Self Talk Reminder

Self talk is our most important weapon because its our strongest and most consistent way to program our subconscious. You probably aren’t even aware how busy your internal dialogue is but its estimated that we say 50,000 words to ourselves daily. These words don’t just drift into thin air, they work to make up our subconscious picture of ourselves which then in turn affects how we perform and behave.

So what are you saying to yourself? For the next day try to be aware. You might even want to put a rubber band on your wrist (or wear your BAVS to BRICS wristband if you have one) to remind yourself to pay attention. Awareness is the first step to change.

Many people speak to themselves in a way they would never speak to someone else. And if someone else spoke to them that way, they would be deeply offended. So why do we beat ourselves up with negative language?

I don’t have the answer to the ‘why’ but I do know that if you are using derogatory language in your internal dialogue you MUST stop. It is not helpful or even possible to tell yourself you are bad player and then go out and play well. Its not helpful when you make a mistake to compound it with negative language.

But let me elaborate- this isn’t about living and playing with rose colored glasses on. You can acknowledge failure and mistakes, you just shouldn’t beat yourself up about them; you should never let them define you unless you want them to be repeated. Which is why I teach post-game critiquing vs. criticizing which you learned in MPT Advanced Core Curriculum and we’ll go into later again. But this should be known- there is a time and a place to analyze play and its definitely NOT while you are playing.