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>> Thank you very much, Alexandra. That was a beautiful introduction. I told her very
quietly that she made me cry a little bit. So, thank you so much for that. She's one
of the many graduate students I've had the opportunity to work with over the years and
it's just been such a joy. Big thank you to Breanne Scogin, Arthur Montejano, and all
of the students involved in the Fresno State Talks Project. This is the last night. You've
been working super hard. Congratulations on all of your success and thank you for allowing
me to be a part of it. It's been a great ride. Thank you to all of you. Also, I want to thank
all of you. One thing that I've come to learn about myself is that time is one of our most
precious resources at least to me and the fact that you rearranged schedules to be here
tonight, I really appreciate that and I want to thank you for that. I'm super excited to
talk to you about sport psychology, performance psychology. It's a topic I'm really passionate
about and a specific application of that called the Psychological UNIFORM. Just making sure
it works. I'm wondering if you know who these people are. On the left is Missy Franklin,
200 meter backstroke winner at the London Olympics in 2012. To the right is Ted Ligety.
He won the men's giant slalom in Sochi just a couple of weeks ago. I'm wondering if you
know who these two people are. Well, if you pay attention to these sports, you might.
But I'm thinking probably you don't. On the left is Elizabeth Simmonds. She finished 3.2
seconds behind Missy Franklin. And because of that, she stayed off the podium. She was
fourth. To the right, if you're following my line of thinking, you probably know that
this person also didn't make it to the podium. Marcel Hirscher from Austria finished--are
you ready for this? Less than one second behind the gold medal winner. And that was enough
to keep him off the podium. So, athletes need to be distinguished in some way. How did they
get there? And what's that all about? Jerry Seinfeld, some of you may know who he is.
He is one of my favorite comedians and he has this whole bit about athletes and performance
and speed. And it goes something like this, and I hope you can pick up on it. So, if this
is the finish line right here, first, second, third. Never heard of you. And that's basically
what it boils down to. Athletes need to do a lot of things in order to get to the podium
and here's some of them. They need to get involved in sport-specific physical training.
They need to participate in strength training. They need to work on proper mechanics, what
we refer to in kinesiology as biomechanics. They also have to have sport-specific tactical
knowledge. Coaches talk a lot about x's and o's and what that looks like. They also need
to have proper nutrition and of course adequate rest. All athletes have generally picked up
on that. These are the things that they need. But of course, you know that I'm going to
share and I'm going to argue that there's something missing, something else contributes
to athletic performance. And that thing is the mind. Tonight, I'm going to be sharing
with you how we can engage our brain to get peak performance because that's what athletes
are wanting. I also want to talk to you a little bit about the UNIFORM. And here's how
this came to be. Athletes put on a uniform to train and compete. This soccer athlete
is wearing cleats, shin guards, and his uniform. These hip hop dancers are wearing a costume
as well. That's their uniform. Figure skaters wear skates. Football players wear helmets
and pads. All athletes put on a uniform to train and compete. They want peak performance.
They want to get those gold medals, those silvers, those bronze. If they want to do
that, they need the psychological UNIFORM or sport psychology. I think of this as being
a key to peak performance, a key to success. When athletes work on the mental aspect, this
gives them an opportunity to distinguish themselves from others. This gives them an opportunity
for distinction. The athletes in Sochi at the Olympic and Paralympics may win these
medals. And I think we would all agree that they've distinguished themselves from the
other athletes that they competed against in that event on that day. So, maybe you're
saying to yourself, "You know what? That sounds great but I'm not an athlete anymore." Well,
maybe you're a coach. I chatted with some of our coaches here tonight. Thanks for coming.
The Psychological UNIFORM is for you because it's going to help you get the most out of
yourself and your athletes. Maybe you're not a coach. Maybe you're an official. They have
a pretty stressful job, right? Half the time, half the people don't like what they're doing,
OK? So, they need to have their Psychological UNIFORM on to do their best. Maybe you're
involved in sports medicine. Well, if that's the case, you need sport psychology in order
to give your best to the athletes under your care. OK. Maybe you still don't see yourself
up here yet. Well? Performance is in everything that we do. And everybody who has a performance
aspect to what they do can use sport psychology to do it better. Like for example, surgeons.
We need them to be fully focused when they're operating on us, right? That's what we're
hoping for. Teachers. We know when teachers are fully engaged, and attentive to their
students, they're going to be doing their best. Sport psychology will help them. One
of the things that I always hope and pray when I take a flight is that the pilots, the
people in air traffic control and the flight attendants are fully focused and ready to
go because my safety depends on it. The same is true for firefighters. They also need to
be fully focused and ready to go. They need sport psychology. Entertainers, musicians,
performers, they also need sport psychology so they can give their best. Adele has been
outspoken in terms of being anxious before she performs. Some other names that have that
same thing going on are Carly Simon and Barbra Streisand. They get a lot of stage freight.
Sport psychology can help them. Now, some of you are saying but I'm in school right
now, I'm not a surgeon yet. I want to be a firefighter but I'm not quite there. Well,
guess what? No matter where you are, no matter what your lot in life is right now, you can
use sport psychology. If you're involved in relationships, if you're a student and you
have to do exams or give oral presentations, this can help you. If you have a part time
job, if you deal with conflict, if you're a parent, this can help you, because the bottom
line is that sport psychology skills are life skills. And they can be applicable to every
area of your life. So, when I talk about athletes, I'm using them as a jumping off point for
everything else that we have going on. So, what is this UNIFORM thing? Well, it's a framework
and I like to look at this as again a blueprint for success, a way to achieve peak performance.
So, what does it really look like? Here it is. It's an acronym. It represents seven sport
psychology skills and concepts. Now, a couple of things I want you to know about it. I didn't
just pick these things out of the air. I didn't just say, "Oh, yeah, goal setting. Let's put
that in there." The seven sport psychology skills and concepts are based on the best
practices in the sport psychology literature. Additionally, you may not know it but I've
been consulting for quite a long time with athletes and other performers. So, it's based
on my consulting experience and my research. We've been in the high schools for several
years now doing research with the UNIFORM program. And so, this framework is based on
all of that together. The other thing that I want you to know about UNIFORM is that these
seven sport psychology skills and concepts are not mutually exclusive. They're not in
separate boxes. I'm going to talk about them separately tonight for sake of clarity, but
there's a lot of overlap. There's a lot of interplay. So, please know that as we move
forward. Now, I shared with you that I've done some research. And just in case you're
wondering, I presented at conferences and I have published in peer-reviewed journals.
If you're interested in getting to sleep at night and you want some reading, let me know
and I'm happy to share it with you, OK? Just kidding. It's really quite fascinating, at
least I think so. OK. So, let's get into it. Use goal setting. We're going to start there.
I like these pictures because these people are standing ---at a spot--excuse me, where
they've got an idea but where do you go with it from there? Antoine de Saint Exupery was
a French aviator and he said this quote, "A goal without a plan is just a wish." And this
is the idea that we have goals in mind but oftentimes, we're not sure what to do with
them. Let me share you a bit of his story. At the age of 11, he took his first flight.
At 26, he was a pilot because that was the goal he decided on way back when. And he worked
towards that. So, we need to not just have a goal but figure out how we're going to get
there. Now, what are your goals? Maybe these resonate with you. Maybe your goal is to get
an A plus on an exam or get an A in a specific course. Maybe your goal is to get your college
degree. Maybe you want to achieve some athletic accomplishment or maybe you have an idea in
your head that you'd like to do a marathon or half marathon just because it looks like
so much fun, or maybe your goal is to get the primo job once you graduate. If you learned
how to set goals when you were a child and you work towards them, guess what? When you
get to college and beyond, you're going to be more successful. But there's good news.
If you haven't started setting goals yet, it's not too late. And I'll talk about that
in a minute. So, how do we come up with a plan? What do we do when we have this goal
in mind? Well, there's lots of different talk about this and I'm going to propose one example
for you. And I'd like for you to think of this as a staircase. So, at the top of the
staircase is your dream goal. What is possible for you if for the next two to five years,
you worked on your goals diligently and you focused? Now, take a step down. In a year
from now, what would a long-term goal look like for you? What's possible if you worked
diligently and focused? Take another step down. What's possible for you six months from
now if again you worked towards completing your goals? So, we think of this as a staircase
with the furthest one being the dream goal, the top one being a dream goal, OK? Now, these
timelines are adjustable. You need to figure out what works for you. We forgot an important
piece though and this is the piece that gets overlooked most often, the daily goals. The
things that we're going to do day in and day out to help us achieve our goals because today
matters. Today helps us meet our short-term goal which then helps us meet our long-term
goal, which then helps us meet our dream goal. Ken Ravizza [corrected spelling] a sport psychology
consultant at Fullerton, CSU Fullerton, who's a very prominent applied sport psychologist
talks a lot about today and the importance of it. And he has this quote which I really
love, "Today plus today plus today equals your career." Let's put it another way, "Today
plus today plus today equals your college degree." Whatever your goal is, you can insert
it there. You need to work towards it, but how do we do that? Well, we like acronyms
in sport psychology so, I'm going to propose another one to you which is the SMART principle.
The SMART principle helps us to set effective goals. So, we want our goals to be specific,
measurable, achievable, you'll also see attainable or action-oriented. I personally like adjustable,
and I'll get to that in a minute. Realistic is important and they need to be timely or
time based. So, what does that look like? Well, here's some examples. The first example,
you can see, there's a week timeframe. And the three times a week puts that in perspective
for us and we can see that that goal is very specific. The second example is more of a
daily example, OK? And again, this is where people tend to fall down. They don't follow
their daily goals. Now, I said our goals are adjustable. We as a group, myself included
have no problem adjusting our goals up. If we were to run for 30 minutes and it felt
easy, we would either increase the time that we wanted to run or we run faster. And we
feel very proud about that. But if we couldn't accept that goals were adjustable, we might
feel like we failed if we had to adjust our goal down. Let's say you're recovering from
the flu or you just had foot surgery and you can't run. You can't do what you need to do.
That's OK. Goals are adjustable. As long as we keep that piece in mind of what the short-term,
long-term, and dream goals are. So, I'm not suggesting don't do anything. I'm just suggesting
that we need to be flexible in checking with our goals. Another important point, you want
to write your goals down. Some people don't like writing their goals down. But it's a
very important step. Because when you do that, they become real and you are accountable to
them. I like to say that the goals grow legs. And they become very, very important to you.
It helps you to stay focused. Dr. Gail Matthews at the Dominican University of California
did a study. She looked at groups of people from five different countries, men and women,
people from the 20s all the way up to their 70s. And she had them write down their goals
and she had others just think about their goals. Who do you think actually accomplished
their goals? The people that wrote them down, exactly. So, write your goals down. It helps
you to stay accountable. Now, I said to you earlier, it's never too late to start setting
goals and working towards to them. On that note, let me introduce you to Mr. Fauja Singh.
Mr. Singh was from India and moved to England in his late 80s. He didn't speak English.
To pass the time, he watched some TV and he saw this event where these people were running
and they crossed some line. And when they did that, there was a lot of celebratory behavior
around them. They got roses and hugs and lots of media attention. And he said, "I'd like
some of that. What is that about?" And his son told him, "Oh, they just ran a marathon."
"I'm going to do it," he said. He had 10 weeks to train. His long-term goal, again adjustable,
right? 10 weeks to run the marathon. So, he got a coach, and he set daily goals and he
increased his mileage. He finished the marathon in a time of six hours and 54 minutes. You'll
see six hours and 41 minutes but I truly believe it's six hours and 54 minutes. And here's
the most important point. He was 89 years old. Is that cool or what? So, he recently
retired from marathoning just before his 102nd birthday. You're never too old to set goals
and start working towards them. So, what are the take-home messages about goal setting?
You want to think about what you want to achieve and develop a plan. Use the SMART goal principle
to help you set effective goals. Record your goals and remember that it's never too late
to start. No mistakes. Hopefully, you can see this clearly. In case you're having any
trouble, let me just go through it briefly. So, this little girl is getting a glass of
milk. As she's putting the milk carton away, she bumps her glass and makes a big mess.
Her mom comes in and berates her and says, "This is terrible. You need to do better,"
la-la-la. While berating her daughter, she dumps her own coffee cup, big mess. Her son
says, "It's OK mom. We all make mistakes." Maybe you've had an experience like this yourself.
We tend to fear mistakes. The problem with that is we get so negative about it. We focus
on it so much. Pretty soon, one mistake becomes two. And then we have two mistakes to worry
about and dwell on and then soon enough, we have three. And it's this downward spiral
from which it's hard to get up. A prime example of this was the Super Bowl. Anybody remember
that game? 48 to 3, opening snap went over Peyton Manning's head and the Broncos never
seemed to recover. A lot of mistakes were happening there and I think there were some
athletes dwelling on some of those things. So, the football game is kind of a public
event. Here's another example of a mistake that somebody might have to deal with for
quite some time. I'm pretty certain that when he went in, he wanted that tattoo to say,
"No more mistakes." What he left with, "No mod mistakes." Not sure that was the message
he was going for. So, another public example. OK. So, a football game, a tattoo. Yes, they're
important but we're not talking life and death, right? On that note, let me introduce you
to Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson came from Detroit, Michigan, was raised in a single parent family.
His mother was illiterate but she understood the value of reading and pushed her sons to
read. Dr. Carson became a pediatric neurosurgeon. Before his 35th birthday, he led a team to
separate conjoined twins from Germany. The twins were seven months old. The surgery lasted
22 hours. After it was done, it was deemed a success. The boys were separated. They survived.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of brain damage. So, a success but maybe not a total success.
He learned from that. A few years later, there was another set of twins from South Africa.
Their situation was a little bit more complicated because of the way they were joined. After
a very lengthy surgery, that operation was not successful. Both of the twins died and
Dr. Carson was devastated. He knew though that there were lessons to be learned and
that he needed to apply those lessons and think about it for the future. In 1997, there
was another set of twins from Zambia. Their surgery was very complicated because they
were joined at the top of the head. After 28 hours of surgery, the twins were separated.
They survived and no brain damage. Very much a success. Now, that was only possible because
of what had happened in the previous surgeries and the lessons that had been learned. Dr.
Carol Dweck from Stanford, a psychologist would say that Dr. Carson has a growth mindset.
Some of you have something called a fixed mindset and let me share with you what that
looks like. Maybe you've been in this situation at some point. You got a quiz back and, you
know, it's not the grade you were expecting. It's not a terrible grade but it's not a great
grade. Well, if you respond to this by saying, "I'm a total failure, there's no way I'm going
to pass this class, there were trick questions on that test," then you have a fixed mindset.
You're not looking to learn from your mistakes. You're not looking at this as a learning opportunity,
OK? If however, you respond with "Wow. OK, that was a wake up call. I need to work harder
in this class if I want to pass. I need to check in with the professor. I need to figure
out what I need to do better." If you take that approach, you have a growth mindset.
And that's the kind of mindset you really want to have. You want to be resilient. So,
what are the take-home messages? We want to reframe our mistakes, pull out the lessons.
Remember that a mistake is only a mistake if you fail to pull out the lesson and apply
it in the future. Try to have a growth mindset. That's a good mindset to have. Let's talk
about imagery. Imagery is the ability to recreate or create an experience in the mind. There
are two perspectives that we talk about when we refer to imagery. The first is an external
perspective or third-world view. So, athletes image themselves like they see themselves
on TV. There's also an internal perspective, and this is known as a first-person perspective.
So, for example, if a soccer player was imaging himself from a first-person perspective, he
would look down and he would see his foot contact the ball. He wouldn't be able to see
his back or his head or anything like that because he can't see that from behind his
own eyes. Now, you might be saying, "OK. Well, that's great. I don't do sports anymore. How
can I use imagery?" Well, maybe this example will resonate with you. This is my kitchen
after a family dinner. I'm not a big fan of washing dishes. I have a dishwasher, that's
what it is supposed to do. So, before I pack the dishwasher, I look down the counter and
I see what I have to put in there. I look at my dishwasher and I get a pretty good image
of how I'm going to pack it. I refer to myself as the master packer because I get a ton of
stuff in there and I rarely have to repack. Everything is exactly as it should be in there.
I see it before it goes in, and I don't waste a lot of time. Parallel parking is another
great example of how I use imagery, maybe you do also. But imagery is really a polysensory
experience. You'll hear people say visualization. And the problem with visualization is that
people only tend to think of sight. But imagery is really polysensory or multisensory. And
I'm going to share with you an example of what that might be like. So here's a baseball
player, and let's say he was imaging himself making a catch. So, he might hear the sound
of the bat, you know, that crack. He might see the ball coming towards him. He might
experience the glove and how it touches his hand and the ball coming into the glove. He
might feel happy about making the catch or feel confident in his ability to make the
catch. He might smell the grass. And he might even taste the sweat that could be on his
upper lip. So, you can see how all of the senses come together. This is important. Because
the more real we make imagery, the more we trick the brain into believing that we actually
just did that thing. The brain doesn't know the difference, OK? And that's important when
we're trying to save wear and tear on the body or there's only an opportunity to do
something one time. I'd like to share with you another example of how imagery can be
effective. This is Joe Ng. He is a Canadian table tennis player. Made the national team
at the age of 15, the youngest player to ever do that. Just before his 23rd birthday, he
felt like a muscle pull in his chest area. He went to go and get it checked out, turns
out it was actually cancer. He was pretty devastated by that. The doctors told him,
you have two months and you have about a 2 percent chance of recovery. He said, "OK.
Well, I'm an elite athlete. I've got the sport psychology background. I'm going to use that
to help me get better." And that sounds weird I know but he would visualize or image himself
feeling strong. He would try to relax more. Something else he did was something we refer
to as healing imagery. So, when he was getting his chemotherapy, he imagined that the chemotherapy
was like pacman. Remember that game from the '80s and '90s? So, he imagined that the chemotherapy
was pacman and the cancer cells were the pellets. So, as the chemotherapy entered and went through
his body, it ate up all the cancer cells. While he was in treatment, he went off and
did an event like a world championship or something like that. He didn't do great. I
mean, I guess that's to be expected. He was going through chemo and I can't even imagine
how devastating that is to your body but he did OK. When he came back, he continued with
his treatment. He was going to do another round or another course. Went in to see the
doctor and the doctor said, "There's no point. We don't need to do this." OK. The reason
is there was no more cancer in his body, completely gone. Now, you might think I'm making this
up. I swear to you this is a true story. Somehow between the chemotherapy that he did, the
healing imagery, and all the other skills that he used, the cancer was gone from his
body, OK? So healing imagery can be really important to healing and recovery. It also
lets athletes feel like they have some control over the injury or the illness and that can
be very important too. Using the senses to create an experience in the mind. We haven't
talked much about that. So, I'd like to share with you an example. Meet Nik Wallenda. You
may remember back in the summer of 2012, he was the very first person to enter Canada
from the United States via a tightrope over Niagara Falls. So, he had one opportunity
to physically do this. I've never met Nik Wallenda but I'm 100 percent certain that
he probably created an image of him doing this event and ran that image hundreds, maybe
thousands of times in preparation of actually doing that event. And this is what it looks
like. Now, some of you might be saying, "Yeah. But he was tethered. You know, he did that
thing but if he fell, he was going to be fine. He was going to still make it." Well, let
me go back a second. You see the picture on the right? That's him crossing the Grand Canyon
last summer completely untethered. Again, I would argue that he did not do this for
the first time in June 2013. But instead, he imaged and did that imagery hundreds, probably
thousands of times in preparation. So, what are the take-home messages regarding imagery?
Use external and internal views, but try to be as inclusive of all the senses as possible.
Use it in your daily chores, sport tasks, and even to help you with things like healing.
Let's move on to focus. Focusing is the ability to attend to relevant stimuli while ignoring
inappropriate or irrelevant stimuli. Here we have some distracted drivers, one on a
handheld device talking, the other one looks like she's texting. Clearly, these drivers
are not attending to the appropriate stimuli and we can even see that the passenger is
pointing out, "Hey. There's something there. You better pay attention," OK? So, they're
not attending to what they're supposed to. Here's another example that you may see sometimes.
This is a college class, not at Fresno State of course. But we have the professor lecturing
at the front of the class and we have a couple of students who seem to be following along
at the back. They have the same thing on their screen as the professor. However, we also
see people checking Facebook, checking their e-mail, getting on Twitter, Googling stuff.
Clearly these students are not attending to what they're supposed to be which is the professor
giving the lecture. There's good news though. What you choose to focus on is totally within
your control. You direct your focus and your focus leads your performance. And this is
from Terry Orlick, a very prominent sport psychology consultant from Canada. So, you
choose whether or not you are going to let yourself be distracted. There are a lot of
distractions out there, let's talk about that. Perhaps you're a musician in an orchestra.
External distractions for you might be other musicians around you. It might be the conductor
and that person's style. It might be the fact that you're sitting underneath an air conditioning
vent and you're getting cold air blown on you. It could be the fact that you're on stage
and there's a whole bunch of eyes looking at you. There are also internal distractions,
a racing heart that we can't seem to control, achy muscles or sore joints and probably one
of the most prominent right here, self-doubt, negative self-talk. Distractions can really
interfere with performance. Shani Davis, speed skater shut out of this year's Olympics but
won quite a bit of hardware in the previous ones. He said, "The distractions took a toll
on me, the energy was really bad." Now, you may remember there were some things related
to the bodysuits that they were wearing. There are some contentious issues within the speed
skating organization. There are probably things going on internally too that we're not aware
of. The fact of the matter is he did not achieve peak performance. Somebody who did achieve
peak performance though is Hammerin Hank. Hank Aaron played for the Atlanta Braves back
in the day and you may remember that he was chasing Babe Ruth for the distinction of being
at the top of the homerun hitting board. A lot of people did not like that. They felt
like an African American should not replace a white person at that top of that list. So,
he had a lot of negative distractions to deal with, crowd noise, booing, a lot of negative
media attention, maybe some internal things as well but he found a way to narrow his focus.
I'm going to blow up this picture a little bit to illustrate my point. I'm not sure if
you can see the little eyeholes on the hat. When he was on the batting team, he would
take his hat off and he would put it in front of his face and he would look through that
little eyehole at the pitcher and he would study the pitcher. And from that, he was able
to figure out what pitch was going to come towards him because he would recognize that
certain pitches came a certain way from that pitcher. When they left that pitcher's hand
he knew it was going to be a curve ball or slider or whatever, OK? So, he found a way
to really narrow his focus so he could be successful. Some people might say, "Well you
know what? He was in this thing called the zone." You've heard of the zone, right? The
zone is the state where it's euphoria. Everything is going great, you're not thinking 'cause
you don't have to. It's effortless, time passes. It's a wonderful place to be. Unfortunately,
it doesn't usually last for very long. The best performers, even the very best are going
to get distracted but they've learned how to compensate and adjust, compensate and adjust,
and I'm borrowing that from Ken Ravizza as well. They figured out how to get themselves
back to focus when, not if but when, they get distracted. And I'd like to share with
you kind of a case study that I've done on my own about a performer that I think is really
good at being able to focus. This performer is a senior in college and he's married, and
him and his wife just had their first baby. He plays a sport, and guess what? It's a high
profile sport and he's in a key position. He's expected to lead his team to a league
championship and maybe even something beyond that. There's a little piece of the puzzle
that I didn't tell you. That baby that was just born is very sick. If you haven't figured
out who I'm talking about yet, it's Derek Carr. Derek Carr faced tremendous pressure
last fall and probably is right now as he gets ready for the NFL draft but what I've
learned abut him is I think he's somebody who really is able to focus and focus through
distractions. And I think he did this by using a number of different strategies, some of
which I'm going to touch on. He compartmentalized I think. When he was doing football, he wasn't
thinking about his wife and his newborn son. Think about how hard that must have been but
he stayed focused on football and when he was with his child and his wife, he probably
wasn't thinking much about football. So, he's choosing to be present. He's choosing to be
where he is and that helped him I think to perform well. Now, I told you performers will
get distracted and I'm sure that happened with him as well. I think probably, he used
cue words or cue images to help him bring his focus back. For example, he might have
looked down and saw the bulldog on his chest and realized, "you know what? It's football
time right now. Right now, I need to be thinking about football." Or he might have brought
himself back to focus by saying something like, "be here, be now." OK? Those are just
some examples. I don't know. I haven't consulted with him and even if I did, I couldn't tell
you about it because there's something called athlete confidentiality but I think this is
what's going on, given my interactions with other people who talk to him a lot. So, what
are the take-home messages? Be present, plan for distractions. If you know that you get
distracted by other people, sit at the front of the class, and then you won't be distracted
by all the things going in front of you because the only thing in front of you is the professor,
OK? Use strategies like compartmentalizing, being present. Use cue words when you get
distracted. Let's talk about--"O" positive self-talk. I'd like to say that we do a lot
of this but in fact, the opposite is true. We spend a lot of time engaging in negative
self-talk, not everybody but a lot of us. We say things like, "I'm too fat," "I'm too
thin," "I can't do it," "I'm stupid." Really silly things to be saying to ourselves. If
we had a friend that talked to us like that, that friend probably wouldn't be a friend
for very long because we wouldn't allow that person to talk to us that way. But yet, we
talk to ourselves and it's OK. Well, it's not really OK. So, I have an activity that
I'm going to share with you to help you be intentional about changing your negative self-talk
to positive. I want you to get a bunch of cue cards or index cards. And I want you to
think about the negative self-talk that you use. If you say to yourself, "I can't exercise,
I'm just--I'm not good at it," then right down, "I can exercise for 30 minutes." If
you say, "You know what? I'm not a good writer, I just--I can't organize my thoughts, I'm
just not good at it." Write down, "I can write a good term paper." And if you say, "OK. Public
speaking totally freaks me out. I can't do it." Write down, "I am good at public speaking."
So, figure out what are the negative things you say to yourself and counter it with something
positive. Write them down. Then take these cue cards, post them up in high traffic areas,
maybe on your refrigerator door, your bathroom mirror, beside your computer monitor, whatever.
Each time you see the statements stop, think about what's there. Say that out loud and
with a strong voice to yourself. I know that's sounds corny but trust me, do it. It's really
cool. It works. Once you start to say these things over and over to yourself, they'll
start to replace the negative self-talk. And that's what we want. Now, some people say
to me, "Well, but that's a lie. I'm a terrible public speaker. I can't write a term paper
and I certainly can't exercise for 30 minutes." Well, these things are not lies. It's what
you're working towards. They're self-directions not self-deceptions. Muhammad Ali, everybody
remember him? He told everybody and anybody who would listen that he was the greatest
before he ever was. And that's what you need to do. Talk to yourself in positive ways,
replace the negative with positive. Something else I want you to consider. How you think
is your choice. That's a hard one to wrap ourselves around. How we think is our choice?
It's true. And good thoughts lead to good feelings, lead to good behaviors. So, we want
to have good thoughts. If you're having trouble with that though, the reverse is also true
as well. Good behaviors lead to good feelings, lead to good thoughts. And this is a phenomenon
that we call, "fake it until you make it." So, the little pussycat looks in the mirror
and sees the big lion, OK, now, he's got the confidence to take on the world. Body language
is an important component of that. If we walk around with our head held high, our shoulders
back, we're going to feel confident about ourselves, then we're going to think confident
things, OK? So, body language is also very important. Now, none of these things are going
to happen overnight. I once had an athlete say to me, "I tried that healing imagery once,
it didn't work." Yeah, that sounds about right. You need to practice in order to get better,
OK? With time, I guarantee you it'll work and get better for you. I'd like to share
with you a quick story about somebody who exudes positivity, who exudes resilience and
optimism. And this is J.R. Martinez. You might not know his whole back story. So, really
quick, he was deployed to Iraq. Within a month of being there, the Humvee that he was driving
hit a roadside bomb. The three soldiers who were with him were ejected but he got trapped
and he suffered burns to a significant part of his body and you can see them on his head
and his face. For the next 34 months, almost three years, he was in the hospital dealing
with this. He's gone through more than 30 surgeries. And while I don't think he would
want to experience the pain again, I'm told that that's excruciating and significant,
he said he wouldn't change his accident because this has given him an opportunity to serve
others, to be positive with others and make a difference in their lives, with burned victims
and disabled veterans. He's someone who just exudes these positive elements. He won Dancing
with the Stars. I don't know a whole lot about reality TV but I do know that America votes.
And I've been told that they don't always vote for the person who was the best dancer.
Having said that, I'm sure he garnered a lot of votes because he's such a positive person.
People like that and they want to see that be rewarded. So, what are the take-home messages?
Talk to yourself in positive ways. Treat yourself like you would a friend. Most of us would
never tell a friend, "You're dumb, you can't do that." So, don't say that to yourself.
Choose to dwell on the positive; how we think is our choice. Remember, good thoughts lead
to good feelings, lead to good behaviors but the reverse is also true. I'd like to talk
to you a little bit about R. R in UNIFORM is relaxation and stress control. But really
what we're talking about is regulating arousal levels. Now, I told you I work in the high
schools or we do some research in the high schools. And I'm very, very worried about
using the term, "We're going to regulate your arousal level" with high school students.
So, we just go with relaxation and stress control, OK? Now, we have two extremes. Mentally
flat. Now, maybe some of you have experienced this. It's like, "ah, I don't want to do this,
I just--I'm not into it, I'm not there, I'd rather do anything but this." That's mentally
flat. And it's true that this athlete may just be taking a break but I look at that
as mentally flat. Overstimulated is the other end of the extreme and we've seen these athletes
right? Wow, where they are hyped up. So, these are the two ends of the spectrum. Everybody
has to find his or her own sweet spot that comes somewhere in between. We call that the
individualized zone of optimal functioning. And it's different for every person. Some
people need more activation, some people need less. Each person is different. Steve Cauthen
back in the '70s, I know that was a while ago but I've included this for two reasons.
One, I'm trying have a lot of sports represented to try catch everyone's interest. But two,
I love this quote. So, he was Sports Illustrated's sportsman of the year and he said, "I don't
psyche myself up. I psyche myself down. I think clearer when I'm not psyched up." So,
he's a Jockey, probably weighs about 115 pounds. He's on a thousand plus pound animal traveling
at a super fast speed with not a lot of room to maneuver. So, that make sense, but some
other people might need more activation, OK? Everyone is different. I'd like to think about
stress and give you another example so we can think about it in another way. Doctor
Richard Lazarus, excuse me, from Berkeley. He's deceased now, but he's done a lot of
work in stress. And he says that stress occurs when the perceived or actual demands of a
situation meet or exceed the actual or avail--or excuse me, actual or perceived resources available
to meet that demand. So, let me share with you an example that may make sense. So, midterms.
Midterms are coming up, yeah? So, if you don't have any resources available, maybe you've
been on Facebook during class or you haven't bought the textbook yet or you haven't been
taking notes or you haven't studied. Then, you are probably going to be really stressed
out about that exam. On the other hand, if you've been in class, you have the textbook,
you've been studying, you have been keeping up with everything then, you see this exam
as a challenge. "I got this. I can do it." So, two different ways to approach it. Here's
another example, ask yourself this, "do I have control of the situation?" If the answer
is "yes," then there's really no need to get stressed about something 'cause you can control
it, right? Act on it. You can do something about it. There's no need to be stressed.
Let's say that there's a situation now that you have no control over. Maybe you're sitting
in traffic, maybe you're flight got delayed again. You can't control those things. So,
should you get stressed about it? No, you don't have any control over it. Your stress
is wasted energy, there's no point. So, what do we do with this? Well, there are going
to be times when you're sitting in traffic or your flight gets delayed and you're still
stressed. So, what can we do? Travis Stork, ER physician, however those of you who like
reality TV may remember him from the Bachelor. He's also the host of the show The Doctors,
but, he's still an ER physician and he says what he does is he breathes. He takes a moment,
he focuses on his breathing. That helps to center him and then he can think. Another
strategy that you can use is to again, use those cue words. With practice, you can say
things like "relax" or "chill" or whatever it is that works for you to just bring your
heart rate down and say this to yourself. You might scan your body for tension. A lot
of us carry tension in our neck, in our upper backs. So just, you know, relax your shoulders,
just relax that area. You can also do progressive muscular relaxation. Another example is to
change the channel. If you're on a stress channel in your head, take a remote, click
it and change the channel to something else. Go to a happy channel. Go to a channel where
you're lying on the beach. You can go anywhere you want. It's you brain and your remote control,
but use that to help you not be so stressed in that moment. So, take-home messages. R
is really about regulating arousal levels. Find your sweet spot or your IZOF, your Individualized
Zone of Optimal Functioning. Practice your strategies in low stress situations so they
become a habit. Ask yourself this question, "Do I really need to get stressed about this?"
If we're really honest with ourselves, most of the time the answer to that is no. Let's
talk about make routines. Routines are really important. They are a pattern of behaviors
that we do to help keep us on track. For example, you probably have a shower routine. You get
in the shower, you do things in a certain order. Well, surgeons also have routines.
And there was a study by St. Johns Hopkins University researchers that looked at something
called Never Events. Never Events are mistakes that happen in the hospitals that are 100
percent completely avoidable. 39 incidences of Never Events are reported every week in
US hospitals. Now, if surgeons and the nurses and all the people surrounding these situations
used checklists, used routines, these Never Events such as operating on the wrong foot
or leaving gauze or sponges or towels inside of patients, those things won't happen if
they follow routines. Routines are important. Of course, we're not just talking about patterns
of behaviors. We're also going to be talking about thoughts and feelings. And I'd like
to introduce to you one of my favorite NBA players, Steve Nash. Steve Nash played for
the Phoenix Suns, now plays for the Lakers. And he is known as being a very effective
free throw shooter. His percentage is about 90 percent. When he gets to the line, he goes
through a whole routine. He does his thing with his fingers and his mouth kind of gross
actually. Then he takes two, you know, practice air shots, doesn't have the ball. I think
at that time he's imaging the ball going through the net. He's probably talking to himself
in positive and confident ways. And as I said, when he gets to the line, 90 percent of the
time, he scores points for his team. The really neat thing about routines is that when you
are consistent with them and you use them all the time, it becomes about the task that
you're doing and not the meaning of the task. And let me give you an example of what I'm
talking about. In the Western Conference Championships in 2010 against the San Antonio Spurs, Steve
Nash was elbowed and although it may be hard to see, he's basically playing with his eye
almost completely swollen shut. He played a great game. He went to the line. He went
through his routine, boom, one point, one point, one point, continued to shoot threes
the whole thing. Why? Because he had a routine. He could fall back on that routine even though
his eye was completely swollen shut. So, having routines takes the meaning of the event away.
And by the way as I said, that was the Western Conference Championship, right? He could have
said "Ah, it's the Western Conference Championship, my eye, I can't play." He just followed his
routines. Athletes will say, "Ah, it's the Olympics" or a student will say, "Ah, it's
the final exam." Doesn't matter. Why? The job is the same. If you're a bobsled athlete,
your job is to get down that course as quickly as you can. It doesn't matter if it's a practice
run, if it's the trials or if it's the Olympic finals. Your job is the same. And when you
approach your job with the routine and that routine is consistent, the meaning goes away
and it helps you to experience success. I want to say something else about routines.
Superstitions have a way of making themselves into routines. Serena Williams, when she starts
the US Open or Wimbledon, she doesn't change her socks. Those must be some pretty stinky
socks. Tiger Woods, red shirt Sundays, OK? Wade Boggs now in the Hall of Fame for Major
League Baseball. Early in his career, he had a game where he had multiple hits. And guess
what, he ate chicken before that game. So, from that point on he had to have chicken
before every game that he played. And of course, there's something called the Playoff Beard.
Here's Sidney Crosby from the Pittsburgh Penguins trying to sport a Playoff Beard. Once Playoffs
start in Hockey and in other sports, the athletes don't shave, OK? Now, these things are superstitions.
Whether or not an athlete shaves has nothing to do with how that athlete is going to perform.
You cannot tell me that Serena Williams won Wimbledon because she didn't change her socks.
She won because she's a superior athlete who mentally and physically prepared for that.
So, you don't need to sit in a certain seat when you take an exam or chew gum or whatever
it is. None of that matters. You'll do well on that exam if you've mentally prepared for
it and you're able to focus in that moment. Superstitions have a way of taking control
away from the athlete. We want the athlete to be in control. Key points. Include the
physical and the mental components. Remember that routines are not just about behaviors,
they're also about thoughts and feelings. When you follow routines consistently, you
will eliminate the meaning of that event because the job is the same. And again, avoid superstitions.
You want to have the control. Don't give it away to socks or chicken or anything else.
So, UNIFORM. Seven, sport psychology skills or concepts. Again, based on best practices,
my consulting experience and my research. Not mutually exclusive boxes, lots of inter
lap, lots of overplay, lots of marriage. If you work on these skills, you can achieve
peak performance. Without a doubt in my mind, 100 percent of the time, I know that that
is true. Here are some final take-home messages. UNIFORM, sport psychology, it's for everyone.
Elite athletes, novice performers, young, old, doesn't matter, it's for everyone. Start
working on these things now. If you work on them in what we call a low stress environment
and you make them a habit, when you get into that intense situation, that tool is ready
in your toolbox and you'll be able to use it. Don't wait for a problem. Guess when I
get phone calls. "I have an event coming up, can you help me? I need some sport psychology."
OK? Be proactive and work on them regularly, OK? So, I'm going to leave you with a final
question. This is the question that I ask myself. I'll ask the graduate students and
the athletes with whom my work. Do you have your UNIFORM on? Are you mentally prepared
for what it is that you're going to do? I hope that if it hasn't been before, the answer
will now be yes. Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]