Hi and welcome to Mindset Coach Academy podcast. Today it is Mental Monday and we are talking all about mindset. How to live it, how to teach it and how to sell it. Hi all and welcome to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. My name is Lindsey Wilson and it is Mental Monday where we spend five minutes and we talk about one mental training tool technique or trick that you can implement in your life right now. So today I want to talk about performance and I want to talk about in particular pre-game nerves. So this is an episode that would be great for coaches but honestly it's really applicable to anybody that ever does anything that's hard. So if you're going into a job interview or presentation or I don't know, giving a toast at a wedding or you're performing or you're competing, anything like that where you get that fight or flight response, this is what we're talking about today. And I may do a longer episode on this because this is something that I'm super passionate about and something that is one of those things that I've dealt with so much for myself as an athlete.
I've seen so many of my peers struggle with it and obviously as a Mindset Coach I've dealt with it a ton and I'm passionate about because the solutions are actually not that difficult or rather the tools that can help are things that you could really implement immediately. So I'm going to talk about three main things today but again we may do a longer episode on this because I feel like it could be a longer episode because each one of these things is so powerful in and of itself. So the first thing that I want to talk about is really how we think about pregame nerves. And again when I say pregame I mean pre anything, the fight or flight response. So we're going into a situation that is stressful and we feel that adrenaline running through our body and you know that may mean that you have butterflies, that may mean that you have to pee 20 billion times like I used to, that may mean like you go to the extreme and you feel like you have to throw up. You know you have that feeling of getting amped. And how we think about our body's physiological reaction in that moment is really important.
So how we frame it. For example, do we believe that those butterflies in our stomach are a sign that we are really, really nervous. And when we think about nervous we think about a negative thing. We think about a negative outcome. Or do we feel those same butterflies, the exact same physiological reaction and we think I'm excited. This is my body getting me ready to compete.
That shift is huge. I remember analogy someone was saying. you know, there's a lion chasing a gazelle. And the lion and the gazelle both have a fight-or-flight response. One of them believes they're gonna win and one of them believes they're gonna lose. And it's kind of like going into competition, are you the lion or the gazelle?
Okay? So that's the first thing, how we frame up that same exact physiological reaction that all of us experience. The second thing is what are we doing ahead of time to allow ourselves to learn to practice managing our thoughts and our emotions?
And the simplest way to think about this is how do you deal with stress on a day-to-day basis? Do you know how to breathe? Do you practice any kind of mindfulness? Do you do meditation?
Are you able to identify the small stresses in your life and deal with them? Because if we can't do that, we can't take a deep breath when we're in the middle of traffic or we can't take a deep breath in the middle of practice when we're feeling nervous or we've just messed up or whatever. If we can't do it then, we sure as hell are not gonna figure it out on game day.
So having a practice where you're practicing this in the same way we practice our physical skills, if we're practicing this outside of the arena, so to speak, okay? So that's number two. And the third is really the routines that allow us to be our best.
Consistent preparation leads to consistent results. If on game day we do not have solid routines, we are going to feel like everything is out of our control. So we teach things like the braver in the psychology of competition, which is our coach's certification. We talk about a pregame routine with guided visualizations, figuring out what's going on or what has worked before in the past, talking about our amped up level. We go over all of it in the psychology of competition.
So if you haven't checked out that course and that training, I definitely recommend it. We'll put those in the show notes. If you don't have a mistake ritual, you know, having these routines, we'll put that in the show notes too.
That's a great starter tool to implement. You don't have some routines on game day. Everything is going to feel out of control, which increases our fight or flight response, okay? So again, how do we deal with pregame nerves? We frame it up in the right way.
The simplest way to think about it is you're the lion in the gazelle. Are you nervous or are you excited? Same physiological response. How are we dealing with stress on a day-to-day basis? Are we practicing this stuff like meditation or mindfulness or deep breathing outside of the arena so that we can do it when the pressure is on? And third, creating routines.
Again, we have some great resources of things that you can do to implement really solid game day routine so that you're not waiting until game day, waiting until the first buzzer, waiting until half time to figure out how to get you or your athletes to compete better, doing it ahead of time, okay? So we'll put all the links in the show notes and I hope this was helpful. If it was, be sure to share it with somebody.
Be sure to give us a rating and review. We sure do appreciate it. All right guys, all for now and we'll talk soon. Talk to you soon.
Bye. Hey guys, if you've ever thought, had just even an inkling of a thought about becoming a mental performance coach, it's likely that you also had some questions about that. Like where would I get clients? What would I teach them?
What would I charge? Can I do this without getting another degree? If you've ever had any of those questions, I have really good news for you because I've answered all of them in a free 60 page book called How to Become a Mental Performance Coach even without your sports psychology degree. I go into all of these questions and so much more in this book and the best news is it's totally free. Go get your copy of How to Become a Mental Performance Coach at PositivePerformantTraining.com forward slash guide.
