One of my greatest joys is watching my daughter swim. Whether it be free style, backstroke, butterfly (don’t know how anyone does butterfly, really), or breast stroke, Sarah loves to be in the water competing, and her inner ‘coach’ (that ever so important voice in her grey matter filling her with confidence) seems to have taken on a life of its own. I watch her shaking out her hands to rid herself of any excess anxieties before getting up onto the starting block. Setting up in that swimmer’s stance with absolute focus and conviction, just waiting for the starting whistle to set her loose into the water… But this wasn’t always the case.
When Sarah first started (like anyone who has ever started anything), she had many doubts about how she would fare. Besides being rather good at freestyle, she had to learn her other strokes. Some of the swimmers were more seasoned. Although encouragement was mostly what she received from her teammates and coaches, those ‘emotional gremlins’ that cause us all self-doubt a firm hold in her mind. The loudest gremlin was…
“I’m too slow off the block!”
We had many conversations about it. At first, I tried to reassure her that ‘she wasn’t too slow’ (re-enforcing with negative words… nice); followed by explaining to her that many of the other competitors had been swimming for much longer (now, reinforcing that she was right to think she was too slow… not much better). I remember being sad and concerned for Sarah. Those gremlins were becoming louder, and I wanted to be more helpful for my ‘not so little’ girl. Usually when I start to turn on myself during my own sports performances I will read a bit from a book called “Mind Gym,” a great read from sports psychologist Gary Mack, who had worked the mental game with many college and professional sports organizations. I would flip through the pages and usually come up with a good suggestion for myself, or at least a ‘nugget of inspiration’ that would help me get up, dust myself off, and try whatever it was I was doing… again. I decided to do the same for Sarah, and ended up finding one of Gary’s oldies but goodies…
“One key to achieving success in sports is learning how to focus on the task and not let negative thoughts intrude. The mind can concentrate on only one thing at a time. So, rather than suppress what you don’t want to happen, you can focus on what you do want to happen.”
I would like to say that I came out with some ‘magical mental gem’ that solved all the problems in one glorious night, and Sarah went off to her next meet qualifying for the Junior Olympics! (That would be something, wouldn’t it?) Instead of focusing on what she was afraid of happening, we could come up with a sentence that would reinforce what she did want to see happen. We worked on many different words and sentences for weeks that might have her gremlins tire themselves out. None of it was working. Sarah would say she just couldn’t remember the positive words when she was filled with anxiety in the water. Her emotions were so big they were clouding her memory…
One night, on the way home from practice, Sarah was singing one of her favorite pop songs. She had a vast array of songs that she could sing to you on command. It struck me that I needed to think differently about the problem. The words didn’t carry the message for Sarah, but a song might. Music resonated so strongly with her. I realized that maybe, if her inner mental coach sang to her, she might be able to drown out (pun intended) those nasty little gremlins megaphoning in her mind. We came up with a song that we would sing together in the car on our way to practices or meets.
“Bullet off the block!… Now swim, now swim!… Quickly off the wall… Then sprint at the end!”
Whatever song this was, she knew the tune well (and after singing it so many times it’s fair to say I did too). Sarah found she couldn’t help but to have it be the predominant voice in her head. With this song filling all the spaces in her mind – crowding the gremlins to a mere whisper, she was able to focus on what she wanted to see happen for herself.
As I watched her take the block at her meet today, I saw her arms shaking off the excess anxiety, a bit of mumbling to herself, which I can only imagine was her giving herself some positive last-minute coaching. She stepped up onto the block, looking focused and determined. I would like to think that she still using her little song, but at this point, when I over-hear her positive self-talk/singing, I know she has virtually a symphony of self-confidence-building tunes to choose from. Me? I’m still singing “Bullet off the block” inside my head every time she hits the water. 🙂
