How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 425

prophecy. Over time, he reframed those feelings and thoughts and told
himself that he was ready, prepared both physically and
psychologically, and that those symptoms were a sign of readiness and
positive signals to compete. The result? An Olympic gold in the
decathlon in 1976. I saw him compete in the Olympic trials a few
months before, and he definitely shifted his focus between the trials
and his tremendous performance in Montreal.
My friend and colleague, the late Dorothy Harris, PhD, who was a
professor of sport psychology at Pennsylvania State University in
University Park, used to say, "The only difference between the best
performance and the worst performance is the variation in our self-talk
and the self-thoughts and attitudes we carry around with us."
The Power of Past Events
Dr. Harris and others have written extensively about the fact that our
awareness in sporting events goes way beyond what is happening at
the moment when we compete. Our awareness level during a tennis
match, for example, is triggered by earlier events and memories of
previous matches. We often find ourselves searching the unconscious
for memories of the past, when we were in similar situations. Most of us
go back to those situations in our minds and reflect on how that
previous match affected us and our performance.
We then take an inventory of that previous competitive situation and
decide how we are going to play this match based on the pleasant or
unpleasant thoughts that surrounded that previous event.
If we had unpleasant experiences in the past, negative thoughts might
seep into our minds, affecting our muscle control and overall self-image
of how we might play the game today.
If we had prior pleasant athletic experiences, the feelings of
competence, usefulness, and high self-esteem might reemerge at the
appropriate moments. These emotions and experiences have a way of
becoming self-fulfilling prophecies that either work to our advantage or
disadvantage.
742