Does positive thinking always work for you?
Jun 14, 2024 11:15 am
Hi ,
You've been told over and over to forget your last mistake.
To "just think positive."
To believe that you will win.
That you have to feel confident.
... How has that gone for you?
For most of my athletes, not well.
Yes, its great when you can do these things. Doing them does increase your ability to play well. The mind is quiet and the heart is pure and you are dialed in to what you are doing.
But this doesn't happen too often.
Most often, because you care about what you are doing, your mind will worry about what can go wrong.
And that is nomal and natural and healthy and necessary.
Early in my career I felt a bit like a fraud, trying to teach athletes to be positive under adverse circumstances when I couldn't do it!
I had certain thoughts and insecurities that haunted me for decades! How could i teach athletes to "be positive" when my experience told me that wasn't only going to work half the time!?!
Then I discovered Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT).
It answered all the doubts I had about what I learned in grad school and the skills built in ACT made so much more sense in a sport and performance context.
You can read more about ACT and how I use it to help high performers like you here:
If you are looking to make significant improvements in your performance and how this approach can help you, reply to this e-mail and ask about tele-health coaching options ...
... or if you prefer to be a bit more independent in your training, consider the Success Stories Community. The training inside develops each of the 6 key components for high performance described in the article.
Best wishes,
Dr Eddie
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Dr. Eddie O’Connor
