Process the Process
The emotions that surge within us as we step into the gym before a game, the thoughts that race through our minds after a training session, and the conversations we have with our coaches and teammates throughout the week – these experiences accumulate rapidly for athletes. We encounter a multitude of sensations, thoughts, feelings, interactions, and emotions in each moment of our lives. However, because we cannot fully attend to everything we experience, our brains selectively focus on certain aspects of our moment-to-moment existence that it deems important.
Brainpower
For instance, right now, your brain is concentrating on reading these words rather than the sensation of your shirt against your back. Now that you’re aware of it, your mind briefly shifts its attention to the sensations on your back before returning to the words. As athletes, our brains naturally highlight the aspects of our experiences that hold significance, directing our attention accordingly. We notice our muscles tightening later in the game, sense the defender on our back when receiving a pass, engage in negative self-talk about a mistake we made on the previous play, and eagerly glance at our coach’s facial expressions to gauge their perception of us. We experience a great deal, much of which goes unnoticed. We move from one moment to the next without truly comprehending how we process what transpires.
As athletes and performers, finding the space to pause and reflect is not always easy. We are inherently inclined to action, preferring doing over thinking. However, perpetually striving to outperform ourselves can lead to exhaustion. We may become overwhelmed with stress and lose sight of the reasons why we compete in the first place. Taking the time to process our experiences as athletes is crucial for personal growth and increased self-awareness. It enables us to discover new possibilities in our performance, allowing us to respond to challenges rather than merely reacting to them.
Two-Step Verification
When we process our experiences, there are two essential steps: interpretation and integration. While these steps happen automatically, we can improve the process by intentionally and purposefully engaging in it. Sometimes, we misinterpret things or neglect to integrate our experiences because it’s easier to ignore them.
Let’s consider an example: walking into the gym before a competition and feeling your body tense up. You become aware of your heartbeat and start doubting yourself. Thoughts of performing poorly due to nervousness occupy your mind. You worry about how others perceive you and decide to play it safe once the game begins. Let’s pause there.
Upon entering the gym, you felt a little uneasy with some bodily tension. You may have thought, “I’m not supposed to feel this way” or “This is what happens when I get nervous.” You interpreted these feelings as nervousness, perceiving them as a precursor to something negative. This interpretation complicated the issue further. You convinced yourself that you were nervous, causing your heart to beat faster and your body to tense up even more. The more you reinforced this interpretation, the more anxious and worried you became. The gym transformed from a place of play into a space to avoid mistakes.
Stay Grounded
While there may be some validity to the interpretation of nervousness, assigning a simplistic label to your experience only exacerbates the problem, hindering your ability to be yourself. Could your body have tightened up because being in the gym made you nervous? Absolutely. However, could it also be possible that you were excited, had memories associated with the gym, felt uncomfortable with others watching you perform, had a cold body, or hadn’t eaten much that day? There are numerous possibilities. While nervousness may be a part of the picture, labeling yourself as nervous and assuming it will result in poor performance led to restriction rather than freedom.
Interpreting our experiences accurately is crucial. Attached to these interpretations are assumptions and beliefs. We assume that muscle tightness means we are nervous or believe that nervousness leads to poor performance. These assumptions and beliefs shape our mindset, emotions, and performances, holding unknown power over us when left unexamined. These knee-jerk interpretations confine us to reactions and limit our progress. To move forward, we must ground our interpretations in a way that serves us rather than holds us back.
Escape or Embrace
Placing our experiences in context is essential. We must understand ourselves as complex systems and avoid unnecessary limitations. It’s important to allow ourselves to feel a little nervous while recognizing that we are likely excited, and our body’s response is part of getting ready for competition. By doing so, we can channel that energy into enjoying the game we love rather than getting trapped in our thoughts. If we immediately label ourselves based on a single interpretation and restrict our experiences, we perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, if we give ourselves space and interpret our experiences with an understanding of the context, we allow them to unfold naturally and become integrated—the second step of verification.
Our experiences are meant to be integrated into our lives rather than isolated or fragmented. Relying on quick, black-and-white interpretations—such as assuming that bodily tension indicates nervousness and guarantees poor performance—may cause us to avoid or repress those experiences instead of integrating them. Viewing our experiences as scary or threatening and attempting to get rid of or ignore them only leads to more harm than benefit. Instead, we can embrace the feelings of bodily tension. We can acknowledge that we might feel nervous and excited, recognizing that our body is preparing for the game. We can then utilize that energy to connect with teammates and practice skills at game speed during warm-up. Before we know it, we feel relieved of some nervousness and balanced to begin the game. Integrating our experiences means facing them. We must allow ourselves to feel, think, and be mindful of our experiences. Rather than running away from sensations, circumstances, or thoughts that seem dangerous, we should befriend ourselves. By taking moments to process our experiences, we allow ourselves to interpret and integrate them more authentically, serving our journey as athletes and performers.
Final Thoughts
It’s inherent in our nature to rush through the process and move on quickly. However, true transformation occurs when we dive beneath the surface and fully engage with the depths of our experiences. This is where we embrace rather than escape, by interpreting and integrating our experiences to foster growth and expansion. Our journey forward is based on the potential for newness, pushing ourselves into uncharted territories we may have previously avoided. In doing so, we break through boundaries and unlock our full potential.
