Beyond The Body

Where life, love, and passion come together to offer you mental training tips for athletes

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How to stay consistent

How to stay consistent

This week’s Sport Psych piece is about how to stay consistent over an entire season. This is definitely one of those issues that are easier said than done! When we look at all the potential highs and lows (emotionally, physically, and mentally) that impact an athlete throughout a season including outside unexpected contributing factors, trying to stay consistent seems like a daunting task!  While working with a team or individual athletes on this during preseason (or even before preseason) I like to break things up into three categories: goal setting, keeping things in perspective, and O.D.T. (one day at a time).

Goal Setting  itself can and will be an entire piece on its own, but it’s important to look at when talking about being consistent over an entire season. What happens when you set goals (long-term, short-term, and daily), preferably S.M.A.R.T.* goals, is it breaks up the season into more attainable pieces rather than one long grind. On the short and simple end of the spectrum, goal setting helps improve athletes' motivation and commitment, it helps them stay focused on what they want to accomplish, it helps them assess their strengths and weaknesses, as well as track their performance and improvement throughout the season. Following through with these things via the concept of goal setting can help to reduce the pressures and stressors that come about during the course of the season.

Keeping things in perspective is an important aspect when trying to stay consistent through the course of the season. When I work with an individual and I talk about keeping things in perspective we talk about what to expect throughout the season. I don’t talk about wins and losses here; instead we focus more on the highs and lows (again, emotionally, physically, and mentally). This is important to do because they have more control over those highs and lows than they do over wins and losses. For example, someone can give all they have and play the best game of their life, but still lose. In a sense the outcome (win, lose, or tie) is out of their control. On the other hand, how they think, feel, and act are all things that they CAN control. It is for this reason I focus on this area. The best thing to do here is to grasp the understanding that there will be highs and lows and look at what they possibly could be. Now, this may not make sense right away or to some it might just be a “duh” statement, but let me explain.  When we take time to think about how there will be these highs and lows and learn to expect them, we can adjust to them more easily as they come about and, as the saying goes, “take them in stride”. Just like most everything in sport psychology it is important to be vivid and specific. So, in this case I would talk with the athlete about what could be emotional highs and lows, physical highs and lows, and mental highs and lows. I do this so when they face these highs and lows they are, more or less, expecting them and can control how they react to those situations. Now, with that being said there are plenty of things that happen in life that are unexpected and you cannot predict (injuries, weather, family emergencies, etc.) but the hope is that as you are mentally preparing for the potential highs and lows that go along with a season you are strengthening your ability to adjust and react to such things and that it translates to the unexpected.

One Day at a Time or O.D.T. is a something that I stress to athletes when we are looking at staying consistent over the course of a whole season. This piece fits in well with goal setting. Although it is important to set long-term and short-term goals and look ahead, to an extent, setting and working towards those daily goals are how you accomplish the others. “One step at a time”, “Live in the now”, “O.D.T.”, you can say it a million different ways, but it’s important to keep things in perspective and focus on controlling the controlables. Look at today as an opportunity to improve on even just one tiny thing, doing this will have that same effect of breaking up the long grind of the season into smaller more manageable parts. There will be some days that you make huge strides toward your goals and others that seem like you haven’t done anything. But if you try and look for something positive, no matter how small, it can go a long way for your confidence and help you stay focused on what is right in front of you as opposed to looking at the long road ahead and being overwhelmed.

  --“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time” –Abraham Lincoln

  *S.M.A.R.T. Goals – an acronym for setting goals. Specific, Measurable, Adaptable and attainable, Realistic, Time based (goal setting will be a separate piece)

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Co-Workers

Today’s piece is the first step I’ll be taking (through this blog) to show the incorporation of sport psychology in the business world. First I want to look at how well sport psychology translates into the business world and then we’ll get into this weeks’ business psych piece, entitled “co-workers”.

Far too often to people look at therapy as only a fix to a problem and not at all as a healthy part of life. This negative construct also finds its way into the psychology world and in turn sport psychology. Athletes can become tentative about working with a sport psychologist because they feel nothing is “wrong” with them and they don’t need to be fixed. Although a part of sport psychology can be directed towards performance issues (anxiety, negative self-talk, self-esteem, etc.), another part is geared towards preparation or what we call mental training. This mental training can be worked on to build up an individual’s mental toughness and endurance.  In sports it’s having this mental edge and being able to perform at a high level through difficult situations and also being self-motivated (motivation being an area all its own) to continuously be moving in the direction of your goals, that helps makes you successful. This concept also transfers into the business world extremely well.  Training your mind in motivation, positive self-talk, reducing anxiety, staying “in the zone”*, and many other aspects of sport psychology can help you to achieve your goals as a professional (and a person in everyday life, but that is a different blog!).

This week’s business psych piece is about co-workers. Those of you who have experienced the working world (be it full-time, part-time, seasonal, or any other time in between) have, in one way or another dealt with co-workers. One interesting way to look at your co-workers is to think about a sports team. No one can choose their teammates just as no one can choose their co-workers, yet you must find a harmonic balance amongst the group to be productive and achieve goals. The analogy I like to use with sports teams and business groups is the parts of a pocket watch. Imagine this immaculate, old fashion, beautiful pocket watch that looks great and runs even better! Think about what makes it run so well. It is all the gears, springs, pins, knobs etc., that work together in perfect harmony that keep the watch working as a dual threat, looking great and running even better. To branch off just a bit, the looking great part comes from the owner taking care of the watch. This idea of the owner translates into the coach of the team or the boss of the business. If the owner doesn’t clean and take care of the watch it will not look as great. So, the idea is that between the coach and players or the boss and the employees it is up to both to keep things looking great and running even better. Ok back to the inner workings of the watch. Every employee is a piece of that watch from the mail room to the upper management.* The watch can look at good as it possibly can, but If not all the pieces are working, it is nothing more than a display item.

So with that analogy set in place, how do you work together with your co-workers to be in that balance? Well one of the more important pieces to remember is to try and focus on controlling the controllables* (and this is where the mental training begins to come into the picture). In other words, controlling your thoughts, actions, and reactions to situations and to those around you. When you stop worrying about how others perceive you or if someone else's work is better or worse than yours, for example, you can spend that time better focused on your own work. Focusing on controlling these controllables, will help you be the best part of that watch as you can be.

Adding on to this concept we also know that one cannot just bury their head in their work without interacting with co-workers via projects or just day to day interaction. At some point in time, one way or another you are more than likely going to engage in some form of interaction. When this time comes, no matter what kind of person you are (introverted, extroverted, narcissistic, etc.) the most, and I mean the MOST, important thing to remember is to be open and honest. To quote John Maxwell, “everyone can communicate, but not everyone can CONNECT.” * Be someone who genuinely cares about their work and the people that work around you and express that to them in whatever way is appropriate for your work setting. Remember, you can be the best gear in the watch, but if you don’t work with the other pieces the watch will not run.

  --“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”–Steve Jobs

  -----A side note before we get into the footnotes. There are more aspects to these ideas, but with this blog I want to do two things: keep things short and simple (1) but also create dialog!!(2). Just to be aware the things that are talked about above are not the only things I think that can be looked at when dealing with co-workers and being a good co-worker in return.

  *In the zone – being in the zone is a perfect balance place between over aroused and under aroused. Where everything is clicking

*this is something I would do if I work with a team or business. I would have everyone or dept. tell me what part of the watch they would be any why. Then we talk about qualities and how they help the watch run and begin to put it together, etc.

*controllables – the things that you can control: actions, reaction, thoughts, words, attitude

*http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Communicates-Few-Connect-Differently/dp/1491522720 (A very good read.)

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Over Commitment

Thank you all for joining me for this the inaugural first piece. Before I begin I want to let you all know I will be laying out at least two works per week (more if time allows). Typically one will concentrate on the sporting world and the other on the business world. Thank you again for being a part of this journey. More often than not we hear, see, or even experience the overwhelming pressure of over commitment* in athletics (this can also be the case for many other activities including work, school etc.). And the saying that everyone has heard is, “”fill in the blank” is life!” Although the idea behind this concept can be positive, it is when this concept is taken to the extreme is when it can be detrimental.

Let’s take a moment and think about when you have heard or even said, “My sport is my life!” Was it just something you heard or said because of the passion for that sport or was it something more? Today’s piece is about, what I like to call, “over commitment”. Before I finished typing that last sentence I could sense that a vast majority of you are thinking, “Isn’t commitment a good thing?” or “You can’t be too committed!” Well, yes you can. Please don’t misunderstand me, for any individual at any level commitment is KEY in having sustained success. Going further, the level of commitment even changes, for example in college athletics and especially the pros. But, we must realize that to be a healthy well rounded individual, we need a balance in our lives. It is at this crossroads athletes can lose sight of other things around them, be it relationships, school, personal reflection time*, etc., and fall into a kind of tunnel vision and dive head first into this trap of over commitment.

I’ll give two examples: The first example is of a young baseball player with loads of talent and a very strong work ethic. He loved playing the game and had been playing ever since his tee-ball years. He was a good prospect as a junior in high school and had many opportunities to go off to college and play, but he ended up not playing his senior year and in turn not in college at all. This was a complete mystery to those that did not know him or more so his father. His father had played collegiately and very successfully, even making a minor league roster. What happened, you might be wondering? Let’s take a step back and look at a normal day for him starting from his eighth grade year through his junior year during baseball season. (I won’t go into extreme detail, but just to give you an idea) 6:00 a.m. – morning workout with personal trainer 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. – school 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – baseball practice 7:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m. – personal trainer baseball specific *game days replace practice and personal trainer *weekends are also consumed by one or both personal trainers and/or “dad training days” Now this may not seem too bad to the untrained eye, but let’s look and think about at a few things more in depth. I’ll ask some questions and you try and answer them. First, how early would he have to get up? When would he have to go to bed? When does he have time for….. homework, friends, relaxing, any kind of relationship? Answers: early, early, and NEVER! Take into account all of these factors and multiple it tenfold during summer baseball. (Including summer classes) Ok I could go on and on, but I think you all get the gist of where I am heading. This is a great example of how over commitment ultimately led to burnout* and him quitting the game all together. Now some of you might look at his schedule and think that you have to work hard if you want to get to the top. And I would agree with you, but not at the expense of having a balance in your life. To put this example into perspective, I asked him at the end of his senior year why he chose not to continue the game that he seemed to love so much. We talked about a few different things, but the one comment that stood out to me and brings it all back full circle is he lost his love for the game, it became a chore and he was not willing to put the time in anymore. It had completely consumed his life and he felt as though he was missing out on so much. This next example is very straight forward. I had a young man I coached in wrestling become a national qualifier in college after giving up on the sport after high school. He told me, after a practice, that I was the best coach he ever had. I was flattered and said thank you, but nothing more. I got home that night and had some personal reflection time and thought about why he had said that and all the reasons that let up to the comment. Although I had some ideas I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. So, the following day before practice I pulled him aside and I asked him just that. “What made you say that I was the best coach you have ever had?” He responded with, “Where I come from, everyone lives and breathes wrestling. That is all they understand and that is how they coach! But you are different. You love the sport, but you understand that we have other things going on in our lives and you respect that. You ask me about my life and help me with things outside of the wrestling room. It means a lot to me and I wanted to tell you.” I said thanks again and how much I appreciated his openness with a smile on my face, but I wanted to cry. I felt so much joy in my heart that I could help him see how important it is to have a well-balanced life. These two examples give you a good idea of the concept of over commitment and how when taken to the extreme can be detrimental, but when kept in perspective a healthy level of commitment and balance can lead to positivity and sustained success.

- “I value my work, but I don’t define myself by it. When I work, I do excellent work, and when I am home, I am immersed there.” – Rebecca Diaz-Bonilla

*over commitment – committing to something to an extreme level that over takes one’s life and leaves little to no room for other opportunities

*personal reflection time – time set aside to reflect on one’s life

*burnout - is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. Burnout negatively affects vitality, purpose, self-concept, and attitudes towards life and sport (Shaufeli, Maslach, Marek, 1993). Reference Flett, R. (n.d.). Understanding Burnout in Sport. Sport Medicine and Science Counsil of Saskatchewan.

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Intro to author

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to explore, with me, the psychological world of sports and of business. My hope for this blog is to give insight, create dialogue, and also to challenge you, my readers, to look at your own lives and ask that all important question, "Why do you do what you do?"

But before we get any more in depth about the blog itself I would like to introduce myself and give you all my background. As my handle says my name is Dom Vasquez. I am a North Dakota native where I pursued a teaching major and NDSU in my home town. Through out my college days and up to last year I spent ten years coaching. I coached K-12 on up to college and as high as D1. Most recently I spent a year abroad attaining a Masters in Sport Psychology and honing my skills in counselling, psychotherapy, and mental skills training. Currently I am back in the states working with a few universities helping athletes and coaches with anything from competition anxiety to personal issues away from athletics. Now just to make things completely clear I am NOT a psychologist. I am a sport psychology consultant (spc). I have extensive training in sport psychology in addition to coaching for ten years. I am also a compassionate and caring individual who speaks from his heart, with a good amount of life experience. With all of that being said, when I work with someone they are receiving quality sporting advice (also translating into the business world) or a helpful ear from a genuine individual (with psychotherapy and counselling training) who cares about what is in your heart. In those cases (not necessarily sport or business related) I tend to use an open Socratic dialogue to help guide whom ever I'm working with find their own path as opposed to me telling them what is wrong and how to fix it. By doing this, it empowers them to take control of their decisions and the direction they want their life to travel. 

That is more or less myself and my background. Now back to the hopes for this blog. I am looking to, as I stated before, help others by sharing my insight into problems and situations facing people everyday in both the sporting world and the business. I will be using some cases from my own experiences, from those I have worked with (completely anonymous and with permission) and ideas given to me by those in my community. I also hope to get feedback from all of you and create an open forum for discussion and to receive ideas of what to write about.  

With that I want to thank all of you again for taking the time to read and hopefully leave some feedback. I hope this can be a resource for you to expand your mind and your heart. I will leave you with a quote from a man I admire wholeheartedly,

"Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life." -Viktor Frankl