Alright, guys, real quick, the mental game plan, our six week mental training system for coaches is opening mid August. It's open probably right now if you're listening to this. So go to positiveperformancetraining.com, forward slash mental game plan or just go to our regular website.
All the information is there. It's limited to 20 coaches and this is a live training. So this is who this is for. If you are interested in mental training, you're interested in mental performance training, you've been trying to implement it with your teams. You see the problem in front of you with your athletes and you're trying to solve it on your own but you're getting overwhelmed, frustrated and you're like, gosh, if someone would just tell me what to do, if I just had a system, this would be so much easier. This is it. This is the system. This is the curriculum. It is everything you need to be able to teach mental performance to your athletes and nothing that you don't.
Check it out more at positiveperformancetraining.com. Again, if you want in, look soon because we're going to fill up and we are going to close. So check it out also in the show notes below.
Hi, guys, and welcome back to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. My name is Lindsey Wilson and it is Mental Monday. You guys know Mental Monday. We implement, talk about, so you can implement one tip, tool or technique that you can use this week or even today. And I want to talk about really letting your brain sort of listen to fear. Okay.
But in a different way. So just stay with me. So I dropped my daughter off at soccer camp this morning. It was really fun.
It's a beautiful Seattle day. This is the camp that she's wanted to go to since last year when she went to it at Seattle University and she gets to be around all the big girls, right? Like the college players, they actually have the camp on their championship field where they play. And of course, it's bring back memories for me because I remember running my own camp. I remember working camps and I was looking at these like 20 year old young women that are like so fit and healthy.
And I was like, oh, you're going to be tired today at the end of the day. And they're like, yeah. And you know, a lot of you guys run camps too.
You know the deal. And just the energy of like these young kids learning the sport and having fun is just super fun. But my daughter was a little nervous going. And again, this is the camp that she's wanted to go to for forever.
This is I think our third year that she's gone and she just loves it, right? But the first day is always challenging. And you know, many of you have kids, you see this or you run camps and you see the kids and they just have to kind of get over that hump. But you know, it's challenging, I think as a parent, but even as a human with a brain is like, when do we listen to our fear?
And I think about this like, you know, the big things like a stranger danger, right? Like we want our kids to listen to fear, right? We don't want them to like swallow it. Like there are situations where we want them to listen to fear like very loudly. And then there are others where we're like, don't listen to the fear. And I have a little bit of a different take where I don't want them to not listen. I want them to practice deciphering their brain, that fear response. And I think we all need to do this. And one of the ways that I encouraged her and it actually reminds me of a podcast that we just did recently about negative visualization with Chris DeSantis.
So if you haven't listened to that one, I definitely recommend it. But it's talking about really allowing your brain to go there. And by there, I mean, what's the worst that could happen?
Right? Like it's OK to name your fear. It's OK to talk about it. It's OK to listen to it and practice really deciphering what is real fear. Let's say the extreme of, you know, a stranger danger. And I'm a little uncomfortable because this is new and scary. And I have the fear response versus telling yourself not to listen to your fear or telling yourself that it doesn't matter or telling yourself just to suck it up. I think you can suck it up if you listen to the fear. OK, so here's what I told my daughter to do.
I said, what's the worst that can happen? Right? Like in other words, when we're thinking about doing something new in our life, right? And it could be something little. It could be like going into could be going on a first date or it could be going into a party where you don't know anybody could be starting a new job. It could be going to a training where you don't know anybody.
It could be starting a business. Like there's lots of things that big and little, there's a whole spectrum of things that we get the fear response and sort of giving into the fear and letting yourself think it through from a rational standpoint and not just trying to brush it aside. It's like, well, what am I really scared of? In other words, like what's the worst that can happen if I start my own business? What's the worst that could happen on a blind date? What's the worst that could happen at camp today? And I don't mean like. that you have to go to like the huge extremes. Like you could be on a date with a mass murderer, but maybe that is deep down what your subconscious is worried about is I don't know this person.
I don't know if they're gonna be nice or not. And in my experience, it doesn't increase the fear. It allows you to say, well, that's kind of unreasonable because I'm gonna be in a public place. I'm gonna be in a restaurant. And by the way, it's okay to be nervous. It's okay to be scared.
It's okay to wonder if you're gonna have any friends at camp today. It's okay for that to be uncomfortable. What's the worst that could happen? I might be uncomfortable.
I might get bonked in the head with a ball and have to go get some ice. And when you allow your brain to just kind of go through that experience, it doesn't make that fear bigger. It makes it diminish. And I think this is just a really important tool for all of us because I think sometimes we don't listen to our inner fear.
And so it does sort of like, it has this like question mark in its brain. Like we haven't practiced what's gonna happen if I'm on a bad date. We haven't practiced what's gonna happen if I am uncomfortable at soccer. It's just like this nebulous new feeling, right? And I think when we break it down, we recognize that the fear, a lot of it is irrational or it's rational and I can handle it. So I was talking to my daughter in the car and I was like, okay, what happens if you don't have any friends?
Right? Like what are you gonna do? Or what happens if someone says something that feels mean?
You're big enough to handle it. So what will you do? What happens? She goes, well, I really want, I wanna make sure that I have a girl coach.
And I said, okay, that makes sense. What if you get a boy coach? And so she kind of talked through that and that was a big fear for her. But like then she gets the mental sort of rep of like, if it is a boy coach, I'll still be okay. Like I can see myself being a little uncomfortable but also it's gonna be okay.
I'm still gonna have fun at camp. And so it kind of like, there's this mental barrier for all of us with new things, right? And it's a little bit like, excuse me, when we think about the fear and say, what's the worst that can happen? It's a little bit like peeking behind the curtain of that fear and being like, oh, that's not as bad as I anticipated. Actually not knowing what's behind the curtain is way worse because our brain really gets even more uncomfortable with not knowing what's behind the curtain, okay? So again, anything that's in your life that you're either avoiding or you said yes to but now you don't wanna do like my daughter, like what's behind the curtain?
What's the worst that could happen? And allow your brain to practice distinguishing real fear from fake fear and also practicing or reminding yourself that you're strong enough to handle it. That's how we deal with fear. Because most of the time, if we don't, it's still there in our subconscious and we're like, let's just not do this, okay?
And then we end up avoiding things. So try this the next time or right now when you have something in your brain, what's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that could happen if you start a business and you fail? What's the worst that could happen if you go into a party and you don't know anybody? What's the worst that could happen if you start a yoga class or a new workout program and it's really way harder than you thought it was gonna be? What's the worst that could happen? What is the worst that could happen?
And you can do it for little things too. Like what's the worst that could happen if I try a new recipe and I burn it? What's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? Guys, try this exercise, come over to Instagram and let me know if you try it. I'm so interested how this works for your brain. Lindsey, @lindseypositiveperform. All right guys, we'll see you next week for Mental Monday.
Bye for now.
Hey guys, real quick, if you're a coach trying to look for the next thing to do to improve your own coaching, to understand mental training on a deeper level and to take it to your team, I highly recommend checking out Psychology of Competition. This is our course that's, I think it's 297 and it really breaks down pre, during and post-competition routines and what we teach.
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