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)


















