The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
Importance of Emotional Development
In competitive sports, our emotions need to be trained as much as our techniques. Why? Because being “clutch” at crunch time is all about confidence, and confidence is an emotional element. In life, research has shown that emotional skills are more important than the memorization of facts, more important than past experience, and even more important than I.Q. Champions understand that managing emotions opens the door to thinking on your feet.
Unsuccessful athletes often have a lack of emotional aptitude that limits their ability to adapt, to manage themselves, to manage their teammates or to manage their opponents and to control their athletic environment.
Stress is Often Nurtured
Jenny Constantine is a student of mine. She is a tall, lanky 15-year-old elegant athlete from San Diego. She has the appearance of a 1960’s hippie child but with a very short fuse.
Jenny’s dad, Pat, firmly believes that Jenny’s the best athlete in every event, yet is baffled and furious when she loses to less talented opponents most weekends. The ride home after Jenny’s losses resemble a prisoner transport vehicle with Jenny in the back seat getting an abusive interrogation. Pat doesn’t realize that these post-event tirades are just one of the causes of Jenny’s poor performances. (Not only does Jenny suffer the devastating loss on the court, she has to relive the trauma on the drive home from each event.)
Sadly, Pat’s unmet expectations have no basis in reality. These losses don’t stem from poor athleticism, they stem from her underdeveloped emotional aptitude. Jenny’s negative emotional state is a result of Pat’s pessimistic view of the world, which he has successfully nurtured into Jenny.
Pat’s an old school, college athlete. Basketball in fact. He was the kind of athlete that handled his negative emotions the old fashion way, by ignoring and suppressing them. Pat doesn’t call for any coaching assistance before Jenny’s sectional or national events. He believes that his division 3 college basketball experience is enough to successfully coach his daughter onto the WTA Pro Tour. Pat only contacts me during Jenny’s meltdowns.
A few weeks later at the Super National, Pat’s texts start rolling in as Jenny is mid-match and going down in flames. I texted back, “Obviously it’s too late to preset her protocols and to provide preventative medicine for this event, so let’s just meet for lunch when you get back. Try to enjoy the weekend and the fact that you have such a cool kid!”
A few days later our lunch meeting went like this:
Pat: Thanks for meeting, I’m about to give up. She doesn’t listen to me … She just chokes under pressure. Maybe she’s not cut out for this. She should just quit and be a normal kid.
Frank: Pat, I know you don’t believe in emotional training but what if your old belief system is wrong? What if there was a new approach? Is it possible that there’s another way to look at Jenny’s situation?
Pat: Look, if you have other options…you’ve got my attention. I love my little girl but watching her kick butt in practice sessions and then routinely meltdown in competition is too much for me to handle.
Frank: First of all, thanks for being open enough to hear another person’s point of view. What I’m going to explain to you is what I’m going to teach Jenny. Remember, this isn’t an overnight cure. Jenny’s been stumbling down the same negative pathway in competition for years. It’ll take time to re-route her programming. Does that make sense?
Pat: Yes… I’m all ears.
Frank: Negative emotions, like anger; don’t have to be seen as negative. These emotions are a call for a response. Jenny has preset a pessimistic protocol when angry. She chooses, and I mean chooses, to respond with a self-defeatist attitude. This may sound crazy but anger can have a positive call to action. Anger can start an upward spiral as the new call of duty. Positive verbal triggers might include: I’m not losing to her! Wake up! Let’s go! Right now! You see, we need to link a new response system to Jenny’s negative emotions.
Pat: Oh…I get it. So you’re saying that anger is kinda like fire. It can burn the house down or simply heat the home and help cook the meals… Right?
Frank: Exactly! Jenny has to be educated to acknowledge her feelings but then change her perception of the feelings. This changes her action plan from her pessimistic downward spiral to her new optimistic upward spiral of actions.
Pat: So her old emotional state doesn’t have to be her future emotional state? I’m embarrassed to say that she gets that from me and I got it from my old man. He was especially stern and very negative … impossible to please! When do we start to fix Jenny? I want to reset her training priorities and set new emotional protocols. Is there anything I can do to help prep her for these sessions?
Frank: Absolutely! Begin by asking her to jot down five positive memories of her overcoming anger, fear, and/or nervousness in competition. We’ll need to have her choose to systematically manage her competitive memories better. These are the resources needed to flip her pessimistic thought such as: “Here we go again, I always blow it.” “I’m going to choke another one away.” To new optimistic protocols such as: “I’ve done it before… I’m doing it again.” “I’m trusting myself and playing to win!” These memories are the emotional tools used by successful athletes. Have her bring her top 5 list next week.
Pat: Got it! Is there anything else I can do to help make this right?
Frank: Yes, apologize to Jenny. Own up to it. Explain to her your history with her grandfather. Realize that these solutions have deeper implications- you are stopping the abuse cycle. You’re not just helping Jenny, you’re helping your future grandkids by stopping this pessimistic cycle. Optimism leads to the growth, confidence and the happiness you seek.
Emotional aptitude is not just important for Jenny, it is an essential component to all aspiring high-performance athletes. How important is emotional aptitude in the heat of battle? In my research, I’ve estimated that approximately 80% of winnable competitions were lost for reasons related to emotional inadequacies. Examples include:
- Weakness in handling fear, pressure or stress.
- Failure to stay on script (Pre-set plays and patterns.)
- Powerlessness to control emotions and/or train of thought.
- Lack of personal leadership qualities in times of conflict.
- Inabilities to problem solve and adapt.
- Inability to call up the adrenaline at crunch time.
- Frailty in handling gamesmanship and intimidation.
If any of the above emotional inadequacies resonate with you, proper, customized action needs to be taken. Simply identifying the problem is not the solution, it is just the beginning.
