From The Mental Athlete by Kay Porter
Just as you keep track of your physical training and conditioning, so should you keep track of your mental training. You have thought processes that benefit and support you in a multitude of ways, and you also have beliefs and habits that tend to limit you. Most of the time you are not aware of what these are or of how they help or hinder you.
Keeping a written log to monitor and analyze your thoughts and responses to competition helps you become more aware of your mental process. As you progress, you will eventually have more control over your patterns of thought and your beliefs, and therefore more control over your performance.
A mental training log is a diary that you write in after each significant workout, event, or competition. It is a written account of your emotional and intellectual process as you warm up, perform, and conclude your physical activity. It contains your inner thoughts and pictures, your fears, and your emotional strengths. Your mental training log tells the story of how you as an athlete, and ultimately a person, think, react, process, and support your physical performance and competence. Your log is also a place to write down all the anger, frustration, and negativity you might feel after a poor performance. You can use the log as a starting point for a new attitude, a way of letting go of your frustration, self-doubt, and blame so that you can start building a more positive and confident mental attitude. Your mental training log will help you use your performance as a learning experience - your first step toward excellence.
Here’s an example of how it works. You are a figure skater entering your first competition of the year. You are not too sure of the ice or the judges, and you have not competed since last winter. You also know that last year’s state champion is competing just after you. You stand at the edge, waiting to hear your name, waiting to step onto the ice. What is happening in your head? Are you breathing? Is your coach talking to you, giving you some last-minute instructions? Do you hear the words? How do they make you feel?
As you step down and begin to glide across the ice, how does your body feel in general? Are you relaxed and smooth, or are you tense and stiff? What is your reaction to your physical state of being? If you fall, what do you say to yourself? If you do your triple Axel perfectly, what is your inner voice saying? While you are competing, focus on your performance. When you finish, become aware as much as possible of the inner words, concepts, and feelings that guided you to do well or to do less than your best.
Within 24 hours, write down this mental awareness in a mental training log. Write it down fully, from beginning to end, good and bad. Be as clear and honest as you can, noting as many internal words and beliefs as you remember. You may remember that when you stepped onto the ice you were thinking, Well, here we go . . . let’s have fun . . . you know you’re ready. You may remember that when you saw the state champion standing at the edge just as you went into the approach of your final jump, a little voice said, “I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough to beat her,” or maybe, “Boy, I have been right on this whole routine; she will have to work hard to beat me.” When you think you have written down everything you can remember, read it over once, noticing the positive things and the negative things. Remember what you were doing when you were being positive and let go of the negative things for the time being.
Continue to keep a log for at least three or four weeks during training for a certain competition. At the end of this period, go back to the beginning of the log and read through your mental process for those weeks. Do you notice any patterns? Ask yourself the following questions:
• What were the positive thoughts and feelings I had and what did they do for me?
• What were the negative thoughts, beliefs, and feelings I had and how did they hinder me?
• Did I overcome these negative thoughts? If so, how?
Begin to analyze each performance, each entry, for similarities, differences, strengths, and weaknesses. Find out what you do in your mind that helps you perform at your peak. Become aware of the mental and emotional beliefs, reactions, and words that limit your performance. Become aware of the times you feel the most powerful and the times you feel powerless, frustrated, and out of control. Note any patterns that appear in this three- or four-week log.
It is from the entries in your log that you will form your goals and find the places you most need affirmations and visualizations to assist you in performing at your peak. The patterns you see are important in the creation of your working goals for the short, intermediate, and long term.
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