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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Blitzing Bad Memories

by: Bob Palmer
Peak Performance Coach
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Athletes require very selective short term memories in order to discard the negative feelings they get from mistakes or the stress of playing.  As coaches, because we are working with such malleable athletic minds, we need to assist with this process, not reinforce the negative.  Focusing on an athlete’s mistake—with ample doses of anger, frustration, dismissive-ness or sarcasm—creates athletes who are overly careful and fearful of making future mistakes. In football, as in most other sports, it is not the turnover that defeats you, it is the lack of mental recovery from the turnover that does.    

In the previous two articles, I described what you need to look like in your powerful leadership role, and how your powerful Zone FEEL indicates you have accepted that responsibility.   It feels great for you AND great for your athletes.  They slip right “in lock step” with your good feelings, which keeps them in the Zone and prevents them from dwelling on or being immobilized by the stress of the game.

Here is an example of how this works:  your quarterback throws an interception.  He slinks off the field and displays the prerequisite HANG DOG posture for the benefit of himself, the fans and you.  But instead of shoving the hang dog posture right back in his face, you and your coaching staff are beaming.  You are acting as though the mistake never happened.  You seem ten feet tall and glowing.  (Note: you can do this because the mistake is meaningless.  You KNOW the big picture and understand team goals that this kid can’t even imagine yet.  You KNOW he will be the starting quarterback by mid-season because you see his talent.  You KNOW that turnovers are a normal part of the game.  You KNOW that your team is going to have a very successful season.  Your physiology displays this KNOWLEDGE for the quarterback as well as every player on the team.)

So the quarterback feels something that he has never felt before.  He has just made a BIG mistake—turned over the ball—which perhaps will result in a loss.  Yet he gets these incredibly good vibes from his coaches.  Unconsciously he begins to think that he didn’t make a mistake.  He feels good and his awareness of the mistake changes.  He loses the panicky feeling he’d had when the blitz came rushing at him and suddenly he knows how he might handle the rush differently next time.  He fills empowered and wants to get back out on the field.  The hang dog posture evaporates and he screams for the defensive players to get HIS football back.   

When coaches display Zone Coaching, they wire into their athletes the ability to forget the negative feelings of mistakes, instantly.  It is hard to dwell on a mistake when you feel good.  As a matter of fact it is impossible.  But this process starts with you, the coach.  As coach, you have to learn to fix the negative emotional baggage from YOUR past memories, or the ebb and flow of the game will simply push your buttons and make it impossible to maintain the Zone.   Since YOUR coaches weren’t so good at it, you will have to do a better job or risk having negative memories surface and bite you during the big game. 

There is a very simple strategy to resolve these difficult memories and its called Anchoring.  Anchoring is a natural process that helps us thrive.  Through it, our brain associates pleasure or pain with external triggers.  Remember Pavlov and how he anchored a ringing bell to the presence of food.  Later, the dogs salivated when the bell was rung and no food was present.    
Well it happens to us as well.  We don’t salivate when our pass receiver flubs an easy one, but it certainly triggers a gut-wrenching response.  And we don’t salivate when our quarterback fumbles the ball on the opponent’s one yard line, but the official’s pointed arm can trigger the F-word.  This process happens instantly and, before we can catch ourselves, we swear, slump our shoulders or gesture with our arms.  There is no catching it; there is no telling ourselves to be positive; there is no repeating positive affirmations.  We act just like Pavlov’s dogs and the damage has been done to the emotional well-being of our team. 

But we can fight back by turning this anchoring process back on itself.  It works like this: imagine you have two ipods, one playing a song that conjures up a very happy memory of a party and the other playing a song that conjures up the sad memory of a funeral.   You have two completely different emotional memories associated with each song, one that makes you grin and the other cry.   Now imagine both ipods playing at the same time, one in each ear.  You hear both songs, with both emotions being triggered simultaneously.  What is the result?  Confusion, yes, but what then?  Will the unhappy memory win out or will the sad one?  Will you grin or cry?  Experience suggests that the happy memory generally overcomes the unhappy one.  Follow the instructions(included below) and test it for yourself. 

Therapists all over the world use this strategy to resolve extreme memories such as the post-traumatic trauma of car wrecks, child abuse and battle fatigue.  So, fixing the memory of the fumble that cost you the championship should be a piece of cake.  It will help you to take your leadership to the next level and ensure that you stay in the Zone.

By applying the Anchoring Strategy, you have the opportunity to resolve all those past experiences.  Behaviors such as slumping your shoulders after a fumble, swearing at a tight-end’s mental lapses and wildly gesturing your disbelief at an official’s blunder will be a thing of the past.  You now will have the ability to positively overwhelm any negative memory.  The Anchoring Strategy will keep you a Zone Coach for the whole game, through success and failure, win or lose.  And with it, you will start the process of creating Zone Athletes who forget the negative past and thrive in the NOW!

 

 

SPORTEXCEL PEAK PERFORMANCE ZONE
www.sportexcel.ca
877.967-5747 – bpalmer@sportexcel.ca

ANCHORING STRATEGY

 

Anchoring Strategy

Purpose:  To model (copy) yourself when you were in the Zone and apply the wonderful Zone feelings (and personal resources) of these situations to other negative UnZone experiences

Exercise:

1.  Emotionally relive and then anchor the memory of an UnZone experience such as a loss, an embarrassing situation or an injury, by lightly pressing the thumb and index finger of the LEFT hand together (six seconds) at the strongest point of the memory.  This is captures the problem and is the Problem Anchor.

 

2.  Emotionally relive and then anchor the memory of a Zone experience in the same way with the RIGHT hand, by lightly pressing the thumb and index finger together at the strongest point of the memory.  Do this two more times with two more Zone  experiences.  This is the Zone Anchor, and using the three experiences ensures success.  


3.  Pinch both the Problem Anchor and the Zone Anchor at the same time (ten seconds or more).

 

4.  The test.  Think of a time in the near future when you might experience this type of UnZone situation again and notice how it will be different. 

5.  Redo the exercise until you can think through the difficult situation with strength and power.

 

Possible application:

To resolve frustration, anger, stress, etc. in order to remain in the Zone To fix negative emotions the continue to pop up regarding past events

 






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