration, anger, guilt and dissapointment all cloud our logical processes.
Why do we bring ourselves down? Why do we start chipping away at ourselves? What benefit is being so critical?
Positive reinforcement works exceedingly better and faster than punishment.
In child psychiatry, parents often come to the office angry and frustrated with their child because “nothing works.” They have tried multiple types of punishments when bad behavior has occurred using the removal of toys or privileges away or placing a child in time out.
Often positive types are not being reinforced.
We just need someone to positively reinforce us.
But our mother, father, friend, sibling or partner isn’t always there to talk you through things. When my friend George lost his dad to cancer, he told me in that moment he would’ve gone to his dad for advice — but now he needed to work it out himself.
It taught me that you need to cultivate your own 24/7 teammate .
You need to create the person inside your mind that coaches you through life.
We’ve all heard the advice — “treat others how you wish to be treated” — but have you tried treating yourself how you wish to be treated? What if you became your own biggest supporter? The person who raises yourself up, instead of putting yourself down? It should be one of your top priorities to create your 24/7 teammate. The person that can snap you out of a funk at any moment.
But how do you do that?
Redefine success
‘Success’ to me used to mean perfection — making all the right plays and all the right shots.
Anytime I was late to pass the ball, missed a shot or made any kind of mistake → an onslaught of self-depreciating thoughts and feelings came over me.
I started to tell myself that a ‘good game’ would be one where I my thoughts were positive. A ‘good game’ was one where I was as nice to myself as I am to my teammates — regardless of my performance.
It’s night and day what you’re capable of when you change your mindset. By redefining success, you release the pressure to be perfect. There’s no more negativity toward yourself. You uplift yourself. If you don’t, nobody will.
Catch yourself in moments of negativity and change your tone.
Become a friend to yourself. What would you say to your teammate in that moment? Would you be hitting them with a barrage of insults? Or would you put your arm around them and lift their spirits?
It’s pretty clear what the more helpful approach is.
Change what success means to you in your everyday life.
Shed that old snake-skin criteria of perfection and adopt a new criteria that calls for positivity and education.
Example
Your goal is to be punctual, but you arrive late.
The old you would’ve beat yourself up, labelled yourself as incapable of being on time and had your day ruined.
The new you reflects on the situation, finds the reasons why you were late, and encourages yourself to address those changes next time.
Don’t kick yourself while you’re down. Pick yourself up.
Ditch the old teammate in there who told you you weren’t good enough — we don’t need those kinds of people on our team.
Be the teammate in your mind who’s available 24/7 to give you some positive reinforcement, to encourage you and be your biggest supporter.
Thank you for reading.
I’m just sharing my lessons learned while building my Mental Fortress. My impenetrable and stable mind.
If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise it.
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