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’ :)
