Thinking is the enemy of performance.

Thinking is important in practice, and in analyzing your motions, movements, strategy, and execution…AFTER competition.

But ideally, NONE of those happen WHILE you’re competing.

When you’re playing your best…it’s just happening.

Here’s a REALLY hard thing for a lot of athletes to get their head around….but it’s the truth.

The greatest performers in the world are able to excel at crunch time NOT because they’re able to focus, and concentrate better than their competitors…

But because they’re able to let go, relax, and

NOT THINK

..better than the other guy.

In short, you can’t think fast enough to allow your body to react to your thoughts.

To achieve flow…the zone…you need to get your mind out of the way, so your body can do what it knows to do.

There’s ONE optimal state for your best performance, and it’s:

• Calm

• Relaxed

• Not thinking.

So how can we create that state, where your best performance just flows out of you…where over-thinking (or even thinking at all) is NOT a part of your game?

If you’ve read the autonomic stuff from our breathing article…about how your body and mind can’t be out of sync…the same is true with the busy-ness of your mind.  If your mind is racing, it’ll set off that same stress response in your body, accelerating your heart rate, and breathing, increasing muscle tension….and your performance will suffer.

So how do you practice NOT thinking? 

Here’s a tip, that will get you moving in that direction.  (and I know it’ll sound a little repetitive, and a little too easy)…

Instead of trying to focus thoughts OUT of your mind (which will only make them come into your head louder and faster), practice focusing on JUST ONE THING.

Your BREATH.

Right now, for 20 seconds, just pay attention to your breathing.  Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.  Notice the sound that your breath makes.  Notice the way your body moves as you breathe.  Notice the pace.

I’ll set a timer for you, so you don’t have to think about how much time is left.  Just practice until you hear the bell.

Notice how you didn’t get as distracted because you were focused on the one thing…or get bombarded by a bunch of other thoughts??  You’re on your way.

The longer you can go just focusing on that one thing the closer to the zone you get.

But here’s the trick:

Your brain is a thought producing machine..

For roughly 16 hours a day, your brain is consciously creating thoughts.

It doesn’t always work at the same speed though.  Do you notice how when you’re competing, or having a discussion with a friend how your mind seems to be operating quickly, and how as you wind down for sleep, at the end of the day, that it feels a little different.

and how if your mind is occupied at bedtime, that it’s hard to go to sleep

Your brain has 4 basic speeds, or frequencies of operation, and 1 of those is closely associated with:

• The zone

• High performance

• Flow

• Focus.

Would it surprise you to know that it’s NOT the ones where your brain waves are operating at their fastest?

The performance brain speed (or brainwave frequency) is called ALPHA.

You are experiencing the alpha state when you allow your mind to drift or float. You might feel yourself “zoning out” when watching television, sitting in a class, at a lecture…occasionally when you’re driving…and always when you’re totally in the moment of competing.

…and you were operating at that speed for 20 seconds about a minute ago.

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

….or try it out free

They have a special way that they’re taught to breathe.  We’ll teach you here, so in your next stressful situation (which hopefully doesn’t involve gunplay), you’ll get it together.

First, though…hang with us for some science.

You probably learned in 5th grade that each time you inhale, you take in oxygen, and each time you exhale, you expel carbon dioxode…

Without returning to science class…in addition to Carbon dioxide, when you exhale, you’re removing other toxins that your cells produce when they convert oxygen to energy.

The ONE most important muscle for performance

Your diaphragm is a sheet-like muscle that separates your lungs from your lower abdomen.  It facilitates your breathing by contracting, and relaxing as you breathe in and out.

When you’re inhaling, your diaphragm is contracting, creating a vacuum in your chest, and when you exhale completely, your DX relaxes.

WHO CARES?? I want to play better, not be a doctor….

Your diaphragm is tied to your entire central nervous system.  AS your diaphragm relaxes,…and relaxes completely (Like it does when you SIGH) signals are sent throughout the entire body to relax.

If you’ve ever watched a newborn baby or a dog breathe when they’re sleeping….you’ve seen a body breathing through the diaphragm.

It’s the way that we were MEANT to breathe.

But, as we age, become more sedentary, more anxious and stressed, even wear constricting clothing, we LEARN to breathe with our chests, not our diaphragm.

Breathing only through the chest sets off a chain reaction of negative physiological effects throughout our bodies.

Chest breathing is often shallow, and rapid.  As insufficient amounts of air reach your lungs, your blood cannot be properly oxygenated, and your heart rate, and muscle tension increase, and your body’s stress response is turned on.

…Probably right about the time that you step to the free throw line, or line up that PK.

Not the best time to be increasing tension and stress, eh??

The good news is that by simply learning to take control of your breathing…you can reverse these processes quickly.

Do This.

First, you should determine which way you are currently breathing, through your chest, or with your diaphragm.

Try to consciously breathe deeply through your chest for a few breaths…and notice how your body moves as you do.  For most chest breathers, their chest will fill, and their shoulders will rise, and at the END of the breath…the stomach will fill up with air.

Once you’ve seen yourself do that a few times…just reverse it!  Fill up your abdomen first, (like you’re extending your belly to look fat) and let your chest and shoulders rise at the END of the breath.  You’ll feel a different sensation as you let that breath out.

Now that you’ve felt your diaphragm, let’s kick it up to Special Forces level.

They’ve got the diaphragm thing down, but they also do one more thing.  They call it tactical breathing. It’s similar to what we cover in the ‘amazing insiders secret’ article…and it not only slows down your heart rate, but re-orients all of your bodies systems to their natural state.

Here’s the trick.

Count.

• Breathe in to a count of 4.

• Hold your breath for a count of 4.

• Release your breath for a count of 4.

• Hold for a count of 4.

• Repeat 4-7 times (your results may vary)

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

….or try it out free

Ready!!??

You’ve always had it.

It’s totally natural.

You kinda can’t stop yourself from doing it.

You’re doing it right now.

That’s right.
Breathing.


Don’t believe me…believe Dr. Fran Pirozzolo, who’s worked with the Yankees, TX Rangers, numerous PGA Tour Players and two US Presidents preparing for debates.  I’m  quoting another interview here where Dr Pirozzolo was speaking of Sam Snead (with whom he wrote a book), and Byron Nelson:

“I later found out that many legendary athletes had a technique that I didn’t think at the time was particularly sexy.

They said, “Well, I focused on my breathing.” And I thought, “Well, no, I really need you to tell me what sexy thing – what’s the real secret to great performance under pressure,” and both of them told me, “Well, I focused on my breathing. I tried to slow my heart rate down.”

And even as a neuroscientist I didn’t wanna hear that. I wanted to hear that there was some special technique – there was some special thing that they were doing. But, no, they were just slowing their heart rates down, focusing on the moment through focusing on their breathing.

Without getting too scientific about it, your mind can’t be stressed when your body is relaxed, and your body can’t be tense when your mind is at ease.

..and breathing (correctly) can really impact your level of stress.  Fast.

Here’s a best practice:  Breathe in through you nose, and exhale through your mouth…taking twice as long to exhale as inhale.  Also, breathe with your diaphragm, not your chest.  You’ll know that you’re doing it right if your belly extends when you take a breath in.

About the Author: Bob Kinnison is the founder at Athletes Audio.  He’s no scientist, so he asked the resident brainiacs to tell him what the textbooks say.

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If the 3 minutes it took to read this article was helpful…

Get 8 MORE HOURS of training today.

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

Check out a couple samples:

Warm Up	Planning your Mental Training

Click here, and get going!

$25

….or try it out free

Winning is in your Head. We put it in your Headphones.

---

800-1400 words per minute to ourselves

..and that those words are tools, just like the weights we lift, the sleds we block, and the balls we hit.  His money quote is:

I don’t know if positive thinking works, but I know that negative thinking always does

Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes PERMANENT.  If you practice (or say) non-ideal things, even in your mind, you’re going to get really good at doing those non-ideal things!

To play your best, and be in the zone more often…where your best performance just seems to flow out of you without you thinking…you have to practice making great performance automatic.

Here’s how:

Over-simplifying the idea a little…thoughts, at their most basic level, are tiny electrical impulses, and those impulses flow between cells in your brain that don’t actually touch each other.

The longer, and more often that you do something, the closer the brain cells that produce that movement, thought, response, or action, grow towards each other…making the electrical impulse easier, more predictable, and faster. This is how habits are made, and how things become automatic.

As an example, you most likely learned how to hold a pencil and write your name when you were 5 or 6, and you’ve done that a LOT since then…so you don’t even have to think about it…and it’s a natural motion… Automatic.

Were you to try to write your name with the opposite hand to the one that you usually use, it’d be clumsy, difficult, take longer, and it’d be tough to read.

But….if you wrote your name with the hand you don’t normally use 50X a day for about two months, you’d be surprised at how easy, natural, fluid, and comfortable it’d become.

Your brain is literally hard-wired to make it easier to do the things that you do the most.  Automatic.

Automaticity frees up space that your brain can use for other things.

So, tell me how that applies to my inner dialogue!!?

There’s good news, and bad news about that automatic thinking.

The good news is that Your mind doesn’t organically place any value on any of your thoughts…it weights them by VOLUME.  That is…the things that you say to yourself most often, or with the most intensity get more likely..

The more often that you place these thoughts, and images into your mind, the closer those brain cells grow together, and the better, and more efficient your mind gets at producing that condition.

Just like practicing the technical elements of your game, you get better by REPETITION.

So, stack the deck in your favor!

Spend a few moments every day filling your mind with the kind of messages that will help your performance!

Picture in your mind when you were playing your best.

Since THAT’s the condition that we want to replicate, THAT’s the part to remember, and to reflect on, and to be practicing.

A positive outlook is essential to all top performance, and it’s not difficult to create, maintain, and build upon.  Positivity doesn’t make you a Pollyanna…it just makes you better, and it makes your sport and your life more enjoyable.

The bad news

…is that you’ve probably got a LOT of practice talking to yourself about things you can’t do…or don’t think you’re good at….or telling yourself in some way that you’re inferior…

Stop. Now.

Think of it this way… whatever thoughts, actions, or attitudes that you’re repeating…you’re feeding.

Feed the positive. Starve the negative, and you could unlock entirely new levels of performance.

About the Author: Bob Kinnison is the founder at Athletes Audio.  He’s no scientist, so he asked the resident brainiacs to tell him what the textbooks say. 

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

….or try it out free

Sport Psychologist Dana Blackmer, who works with injured athletes recovering from ACL, MCL, meniscus, knee, ankle, shoulder…really anything…refers to the ‘gate control’ theory of pain in his awesome series on healing from injury

Here’s the condensed version of the idea.

If you notice that you’re feeling cold…thinking negatively about the cold; like saying to yourself,

“Damn, I hate practicing in the cold”

“It’s F!@#$ing freezing.”

“Wow, I can’t feel my toes”

“I hope I don’t get frostbite”

…actually PHYSCALLY lowers your body temperature and makes you colder.

Your mind has that kind of influence on your body.

If you can place different thoughts into your mind, like, say, thinking about a sunny beach, or a warm bath, or any positive thought, you WILL keep yourself physically warmer.

Same is true for pain.

You FEEL more pain when you TELL YOURSELF it hurts.

It’s called the gate control theory of pain because your mind is like a gate that opens or closes, letting more or less pain in.

Here are some things that open the ‘gate’, leading to more pain (or cold, or heat)

• Negative Thoughts
• Anxiety
• Fear
• Depression
• Memory of pain
• Stress

…and some things that close the gate, leading to less pain

• Endorphins

• Relaxation techniques

• Meditation

• Euphoria (like watching an inspiring movie, or laughing hysterically)

• Aerobic exercise

Anything that relaxes the limbic system (which is your body’s fight or flight response) will help you manage your pain.

Like this.  I’m actually using it while I write this post!

The communication that’s going on between you and YOU is going to influence your performance and results either way, so get it working FOR you instead of against you.

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If the 3 minutes it took to read this article was helpful…

Get 8 MORE HOURS of training today.

Our app is stuffed full of exercises to help ‘close the gate’ (from above)

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

Check out a couple samples:

Warm Up	Planning your Mental Training

Click here, and get going!

$25

….or try it out free

Winning is in your Head. We put it in your Headphones.

---

Then…there are those other times. 

That is, when things aren’t going ideal, and you’re:

• Angry

• Frustrated

• Nervous

• Hyper-critical

• Making everything out to be a catastrophe

• Embarrassed,

• Pessimistic.

EVERY athlete experiences emotional responses when things are not going great.

How you deal with the adversity, emotion, and tension of those tough situations will have a great deal to do with how you perform.

There are two key skills to master to help you deal with those tough times, Thought Awareness, and Emotion Control.

Many Sports Psychologists feel that thought awareness is one of the key mental skills for peak performance…

Simply, if you don’t know that something’s going  on, you can’t do anything about it.

When you are aware of your thoughts, you can do something about them!

When you’re not aware of your thoughts, you feel out of control…helpless…and perhaps even victimized.  Those feelings set off a LOT of non-ideal emotional, and physical reactions.

Your body tenses, your heart rate increases, Increase in blood pressure, increase in adrenaline…Decreased blood flow to the extremities. your thoughts race

…and it’s physically impossible to perform when all of that is going on.

You’ve heard the pros talk say things like:

“I just tried to stay in the moment” OR “I didn’t get ahead of myself”

Both of those are related to the power of now.

The two most common thoughts that mess up athletes during the game are thoughts about the future, or thoughts about the past.

And they directly impact the two most common emotional responses….anger, and nervousness

Most of the situations in sport that cause non-ideal emotions come from some meaning of the word close.

• That is, the competition is close to starting
• The score is close
• Or
• The competition is close to ending, and I need to CLOSE it out strong.

In all of those situations, you’re thinking about the future  “I’ve never played here before…wonder what it’ll be like”  “I wonder if I’ve prepared enough”  “I want to win”….”Man, it’s tied, and the game’s almost over…hope I don’t mess up” you’re not the present…and there is only one reaction to future thoughts

NERVES.

Nerves produce errors in performance.  Players get too tight, or cautious, think too much, and don’t let their body do what it is best able to do.

Nervous performance is the opposite of the Zone in every way.

Then…errors produce thoughts about the past.

“I can’t believe I just did that”…

”That was a terrible shot”

“Coach has been on me about that”.

“Good players don’t make those mistakes”

Thoughts about the past produce ANGER.

All of this stuff is linked to physical responses that you can slow down by reading our articles on breathing, empty mind, and self talk will become exponentially useful.

***LINKS***

Here’s what to do:

Pay attention to your thoughts, and just notice anything that doesn’t sound like the ideal states that you’ve envisioned….anything that doesn’t sound, or feel like:

‘Fun’ ‘Calm’ ‘Relaxed’ ‘Optimistic’, or ‘Carefree’

The instant that you notice a thought, or feeling that’s not ideal, you’re ahead of the game.  You’re aware of your thoughts, and now you can do something about it. You’re on your way to turning it around….and taking control.

Once you have noticed one of these non-ideal emotions, there’s a 5-step process for re-creating your ideal competitive mindset.

1. Take a deep belly breath or two (just like we worked on in the Breathing
2. Tense and release a few key muscle groups…shoulders, arms, jaw
3. Picture yourself in an ideal state
4. Self talk affirmations (From the Ideal Self-Talk exercises)
5. The final step is Trying without caring

The more you care about the outcome…the performance, and the results, AND THINK ABOUT THAT the worse you’re going to play.

Think about the next shot.

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

….or try it out free

If nothing else, all of those negative beliefs and thoughts are using energy that you could be putting into your next shot.

The way that you think about your sport when you’re not practicing, and even the way that you think about the future, yourself, or your value as a person has a big impact.

With that in mind… I have three questions for you:

1. Do you tend to take things personally?

2. Do bad things ALWAYS seem to happen to you?

3. Is life hard, and do you figure it will always be?

You answers to these three questions ALONE indicate a lot.

So stop.  Answer them right now.

These answers have a remarkable impact on how you’ll react in pressure situations, how well you’ll perform, how hard you’ll work through adversity, and ultimately successful you’ll be.  It’s only three questions, but they’re a great predictor.

They’re measuring how you explain to yourself the things that happen in your life.

Because you can’t control many of the things that happen…but you can control the stories you tell about them…and it’s the stories that create stress, tension, anger, and anxiety.

So looking at the underlying beliefs that lead to the kind of stories that you tell can REALLY improve your game, and your life.

Without getting too technical, those who study psychology, the structure of the brain, and human performance call this explanatory style…as in,

the way that you explain your life and situations.

Back to the questions from above:

• Question 1: “Do you tend to take things personally?” is looking at your level of Me/Not Me thinking (Measuring Personalization)
• Question 2: “Do bad things ALWAYS seem to happen to you?” measures Always/Not Always thinking (Measuring Pervasiveness)
• Question 3: “Is life hard, and do you figure it will always be?” is looking at your approach to Everything/Not Everything (Measuring Permanence)

The scientists tell us that you’re either one or the other on each of the three questions.

“A ‘Me, Always, Everything’ person automatically, reflexively believes:

1. that he caused the problem (me)
2. that it is lasting and unchangeable (always)
3. that it will undermine all aspects of his life (everything).

…on the other hand

When problems arise, a “Not Me, Not Always, Not Everything person believes

1. that other people or circumstances caused the problem (not me)
2. that it is fleeting and changeable (not always)
3. that it will not affect much of his life (not everything).”

The effect of your explanatory style not just on your resiliency but on your whole life cannot be overstated. Those with a pessimistic, “Me, Always, Everything” explanatory style are more prone to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and freezing in the face of setbacks. As an athlete…think choking.

Those with an optimistic, Not Me, Not Always, Not Everything style, on the other hand, experience improved health and happiness and significantly more success in the workplace, at school, and on the playing field.

So the bad news is that having a pessimistic explanatory style can have a big negative impact on your game and your life.

The good news is that you can change your explanatory style for the better.

And it’s as easy as ABC. How we encounter and react to life’s setbacks can be broken down like this:

A: Adversity. We face a setback or challenge.

B: Beliefs. Our thoughts, feelings, and interpretation of the setback. These beliefs lead to:

C: Consequences. How we act because of our beliefs about the setback.

So we can’t change the A. But we can change the B, which will lead to a new C.

It’s not adversity itself that creates our reactions, but our beliefs about our adversity. If your beliefs have been leading to negative responses that are dragging you down, you have to short circuit this reaction by changing your beliefs about challenges.

See…there’s good news.  With practice, just like your technical skills, or strength training, you can improve.  (and even believing THAT is a key to performing better.)  Just because you have certain beliefs, even if you have held them for as long as you can remember, that doesn’t make them true.

So how do you practice Not Me / Not Always / Not Everything thinking?

Here’s a cheat sheet to use that’s offered by Dr Martin Seligman, thought to be the father of positive psychology.  He recommends judging your beliefs on 4 criteria when you find yourself thinking negatively.

1. Evidence. What are the real facts in the situation? Does the evidence support your belief or vanquish it?

2. Alternatives: Pessimists have a tendency to latch onto the most dire of explanations for a bad event, ignoring more positive alternate explanations.

1. Implications. When faced with a setback, pessimists have a tendency to jump to more and more catastrophic implications. But what are the chances of these implications really happening?
2. Usefulness. Just because a belief is true, doesn’t mean it’s useful. Clinging to useless beliefs keeps you from working on the things that you actually can change about yourself.

A hint…any self-statement that starts with ‘I can’t’, ‘I never…’, or a negative statement that starts with ‘I always…’ are clues that you have an underlying belief that you might want to look at

Athlete’s Audio is a web app for iOS and Android that helps elite athletes get their mind right. Our app gives you a proven system for training and mastering visualization for sports. Using our app could be the difference between choking and championships.

….or try it out free