TRAIN YOUR BRAIN ☺
Give your mind a success workout as well as your body
with Karen Darke
LESSON 2 : Beliefs
It is one thing knowing the importance of a positive mental attitude but it is another thing putting it into practice. The beliefs we have are based on our past experiences, and contribute to our perception of the world. Of course, that perception is only our unique view of things, and a different set of beliefs could really change that. To enhance your abilities and possibilities, it is useful to check out what beliefs you might want to change ☺ Here are a few approaches that have helped me…
Check out your stories…
I was never a confident cyclist. In fact, when I decided to try and become a Paralympic handcyclist, I had only ever done two races, and come last in both of them. The story I told myself back then was “I just cycle for fun and I’m good at riding slow for a long time”. In my first year of training for the London 2012 Paralympics, that was the story I told myself. I rode more than ever, thought I was training hard, and was certainly investing a lot of time…but a year later, I was no faster, and still coming last in races!
I had a story running in my head that went something like “I’m not an athlete”, and I decided to work on changing that belief. I tried a more positive belief out: “If I train hard, maybe I can become good enough to get to a Paralmpic Games”. It worked out, and I made it to London, and to my shock, won a silver medal. For the next four years, I worked on changing a belief of “I never win” to “I can win Gold in Rio”. I didn’t suddenly burst with confidence that I could win, but by changing my story surprising things happened. In 2016 I won the gold medal in Rio. Where we put our thoughts and attention, our energy goes. The simple act of changing a collection of thoughts can change our beliefs and hence our life!
The stories we tell ourselves are just that. It is important to notice what our stories are, because they can hold us in place and keep us stuck. They are just programs we are running about ourselves that are often unhelpful, and we can work on replacing the underlying beliefs with new ones. Just like you can change a scary movie to a comedy, we can change the movie we are playing inside our own head.
Check out your words…
The stories we tell ourselves are a collection of words. Their power is immense, but what might surprise you more is the power that even one word can have on changing your reality.
About twice a week, I have a really intense training session. I used to call it my ‘killer’ session. Now imagine waking up in a morning with the prospect of something ‘killer’…just that one word is enough to kill our motivation to participate. I used to delay my training for hours, faffing around instead. A friend suggested that I call them my ‘gold’ sessions instead of ‘killer’…and the result was surprising! I suddenly felt ready to engage with the hard work, knowing it was only the intense sessions that would ever get me fitter and improve my chances of making Paralympic dreams a reality.
There is a book about confidence by Dr. Rob Yeung. He refers to ANTs: Automatic Negative Thoughts. If our head is full of negative thoughts, this affects how we feel, which in turn affects how we behave, which then affects who and what we attract in our life. If we’re allowing our doubts to run riot, this cycle often leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of a negative outcome. ANTs can take many forms, like “It’s too difficult. We’ll never manage”, or “I can’t do it – I’m not good enough”.
The opposite are CATs – Capability Affirming Thoughts. You may have heard people call them positive affirmations or helpful self-talk. CATs help you think constructively, encourage your confidence and lead towards a more successful outcome.
I’ve found that in facing challenges that I have as many ANTs, as CATs. Rather than dismissing the ANT’s though, I find it useful to pay attention to them. I list them all. Then I think about how to turn the ANTs around. I ask What can I do to alleviate that concern, doubt, or insecurity…? That way the ANTs seem to become an extremely helpful way of countering problems before they arise.
Try making a list of any ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts, or words) you have. What is one thing you can do about each of your ANTs to help you gain confidence to progress forwards? Also, list the CATs (Capability Affirming Thoughts, or words) to remind yourself of the skills and positivity you have, too. Try paying attention to the words you are using, and whether they are helping or hindering you.
Check out your resistance…
Succeeding with a challenge or a goal inevitably means some hard work, and that very likely means you will find some resistance. You may avoid practical things (e.g. training or organizing yourself), or you may have questions popping up like “What if I can’t do this?” or “Maybe I won’t be able to do this”. You might allow yourself to being scared off by these thoughts, or thrown off course by your avoidance, BUT this resistance is actually great. Weightlifters are wasting their time if the weights they lift cause no resistance. Just like you only grow muscle fibres and get stronger when there is resistance in a gym, the same applies to anything. When we feel resistance, your first urge may be to give up, but in the resistance lies the chance for growth. Just like molecules need a minimum amount of energy - activation energy - to undergo transformation, so do we. The only way you’ll get your rocket out into orbit is if you bust through that resistance. So, next time you feel it, embrace it, because it offers you a path to change and empowering surprises.
Nobody said it was easy ☺
So of course, it might be nice if we could achieve all of this belief and change by reading a short article. However, you’ll have to decide how much you want to accomplish your challenge or the change you seek, and how much you’re willing to commit to getting from your current scenario to your desired one. Progress is usually exponential: it’s often slow to see results at first, but with a little effort every day, things soon compound and big shifts can happen relatively quickly. Your choice: give up on week one, or commit to change and do the work?
Practice noticing your stories and changing the underlying beliefs to positive ones; change your words to help you; and embrace the resistance. Surprising things will unfold!
Just like you pack a toolkit for repairing punctures or mechanicals on your bike, it will be helpful to go equipped with a ‘brain toolkit’ to assist you in accomplishing your Quest. Over the coming months, Karen will be writing series of articles to help you succeed in whatever your goals. You can also join a ‘Train Your Brain’ workshop September 18-20th in Scotland, so look out for that if you fancy some real-person time with Karen and other TAS members to help you along your journey.
Karen has 10 years experience as a professional athlete, an MA in Development Training, a Masters in Sports Psychology and High Performance Coaching & is a qualified Performance Coach & Hypnotherapist.