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DATEE With Destiny
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DATEE With Destiny 5/31/2015 Good afternoon everyone. With the recent rains here in Texas we have been having to cancel almost every sporting event at the youth level. For many athletes this can get frustrating because they are losing valuable competition time, practice time, and time to challenge themselves. The frustration is normal because the competitor inside of us all wants to compete. It is a matter of displacing this frustration and using it properly. Something that a sport psychologist will teach you is to check your emotions at every moment and stay focused on the 'now' moment. I am not going to get into the emotions wheell but I am going to talk about maintaining composure during competition. The blog title is as such because we all know destiny is the end destination. Many argue that there is no challenging, no deciding, or making your own destiny. The polar to that is that many people feel that you make your destimy in life by the choices that you make. We all have used the phrase 'I have a date with destiny'. I chose this title because it is true, we do have a date with destiny and we should utilize this date every time we take to the competition arena. It is vital to understand that your emotions, thought control, and reaction to the situation determine how you perform. In my previous article I briefly touched on how the tension can affect the muscles and lead to performance issues. Today I am going to discuss the DATEE with you. The acronym is scrammbled but the letters are as follows: Thoughts: Your thoughts are one of the few things you have 100% control over in your competition. It is important to know that when your thoughts fall negative the aura falls negative; when you are positive your aura is positive. Your thoughts control your every move in life. When you do something absent mindedly you look back and wonder what just happened. This happens because you have lost focus. Whether you are playing baseball for fun or in competition, thoughts come to mind about where you are going to hit, pitch, throw, etc. When your chosen action becomes errant it is easy to get mad or down. This is the time to let it go and refocus on your next move. Baseball is a sport of losing can lead to winning. A batter is judged on his hitting average. He bats .300 and he is a great batter; what other sport allows for you to fail 7 out of 10 times and still be considered pretty good? Thought control is great here because a swinging strike on a pitch they really wanted [to hit] can bring instant doubt. The batter must step out of the box, shake it off, and reenter the box. If the batter hangs on to the previous strike he is going to swing harder and his muscles are going to be tense so he lost control physiologically and mentally. Emotions: Just like the batter who missed on the swing, when a basketball player misses his first free throw, they mind can go into self-doubt. The emotion here should be of confidence in making the next shot. If the anger takes over and the player is tense the release arm does not get the projection needed thus leading to a missed shot. With the relaxed arm he is loose and able to control the muscle. Pitchers, batters, fencers, and all alike, have to keep the muscles loose so they can fully entend and react when necessary. Your emotions control the muscle movement. As you are taught in progressive relaxation, you feel the tense muscle relax and the blood flow normally. When you are happy you have the best pitches, best golf swing, the best run, everything is working smoothly to ensure full potential. Decisions: For the golfers this is important because they must decide after each shot what club is best for the upcoming shot. Decisions should be made on the field just as if they are being made in life, with a level mind. In life we all have made that knee jerk reaction and suffered bad consequences for it later. Your approach to the tee, to the choice of pitch, your aggression on the track, should be done with a moments thought of what is the best decision for my next move. You do not make knee jerk reactions in life, so you should not be making them in competition. Attitude: If you have not heard in sports that 'attitude is everything' then you have never played sports. When you are checking your emotions as suggestd above and you realize that something is not right then it is time to change something. As a professional athlete you are a role model, as an amateur athlete you are trying to get to the next level, as youth athlete you are trying to get to the college or amateur level. It is important to look at your attitude and present the attitude that will bring positive notes your resume. When you check your emotions, find where you are and see if it is the optimal emotion for optimal performance. Effort: As I sat yesterday with a minor league [outdoor] football team, I watched an offsenive lineman get his head down because he missed his blocks leading to a 3 and out. As he sat on the bench he told another guy to play his spot because he was missing his blocks. He sat on the bench for the next few rotations with his head down, body slumped, and this look of mad, self-doubt, 'I can't get it right' posture. I kept an eye on him just to see what was going through this mind. It was spewing negative action after negative action. In the last series before halftime he trotted back on the field and do his job. He approached the job with his head up, his chest out, and determination. In the 2nd half the offense came alive and they performed much like they knew they could. This guy had approached his job with effort of correcting himself. Your effort leads to either a better performance or a worse performance. He followed through the typical cycle of being down but he gained his thoughts and put his best foot forward and he succeeded. Had he took the field with the down and out attitude, he would not have been beneficial to the team. Your DATEE with destiny is about succeding and making progress. Remember, progress is not decided in the win-lose column but in the improvement column.
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