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“But what if you fail? You probably will – after all, you know they’re better than you. Why not just give up now and save yourself the pain that comes with failure? Come on, the few times you were successful were flukes, and any chance of future success is slim. Just admit it, you probably -”
“Hey, shut up, stupid.”
It had to be done. I had to stand up to the voice of doubt and negativity that was speaking at me with such venom.
But this voice wasn’t coming from another person – the above is an example of dialogue I had with myself right before stepping onto the mats for a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition.
It turns out I can be both my own greatest enemy and my most loyal supporter – it just depends on how I talk to myself.
What is Self-Talk?
Essentially, self-talk consists of the words or phrases that you say to yourself.
These can be positive or negative, are dynamic in nature, and are usually used for either instruction or motivation purposes.
Instructional Self-Talk
Instructional self-talk consists of words and phrases that individuals use to improve their general performance in a given activity.
This type of self-talk is used in skill development and skill execution, as well as for reviewing strategy.
A popular element of instructional self-talk is the use of cue words. These select few words are intended to shape behavior and serve as technical or strategic reminders for athletes in training and in competition.
For example, someone shooting a free-throw in basketball may say “bent knees, straight elbow” before each shot. As the athlete progresses and his or her skills evolve, cue words will change to accommodate the athlete’s needs.
That being said, instructional self-talk must be individualized to the athlete in order for it to be effective at improving performance.
Motivational self-talk
Motivation is complicated, and this type of self-talk requires more than just telling yourself, “come on, you got this!”.
Motivational self-talk serves three main purposes:
1. Mastery: the focus, confidence, and mental preparation to deal with the upcoming task, situation, or environment.
2. Arousal: finding the ideal state between being relaxed and being excited or stimulated.
3. Drive: increasing effort, resilience.
Arousal turns out to be one of the more important elements of psychological preparation before athletic competition. Being over-aroused or under-aroused often results in choking – or an uncharacteristic performance due to a person being too relaxed or too stimulated.
Research on mixed martial arts fighters (Jensen et al., 2013) suggested that an athlete’s ability to find the ideal state of arousal before competition may be as important as one’s technical and tactical abilities.
How to Talk to Yourself
Six dimensions of self-talk have been identified, and these are to be used to create the ideal self-talk intervention program for athletes.
1. Valence refers to whether self-talk is positive or negative. As expected, positive self-talk has been shown to lead to improved performance, whereas negative self-talk has not.
2. Overt or covert – is your self-talk completely private (covert), or do you share some of your goals and motivations with others (overt)? Research has shown that there may be some benefit to using overt self-talk, but a mixture of both overt and covert is ideal for most athletes.
3. Self-determined self-talk is more effective compared to assigned self-talk. It is important for athletes to create their own cue words and phrases in order to maximize the use of self-talk to improve performance.
4. Directional interpretation – is self-talk motivating or demotivating?
5. Directional intensity – is the self- talk, whether it be motivating or demotivating, strong or weak? For example, is the self-talk very motivating or not motivating at all?
6. Frequency – how often is the athlete using self-talk?
Speak Kindly to Yourself
Besides practicing self-talk regularly, it is important for athletes to acknowledge the real nature of self-talk – sometimes the negative voice grabs the microphone and takes over, and you need to know how to deal with this inevitability.
When negative statements enter the mind, an athlete can try to immediately replace the negative thought with a positive one.
I compare this to taking the microphone away from the negative voice, silencing the doubt by replacing it with positivity.
Likewise, an athlete can choose to counter the negative self-talk with an argument.
I compare this to getting a second microphone and using logic and thought, instead of emotion, to silence the negativity with a counterargument.
Talking to yourself can be helpful or harmful.
Speak kindly to yourself and you will find yourself in a better mental space, and with better performance in your given sport or activity.
“The more man meditates on good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large” – Confucious.
References
Jensen, P., Roman, J., Shaft, B., & Wrisberg, C. (2013). In the cage: MMA fighters’ experience of competition. The Sport Psychologist, 27 , 1–12.
Sport and Exercise Psychology: A Canadian Perspective, 3rd edition (2016). Edited by Peter Crocker, Toronto: Pearson.
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