ASP Sports Science Blog
  • Home
    • ASP Sports Science Blog
    • Advanced Sports Performance
  • About Me
  • Gr8ness
    • Perform Gr8
    • Eat Gr8
    • Coach Gr8
    • Recover Gr8
    • Be Gr8

ASP Sports Science | Advanced Sports Performance Blog

RSS FeedMailTwitterFacebook
Nov 28 2013

How to silence the Inner Critic

Posted by Sean Van Staden
Tweet






ASP Sports Science - inner voice

Dwight Howard Frustrated – image ref: sportscipher.com

I have the privilege of being the strength and conditioning coach for a National Basketball League (NBL) team, just one of several teams to whom we offer high performance coaching.

Being so close to the players on the physical and emotional level, I can see the amount of noise and clutter athletes endure on a daily basis. Athletes are paid to perform, and not just perform, but to do their job properly or have the fear of sitting on the bench … or worse, having their contracts terminated.

 Players have to worry about the physical aspect day in and day out and are required to push their bodies to the limit during practice and then put their bodies on the line during games. Media plays a big role on players performing or cracking under the pressure because no matter how good you are, there are thousands of people judging your every move and then splashing your mishaps all across the social networks.

 If athletes manage to survive all of these, they still have to face the biggest critic of all the “inner voice”.

Your inner voice is brutally honest and at times very negative. It pushes you down, it highlights your faults and most of the time you feel that it seldom has anything nice to say.

If you are not sure about what I am talking about, the next time you are in competition and do you something wrong like score an own goal, miss a free throw or drop the ball a meter from the try- line, you won’t need to listen very carefully, because you will hear your inner voice, loud and clear.

 It expects better of you, it expects you to be perfect all the time and sometimes expects things from you that are unrealistic. The biggest critic of all comes from within and all external negative stimulus is firewood for the flames confirming that the inner critic was right.

So how do you tame the beast you have to face on a daily basis and how do you turn the beast into your friend? The first step is:

 Listen and acknowledge

The reason your inner voice is screaming at you is because you probably have not been listening. Your inner voice is trying to tell you something and it will keep bugging you until you acknowledge it and then do something about it.

An example would be a footballer whose primary job is to step up the play and cross the ball into a designated area so that the strikers know what to do with it. The midfielder meets the cross, but for some reason he misses the mark. His team-mates are frustrated and the coach is perhaps looking at replacing him. You can only imagine what this poor guy’s inner voice is telling him.

 The first part is to listen to the inner voice without taking criticism from yourself. Is the reason the athlete is not hitting the target because he has not practised enough and under pressure, or he just can’t seem to hit the mark, or is it the opposite and he has been practicing like Beckham and hitting his 1 000 crosses through a tyre every week?

If the athlete knows he can hit his mark, then he needs to make an adjustment or get advice from an outsider, like the technical coach, to pinpoint an area that needs attention.

On two occasions I saw from the bench that two players were not performing. I knew it was not their best because I had been training with them for months. They were hard on themselves during the game and each player was desperate to know why his shot was not going in.

During a time out and in the space of 15 seconds I walked up to these players and gave them the boost of confidence they needed to hear and gave them advice about what was wrong with their shot. Their games turned around instantly and one even got the MVP of the match.

As an athlete, your inner voice is critical to your development as a player, but you need first to listen, then analyse, what it is trying to tell you and acknowledge your inner voice by doing something positive about it.

Whether it is telling you to practice more or it is telling you something doesn’t feel right in the moment, whatever it is, you need not take it as a negative, but rather as a positive reinforcement that your inner self wants you to do well and wants you to be the best player you can be.




Be a Friend and Share:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Author Description

Sean Van Staden

Sean is a Sports Scientist & is the Sports Science Columnists for the Citizen Newspaper. He has been running his own business - Advanced Sports Performance for over 10 years. ASP specializes in High Performance coaching and training of young & professional athletes. Connect with him on twitter @SeanVStaden or on Google+

How something to say?

  • Google+
  • Facebook
  • Wordpress
Loading Facebook Comments ...

No comments yet.

You must log in to post a comment.

Advanced Sports Performance Sports Science Assessment

RECENT POSTS

  • Gain Mental Strength by practicing Mindfulness
  • The Truth behind Salt
  • Memoirs of being drug tested
  • SA Rugby, Could the answers to national success lie in It
  • Can drinking water before eating promote weight-loss? New Research…

Greatness Columns

  • Be Gr8
  • Coach Gr8
  • Eat Gr8
  • Perform Gr8
  • Recover Gr8
  • The SuperSaturday Citizen Blog
  • Uncategorized

Follow me

  • facebook
  • twitter

CATEGORIES

  • Be Gr8
  • Coach Gr8
  • Eat Gr8
  • Perform Gr8
  • Recover Gr8
  • The SuperSaturday Citizen Blog

Contact Me

Advanced Sports Performance
Johannesburg, South Africa, RSA
Phone: 087 150 1441
Fax: 086 552 8740
Email: info@advancedsp.co.za
blog.advancedsp.co.za -
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.