Mind Matters

So, here I am blogging my first piece on Sport Psychology. Guess, having done it at other avenues, I was somehow waiting for the perfect topic or moment and it finally happened! Honestly, it’s so difficult to separate my life from psychology as ‘the mind’ is in demand every single minute of the day. So, what motivated me?

                Actually while reading a book ‘The Habit of Winning’, the initial chapter dealt with goals and vision, and how without ‘a goal’ we are like water in the ocean without direction, not knowing what we really want. So there I was pondering on my target of ‘100 surya namaskars’ and felt it was a goal to set firmly and work towards. Incidentally, this very morning I achieved it with ‘108’. This surely is not meant to be a blog on pompousness but to me this actually put into perspective a number of things pertaining to psychology and sport psychology. Let’s break it down one by one.

                Of course, I would have fainted or hurt myself if I had attempted this target the first day of practice. Any good athlete who has achieved sporting feats will know the value of Goals. One needs to have a vision- a dream goal, along with appropriate short and long-term goals, which are also achievable in their sporting career. Appropriate short-term and long-term goals are equally essential as they keep us on track. Every day feats need to be acknowledged and applauded as they take us closer to our Dream Goals.

                What I have seen from my work is that many top players in our country do not have a clear goal or at least is very short term; e.g., ‘I want to do well in Nationals’. What does ‘well’ mean?  Our vision will determine how much effort we put in, and it’s extremely important to have a clear Vision. Yeah, it’ll be tough but who said success comes easy!  Even the National Hockey team aimed at ‘Olympic Qualifiers during London Olympics’12. The way they played up to the qualifiers was like a team on a roll; sadly, the tempo dipped after they qualified and performance was surely nowhere good during the Olympics. So what happened? Could be a number of things...  I didn’t work with them after Qualifiers but I always wonder whether the team forgot to modify their vision, since the ‘qualifier target’ was already achieved?

                Also, remember having a discussion with a friend on the importance of ‘pushing self’. In fact, ‘Attitude’ is what makes all the difference. Be it Sport, Fitness, or any aspect of Life- we’ve all witnessed how we either push our limits or decide to back down by our ‘Thought’. For example, the minute I feel I can’t work out beyond 20 minutes today, that’s pretty much how much I end up doing as against a normal 1 hour workout. Bangalore’s current cold weather is not at all helpful to wake up or exercise, in order not to fall into complacency I keep a minimum target of 2 sets every day, and on days when my body is rigid I tell myself- ‘let’s take each set at a time’. Hence, daily goals are extremely essential as well. The day you  push yourself and say ‘yes’ to the challenge, you feel great and over a period of time this attitude is what makes a champion!

Now, how does one develop ‘good attitude’? Recall this dialogue whilst working with Men’s 400mt runners during Busan Asian Games; it was the fag end of the training and this athlete was practically throwing up due to intense workout. He comes to me and says, ‘100% nahi hota madam (can’t give 100%)’. All I could think of and say was ‘just finish this set’ which happened to be the last set. Thankfully, it worked and he finished the training and later said, ‘you were right, it’s not always about 100%’. At that point, it was more essential for him to completing the training, than leaving it unfinished. Subsequently, other aspects can be inculcated into the last and challenging hurdle too.

                The mind listens to what ‘call’ you take- so if you feel you can or can’t- it’s going to obey your decision. Hence, it’s crucial we learn to think of simple strategies that may work for us, especially on days when our motivation is not at its best! Like, Rahul Dravid says, ‘one ball at a time’ than getting bogged down with the target or task at hand!

                On similar lines, an athlete was discussing about how ‘extrinsic motivation drives one intrinsically’.  Extrinsic is external such as trophies, money etc and intrinsic is internal or self-motivation. If we come to think of it, I feel it works both ways. For example, if you are intrinsically motivated- you have a target and push yourself to achieve it for self. It also makes you feel good and you draw applause from others too- i.e., extrinsic. So, though motivated intrinsically it did have an extrinsic element to it. On the other hand, if receiving a trophy or appreciation was the extrinsic motivation- an athlete still pushes self and feels good about having achieved, so there is an intrinsic element to the extrinsic motivation. Coaches, trainers, parents and leaders can look into this aspect and see which type of motivation may work better for an individual, and employ that to bring out the best in the person.

The aim of the article was to provide a brief glimpse of how the mind works, shall be discussing other topics soon. For the time being, good luck in ‘setting targets and pushing self’ :)