Recently, an article released in The Age newspaper was titled “Dip in thefts, drugs and family violence but police say drop in crime may not last”.
In 2021, the number of recorded offences in Victoria, Australia, dropped by 12.6% over the previous year. As a result, the police recorded 70,000 fewer offences. It was the lowest rate of offending (per person) that has been seen in the state since 2012.
The crime rates in Victoria may be lower than ever, but I am not too sure because the data at crimestatistics.vic.gov.au only goes back to 2012 when I look. Less property and deception offences. Fewer drug offences and family violence incidents.
Indeed, this is a cause for celebration?
Not so fast, the experts in the article say, given that “Victoria was in periods of restriction for significant periods of last year”.
Victoria Police’s Deputy Commissioner also seems to think that “it is likely that overall crime will increase as the community returns to normal”, but it’s not like the 154 days of lockdown in 2020 resulted in less crime than the 113 days locked down in 2021.
2020 nearly beat out 2016 for the most criminal offences recorded in a year, even though the lockdowns lasted 41 more days than in 2021.
If the lockdowns were responsible for the reduced crime in 2021, wouldn’t more crime be committed in 2017, 2018 or 2019 than in 2020?
I guess only time will tell. But maybe it is a good sign that a person in Victoria in 2021 was less likely to be the victim of a criminal offence than in any other year since 2012?
Why don’t we celebrate the positives when they occur?
I see it in my friends on social media and the patients I see in my consulting rooms. So many people think that everything is getting worse, and some even believe that the world might be ending.
Yes, the situation in Ukraine is scary. There also remains inequalities against people based on class, gender, nationality, sexual identity, ethnicity, age and disability. However, progress has occurred in many of these areas.
Despite this, in 2016, 65% of the US thought the world was getting worse, and only 6% believed it was getting better. In 17 other surveyed countries, 58% thought the world was either getting worse or staying the same.
People used to worry that overpopulation would lead to poverty and famine everywhere. However, even though our worldwide population is 8 billion now, the poverty rates have declined from 42% in 1981 to 8.6%. In addition, since 1900, our life expectancy has more than doubled, and obesity now impacts more people worldwide than hunger.
Yes, COVID-19 has been a challenge for many people and continues to be a challenge for many more. However, despite the pandemic, the economies in certain countries, including Bangladesh, Ghana, and China, became more prosperous in 2021 than in 2019.
Just because progress occurs, it “does not mean that everything gets better for everyone, everywhere, all the time”, Steven Pinker says. “That would be a miracle.” But unfortunately, while we are progressing in general and heading in the right direction, it is not a miracle. Things continue to be imperfect and always will be.
For more amazing facts about how things have improved and continue to improve, please check out books like ‘The Rational Optimist’ by Matt Ridley, ‘Factfulness’ by Hans Rosling, ‘Enlightenment Now’ by Steven Pinker, or any others like them.
For a more positive outlook on humans, please check out the excellent book ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’ by Rutger Bregman. I also really like websites such as humanprogress.org. They highlight the positive stories worldwide that don’t get as much celebration in the news as they deserve.
Over the past five years, I have been trying to live my life in a way that will not accumulate more regrets.
Most people tend to find change both problematic and scary. Sometimes, we remain stuck in a bad or unideal situation for too long because we fear what we could lose if we leave or change where we are.
However, we also tend to regret things we don’t do much more than the changes we make. So even if something doesn’t work out exactly how you have planned, more times than not, you will be glad that you have taken a risk and given something new a chance.
So, if you are in a difficult situation, including a bad relationship or a bad job, and are thinking about leaving but are also scared to do so, make sure that you make the comparison fair for yourself. First, compare what you might gain if you leave to what you might achieve if you stay. Then think about what you might lose if you go, but compare it to what you might lose if you stay.
If you think about what you might lose versus what you might gain if you leave, prospect theory indicates that the potential losses will likely loom larger for you. The potential gains of you going won’t help you overcome your fears of leaving enough. You will be more likely to stay, even if the current situation is not ideal for you.
Every decision we make has positives and negatives, so don’t forget about the negatives of maintaining the status quo or doing nothing if you are in a harmful or toxic situation.
If you really want to leave but feel afraid, think about the positives of leaving plus the negatives of not making the change. In this way, both your approach system and your fear system will work together and push you in the same direction of making a change and running away from the current situation you are in.
If you are still feeling indecisive, toss a coin. Then let the coin be responsible for the action you take. It might just help you to make the change that deep down you know you want to take.
The Positives of Making a Change
Steven Levitt from Freakonomics fame asked people over a year to flip a virtual coin if they were on the fence about something. If the coin landed on heads, the website told them to go ahead and make a change. However, if the coin landed on tails, they were instructed to keep the status quo.
From more than 20,000 coin tosses, the most common life dilemma that people flipped a coin about was whether or not to quit their jobs. A large percentage of people were also indecisive about whether or not to break up their intimate partners. The website asked a series of questions first to help people arrive at a decision. If these questions didn’t help, the website instructed visitors to flip a coin.
Levitt contacted each person who flipped a coin via email two months and six months after the coin toss. Those who did make a significant change in their lives reported being happier two months later than those who maintained the status quo. Their happiness was even higher six months after their decision. The results were similar regardless of whether or not they followed the coin toss instructions if it landed on heads and made the change or went against it if it landed on tails and made the change anyway.
Levitt concluded that “people are too cautious when it comes to making a change” and probably should take action if they are uncertain about whether or not to.
How Do I Not Regret Things?
For me, preventing the accumulation of regrets is about trying to live my life in a way that is consistent with the life that I want—or trying to be the person I would like to be in every situation.
Getting to this point requires a decent amount of self-awareness and self-knowledge of who I am, what I care about, and what I want.
Now that I am aware of these things, it is easier to determine what I would like. In addition, completing the future authoring program has also helped help me to clarify what I really would like in the future.
Some of the questions that they asked me were as follows:
What is One Thing You Could Do Better?
Tune in instead of tuning out. Listen to my body and mind and become more aware of what I feel and what I need.
What Things Do You Want to Learn About?
I want to learn more about running a successful business and private psychology practice.
Which Habits Would You Like to Improve?
I want to stay on top of all my responsibilities at work. I want to connect more with friends and family and ask them for help rather than doing everything myself. I want to remain a non-drinker of alcohol and continue learning new things, going on adventures, exercising, trying to eat healthily, taking my medication, and looking after my health.
What Type of Social Life do You Want in the Future?
I want to maintain connections with the essential people in my life, including my parents, siblings, host family, partner, daughter, family, and friends.
What Leisure Activity Do You Want to Do in the Future?
I want my leisure to be about being active, lifting weights, cooking well, learning new skills, being creative and socialising with those I love.
How Do You Want Your Family Life in the Future?
I want to be connected with them all, even if we are in different countries, share the good things and get support if needed. I also want to try to be there for as many big moments as possible and visit them when I can. Prioritise my partner and family here in Vanuatu and be consistent, reliable, supportive, loving, and caring.
What Type of Career Do do You Want in the Future?
I want to have a thriving private practice as a clinical psychologist. Run both groups and individual sessions and positively impact the community. I would also like to live a sustainable lifestyle where I enjoy my work and remain healthy, with enough time for leisure, relationships and personal growth.
What Qualities Do You Admire?
I want to deliberately and continually learn and improve. I want to be grateful, efficient, effective and courageous. I want to reflect on my mistakes, learn from my experiences, and gain wisdom over time. I want to be fully present, kind and compassionate to myself and others.
What Does an Ideal Future Look Like to You?
I want to be the best me that I can be. I want to help as many people as I can. I want to end up in a place where I feel satisfied and valuable and where I belong. I want to feel like my life is worthwhile and a net positive on the world.
I hope to save up enough money, live in Vanuatu, build a comfortable home and have a good life with my partner and her daughter. I want to make a real difference to the country’s mental health and share with people worldwide all of the knowledge and skills they need to improve their sleep and mental health.
What is a Future that You Want to Avoid?
I don’t want to be a drunk, obese, unemployed loner. I don’t want to fail to meet my obligations or stop striving to achieve my goals. I don’t want to be a bad influence on my partner or children or any clients that I see. I don’t want to end up in jail, commit any crimes or deliberately hurt others. I don’t like to be prideful and not apologise or make amends when I err. I also don’t want to disappoint my friends and family or be considered selfish, unkind, or shit.
Ending the post by talking about the life that I do not want may seem negative, but remember that losses loom larger than gains. By writing down the life I want to avoid, I become motivated to run away from this, make the changes I need to achieve the life I want and not keep building up regrets as I go.
The five factor personality model has been researched and written about extensively. If you have never taken a Big Five Aspects Scale before, you can find out what your results are for under $10 at the Understand Myself website. A free version called the IPIP-NEO can also be found here.
Main Findings Based on the Five-Factor Personality Model
Judge, Heller & Mount (2002) found that highly conscientious people are most satisfied with their job (.26 correlation), followed by highly extraverted people (.25 correlation), then highly agreeable people (.17 correlation), then those who are high on openness to experience (.02 correlation) People high on neuroticism were negatively correlated with job satisfaction (-.29 correlation). My introversion is the only aspect that may negatively impact how much I enjoy a job.
For academic performance, Poropat (2009) found that agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience correlate significantly to academic performance. Conscientiousness was related to academic performance in a way that was largely independent of intelligence. My personality style likely helped me to do well in school and complete eight years of university studies.
For intimate relationship satisfaction, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Schutte, Bhullar and Rooke (2009) found that low neuroticism, high agreeableness, high conscientiousness and high extraversion were all correlated with greater relationship satisfaction. These variables did not vary significantly from men to women or from unmarried to married individuals. Unfortunately, my introversion and low enthusiasm in particular make it a bit harder for me to be satisfied in intimate relationships.
For citizenship, Chiaburu, Oh, Berry, Li, and Gardner (2011) found that people that are low in neuroticism, high in extraversion and high in openness to experience are more likely to engage in more individual, organization and change-oriented citizenship. Again, not being too extraverted and enthusiastic holds me back a little here.
For occupational type, Barrick, Mount and Gupta (2006) found that extraverts are most likely to enter an enterprising career (.41 correlation). People that are high on openness to experience are most likely to enter an artistic career (.39 correlation). Some say therapy is more art than science, which may indicate why I have chosen this over a career in research.
For clinical disorders, Malouff, Thorsteinsson and Schutte (2004) found that psychological disorders are more closely linked with high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, low agreeableness and low extraversion. Healthy populations in comparison to clinical populations show higher levels of extraversion and lower levels of neuroticism. Again, my introversion puts me at a greater risk.
For alcohol abuse, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Rooke and Schutte (2007) found that people that are low on conscientiousness, low on agreeableness and high on neuroticism are more likely to have difficulties with alcohol. These individuals are less likely to improve through treatment. Another meta-analytic finding by Malouff, Thorsteinsson and Schutte (2006) found that these three factors are also significantly related to smoking prevalence. Never smoked, but have drunk more than I should have at times. If I want to cut down, my personality style should help me.
For physical activity, Sutin and colleagues (2016) found that lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness is associated with more physical activity and less sedentary behaviour. Higher extraversion and more openness to experience is also associated with more physical activity ,and that these variables don’t change much based on age or sex. Consequently, being a bit introverted is the only factor that lets me down.
For workplace harassment, highly neurotic people are most likely to be exposed to workplace harassment (.25 correlation), with highly extraverted and conscientious people least likely to be harassed (.10 correlation). I thought Susan Cain said it was good to be an introvert in her book ‘Quiet’, but there doesn’t seem to be much that is positively linked with Introversion?
What About Individual Faults and Virtues?
Even though across the population as a whole there seems to be benefits to being extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, open to experience and not neurotic, there are advantages and disadvantages to each trait, particularly at the extremes.
Extremely sociable, extraverted people can be dominant and impulsive, while introverted, quiet people can easily become isolated and depressed.
Extremely open people can be scattered and overwhelmed by their own thoughts and ideas, while closed-minded people may become narrow and inflexible.
Exceptionally conscientious people can be obsessive about order, judgmental and rigid, while their more carefree counterparts may be messy, undisciplined and careless.
People very high in emotional stability may engage in risky, dangerous behaviour, while those who are more neurotic can become so preoccupied by anxiety and pain that they are unable to function.
Finally, extremely agreeable people may never stand up for themselves, while those who are too disagreeable can be aggressive, callous and bullying.
To find out your individual faults and virtues on each of the five personality factors, the Self Authoring program can help you to clarify your own personal traits and help you to clarify what you would like to strengthen and improve. Below are my results:
Extraversion/Introversion Faults
Can spend too much money
Keep in the background
Lose opportunities because I am too isolated
Am too quiet around strangers
Find it difficult to approach others
Bottle up my feelings
Feel drained by social interactions
Have a social circle that is too small
Extraversion/Introversion Virtues
Feel comfortable around people
Don’t mind being the center of attention
Can take charge and lead
Am skilled in handling social situations
Am often happy
Can listen well
Do not always talk about myself
Enjoy time in natural surroundings
Let other people have the spotlight
Think before I act
Agreeable/Assertive Faults
Avoid conflict even when it is necessary
Will sacrifice my own feelings for the comfort of others
Can bottle up my feelings until I become resentful
Am polite to a fault
Trust people too easily
Can be detached and cold when others are hurt and upset
Agreeable/Assertive Virtues
Trust people
Am interested in people
Feel others’ emotions
Inquire genuinely about others’ well-being
Know how to comfort others
Make people feel at ease
Am a good peacemaker
Am aware that malevolence exists in the world
Conscientiousness/Carelessness Faults
Get obsessed with details and lose the big picture
Cannot stand to be late for an appointment
Feel that I am being unproductive if I relax
Believe that I have to be flawless
Can be contemptuous of other people and of myself
Find it difficult to get down to work
Neglect my duties
Frequently make excuses
Am sometimes willing to bend the truth to get out of an obligation
Feel unmotivated to complete my work
Conscientiousness/Carelessness Virtues
Have a very long attention span and can work without being distracted
Do things according to a plan
Strive for efficiency and economy
Pay attention to details
Am extremely reliable
Always arrive at appointments early or on time
Am very goal-oriented
Do what I say I am going to do
Know how to go with the flow
Don’t waste my time thinking about little details
Emotional Stability/Low Stress Tolerance Faults
Am sometimes not afraid of things I should be afraid of
Don’t appear to learn as well from my mistakes as others do
Don’t pay enough attention to costs and potential future dangers
Often take counterproductive or unnecessary risks
Blow little things out of proportion
Let my fears stop me from doing things I want to do
Emotional Stability/Low Stress Tolerance Virtues
Am difficult to offend
Am in control of my emotions
Calm down quickly when I do get upset
Seldom get disturbed or upset
Am rarely incautious
Am a cautious, careful person
Don’t rush into things before I feel comfortable
Am good at identifying the risks in new situations
Openness/Traditionalism Faults
Pursue too many activities at the same time
Am interested in so many things that I don’t know what to focus on
Have a hard time planning for the future because I am interested in everything
Have a hard time making up my mind because I can always see all the sides of an argument
Am so interested in creative activities that it is hard to concentrate on things that are practical
Have had a hard time forming a clear identity
Have done crazy things just because I was curious about what might happen
Openness/Traditionalism Virtues
Am quick to understand things
Can handle a lot of information
Catch on to things quickly
Am always learning new things
Spend time reflecting on things
Can always see new possibility in things
See the value in tradition and custom
Am resistant to radical, dangerous thoughts
So, as you can see above, your personality style is never all good or all bad. I’m sure that even if you are introverted, disagreeable, careless, neurotic and closed to new experiences, there will still be some virtues associated with your personality style. I also think that, even though it may be more of a challenge, it is still possible to find the right career or job and the right relationship and friendships for you.
You may not be the right fit for everyone or everything, but no one is. What is more important is to first try to understand yourself, change what you would like to and are able to, accept what you do not want to or cannot change, and then find the places and people that love and appreciate you for who you are.
I’ve played a lot of sport in my lifetime. When I was six years old, my first basketball game was on the Diamond Valley mini-courts in Victoria, Australia. My most recent game was this week at Wan Smol Bag in Port Vila, Vanuatu. So that means I’ve been playing organised sport for over 27 years now.
Both of my parents were Physical Education teachers and excellent sports coaches, and they consistently encouraged my two siblings and me to play sports and be active. I’m not sure if my siblings felt this too, but there was a sense that we should take sport seriously, and it was essential to try our best and be unselfish team players and fair opponents.
For example, this Larry Bird Converse poster hung on the wall in our house when I was younger:
“It makes me sick when I see a guy just watching it go out of bounds.” — Larry Bird
I was a super competitive kid, with most of my childhood consisting of competing against whoever I could find, especially my brother and friends. I also tried to compete in anything, including board games, computer games, card games and multiple sports.
I’ve managed to have some success in several sports. I finished in the top 10 in the state in swimming in Primary (Elementary) School, the top 20 in discus throwing, and the top 30 in alpine skiing. In High School, I made the State team in volleyball for three years and the Victorian Institute of Sport and the Australian Youth Squad for volleyball. I then moved to the USA at 16 to play Varsity volleyball, basketball and tennis in California and Virginia. Later on, I won a State Championship in the top division in the Victorian Volleyball League at 25 and won a championship playing Semi-professional basketball when I was 27 in Australia.
Despite this modicum of success, I don’t think that I reached my potential.
I was a bit like Allen Iverson in his famous “practice” speech:
I loved to play, but I hated to practice. I was not overly goal-focused outside of turning up on the game day, giving my all, and doing whatever I could to help my team win. When I was younger, I also had what is known as a ‘fixed mindset’, and thought that I could not change my athletic capabilities with deliberate effort.
It wasn’t until I started to learn psychology at university that I realised that I could mentally change how I approached the games that I played. I began to apply the psychological skills I had learnt and developed a growth mindset rather than a fixed one. As a result, I became less afraid of losing, more able to learn from setbacks and mistakes, and more able to step up when the game was on the line. I also discovered how to bounce back after making a few mistakes, keep pushing and trying when we were losing, and perform at my best on a much more consistent basis.
I wish I could have had these skills earlier in my life, and I would like to share them with you so that you can hopefully take your game to the next level.
How Strong is the Mental Side of Your Game?
The Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI) looks at seven sub-scales related to how you mentally approach sport and helps to highlight areas in which you might struggle:
Sub-scale #1: Coping with adversity — assesses if you remain positive and enthusiastic even when things are going badly. Also determines if you stay calm and controlled, and can quickly bounce back from mistakes and setbacks.
Do you remain positive and enthusiastic during a competition, no matter how bad things are going?
When things are going badly, do you tell yourself to keep calm and does this work for you?
When you feel yourself getting too tense, can you quickly relax your body and calm yourself?
Can you maintain emotional control regardless of how things are going for you?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, you currently are not coping as well as you could with adversity.
TO IMPROVE HOW YOU COPE WITH ADVERSITY
If things are going bad during a competition, try cognitive restructuring. First, tune in to what thoughts are going through your mind. Then ask yourself if they are realistic thoughts and helpful thoughts to be having right now? If you are thinking about anything that is not what you are meant to be doing in the present, they are probably not helpful. If it’s the mistake you just made, let it go and move on. If you worry that you might keep making mistakes and lose, let it go and move on. Tell yourself, “this isn’t helpful!” or ask yourself, “what is a more helpful way to be thinking right now?” It might be “keep calm”, or it could be another mantra that you find helpful. Then stop focusing on your thoughts and focus on whatever is in your control in the present that will help you to get back on track. Then do it.
If you are feeling overwhelmed or out of control during a competition, try deep breathing. Tune into your breathing. Chances are, your breath is probably rapid and shallow if you feel overwhelmed, tense or out of control. Then, exhale and breathe out all of the air in your lungs. Slowly breathe deeply into your stomach, pause for a second or two, and then exhale all of the air out again. Keep breathing slowly and deeply and exhaling all your air until you feel a bit calmer and more in control. Then stop focusing on your breath and put your focus back to the main objective that you have that is in your power in the present.
If you feel too physically tense during a competition, try progressive muscle relaxation. Tune in to where you feel most tense, then pick one area to target first. Squeeze it as hard as possible, take a deep breath in, pause, breathe out and relax. Then repeat if needed or move onto another tense muscle area. If you can’t tense it because of the sport you are doing, try to breathe in and around the tight area and then see if you can relax it with the out-breath. Repeat as often as needed. Once you feel less tense, stop focusing on your body tenseness and put your focus back to whatever is in your control in the present that will help you to achieve your objectives.
Sub-scale #2: Coachability — assesses if you learn from coaches instructions and are open to accepting constructive criticism or advice without taking it personally or becoming upset:
Do you manage not to take it personally or feel upset when a coach tells you how to correct a mistake you’ve made?
When a coach criticises you, do you feel helped rather than upset?
If a coach criticises or yells at you, do you correct the mistake without getting upset about it?
Do you improve your skills by listening carefully to feedback and instructions from your coaches?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
You are currently not very coachable if you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items. For example, my dad said I was uncoachable growing up, but I did improve by applying a few strategies.
TO IMPROVE HOW YOU COACHABLE YOU ARE
When a coach criticises or yells at you, try not to take it personally. The coach is likely to be on an emotional roller coaster if it is a competition, just like you. They may care just as much or even more than you about winning, but they cannot control your behaviour on the field. They can merely make suggestions or sub you out, which may make them feel even more stressed or anxious than if they were out there performing. See if there is merit in what they are saying to you regardless of how they have said it. If it is useful advice, take it on board. If it is not helpful, try to tune it out and re-focus on whatever is within your control that will help you achieve your objectives.
Develop a growth mindset and let go of your ego. When you make a mistake in practice, try to listen to feedback from coaches about what led to the error and how you can improve it. If they don’t give you any feedback, ask for it when it is appropriate. It is generally a lot easier for someone else to see what you are doing wrong and how you can improve it than it will be for you to view it. Asking someone in your coaching staff to film what you are doing can also help because then you can view what they see and discuss how to improve it.
Listen carefully to your coaches’ advice and instructions, especially during practice and before and after a game. The coach’s job is to help you perform at your best, so try to take what they suggest and give it a go before rejecting it as not helpful. Having a growth mindset sees mistakes and losses and failures as opportunities to reflect on what went wrong and how you can improve it. A coach can help with this, especially after a game and in practice. Asking questions to clarify what they said if you don’t understand can also help ensure you follow or try what they suggest. Don’t overthink things too much during a game, and get back to the game plan you and your coach established before the event.
Sub-scale #3: Concentration — reflects whether you become easily distracted and whether you can focus on the task at hand in both practice and game situations, even when adverse or unexpected conditions occur:
When you are playing sports, can you focus your attention and block out distractions?
Is it easy to keep distracting thoughts from interfering with something you are watching or listening to?
Do you handle unexpected situations in your sport very well?
Is it easy to direct your attention and focus on a single object or person?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, your concentration ability is not as good as it could be.
TO IMPROVE YOUR CONCENTRATION LEVELS
Meditate regularly. It doesn’t matter which type of meditation you do, but practice it for at least 10 minutes a day. Developing a daily meditation routine will help you improve your concentration levels on a game day more than anything else. I prefer mindfulness meditation the most, and the apps I would recommend the most to download if you want to have a guided meditation session daily are:
Smiling Mind
Insight Timer
Headspace
Calm
Waking Up
Ten Percent Happier
Buddhify
Balance
Avoid multitasking. Whatever you are doing throughout the day, try to focus on one thing at a time rather than attempting to do two or three things at once. It will be less tiring for you, and will also train your concentration. Just ask yourself, no matter what you are doing, “What is most important right now?” and try to put all of your attention and focus on that one task. If your mind tries to distract you or get you to do something else, thank your mind and bring your attention back to whatever is most important at that moment.
Practice informal mindfulness. Formal mindfulness involves sitting down and doing mindfulness meditation for a set period. However, you can also approach any other task that you are doing mindfully, called informal mindfulness. To do this, no matter what you are doing, try to see if you can approach the task as if you have never done it before in an open, accepting, non-judgmental way without wishing for it to be any other way. Jon Kabat-Zinn calls these the attitudes of mindfulness, and when applied to sports, you are likely to have a sense of relaxed concentration that is the key to getting into the zone or a state of flow more regularly.
Sub-scale #4: Confidence and Achievement Motivation — measures whether you are confident and positively motivated. Also assesses if you consistently give 100% during practices and games, and work hard to improve your skills:
Do you get the most out of your talent and expertise?
Do you feel confident that you will play well?
Do you give 100% during practices and competition and don’t have to be pushed to practice or play hard?
Do you try even harder when you fail to reach your goals?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, you do not have high levels of confidence and achievement motivation.
TO IMPROVE YOUR CONFIDENCE AND MOTIVATION FOR ACHIEVEMENT
Know your personality: Take the IPIP-NEO personality assessment to get a good sense of your personality and what will likely motivate you. If you are an extrovert, you probably need to train with other people and need excitement and fun. You may not need as much rest, either. If you are an introvert, you may need some individual sessions to remain focused and motivated and plenty of time to reflect and recover between practices and competitions. If you are agreeable, you will enjoy cooperating with the plans of your coaches or other athletes and helping out others. If you are disagreeable, you will probably need to do things your way a bit more to stay motivated and confident. If you are highly conscientious, you could have a consistent training schedule and pre-game routine, and you will be able to follow it and benefit from it. If you are low on conscientiousness, you will need more flexibility and variety in your training and preparation and goals to stay on track. If you are highly neurotic, you will have more times to feel down, anxious, angry, self-conscious, but developing skills to assist you with these emotions will help. If you are low on neuroticism, you are unlikely to be bothered by intense emotions or self-doubt and need additional strategies. Lastly, if you are very open to experiences, you are likely to remain confident and motivated even if things don’t go according to plan and accept whatever is happening and make room for whatever feelings arise. If you are low on openness, you will probably need more contingency plans to know what to do and feel less overwhelmed when things don’t go according to plan.
Clarify your essential values: The values exercise that I have previously written about is a great way to identify and remember why you are playing sport and what you are hoping to get out of it — knowing our why can help us to be much more motivated to push through pain and challenges when things get hard. By figuring out which values are essential, quite important and not relevant to you, you can see if you have been living in line with your fundamental values or applying them in your sport. If you haven’t, setting some consistent goals with these values will increase your motivation and hopefully improve your confidence.
Apply your character strengths to your sport: The VIA character strengths survey is similar to values clarification, with the VIA standing for values in action. Please take the survey, identify your top 5 key strengths and apply them to your practice and competition. It could help your confidence and motivation a lot.
Sub-scale #5: Goal setting and mental preparation — assesses whether you set and work toward specific performance goals. It also determines if you plan and mentally prepare for competition, and if you have a “game plan” for performing well:
Do you set concrete goals to guide what you do in your sport daily or weekly basis?
Do you tend to do a lot of planning about how you will reach your goals?
Do you set your own performance goals for each practice?
Do you have your game plan worked out in your head long before the game begins?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, you are currently not setting enough goals for yourself in your sport or preparing yourself mentally as much as you could be.
TO IMPROVE YOUR GOAL SETTING AND MENTAL PREPARATION SKILLS
Get on the same page as your coach (and teammates if you have them) about your sport’s objectives and the steps you will all need to take to achieve these objectives. By doing this, including having contingency plans for if things are not going well, your coach should help you stick to your plan and encourage you to switch to a contingency plan if things are not working as well as you both hoped. You can apply this for your training sessions, your weeks in the lead up to competition, before a game, during competition, and afterwards. If your coach changes the rules and goes off course, it is vital to raise this and remind them of your overall objectives so that you can remain on track and make progress towards your long-term goals.
Make sure the goals that you set are SMART goals. SMART means that your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-framed. You will then know if you have achieved them or not in the time that you have set and can make adjustments as needed.
Have a consistent pre-game ritual to mentally and physically prepare yourself for the game. Maybe eat the same meal the night before a competition (carbo-loading), do things to wind down and switch off to ensure you don’t get to bed too late and obtain a good quality sleep. If possible, wake up at a similar time in the morning and have the breakfast that your nutritionist has suggested is most helpful. Stay well hydrated. Have a game plan figured out with your coach well before the competition, and keep that fresh in your mind on game day. Get to the event place early enough to not have any unnecessary stress. Choose the location that allows you to get into the state you want to be when the competition starts. If you can’t choose the room, bring noise-cancelling headphones or other things that can still help you feel settled wherever you are. Then listen to music or motivational material as needed, warm up your body as required, visualise doing well or think back to times you have performed well in the past, and centre yourself before the competition. Then go out there and enjoy it.
Sub-scale #6: Peaking under pressure — measures whether you are challenged rather than threatened by pressure situations and if you perform well under pressure — if you are a clutch performer:
Do you tend to play better under pressure because you think more clearly?
Do you enjoy the game more when there is more pressure during it?
Are pressure situations challenges that you welcome?
Do you make fewer mistakes when the pressure is on because you concentrate better?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, you are currently not peaking under pressure or getting into the zone as much as you potentially could.
TO PEAK UNDER A PRESSURE ON A MORE REGULAR BASIS
Try the seven steps of centering:
First, select a comfortable focal point in the distance that is below eye level.
Form a clear intention in your mind of what you aim to do.
Breathe slowly and deeply in a mindful way and breathe all the air out with each breath.
Release your muscle tension by observing where you are most tense in your body, then release this tightness by first tensing it further and then letting go, or just trying to release it with each out-breath.
Find your centre of gravity or “chi” and use that to help ground you where you are and with what you are doing.
Repeat your process cue, or imagine what it sounds, feels and looks like to achieve what you aim to do in step 2. If there is a word that describes this, you can use it as your cue. For example, golfer Sam Snead would use the word “oily” to describe the smooth and effortless swing that he wanted.
Channel your remaining energy into a dynamic and inspired performance. Trust that all the hard work you have put in during training will pay off and help you achieve your aim and see if you can enjoy the competition and the peak performances that can come with this.
Develop your inner game. Timothy Gallwey wrote one of the best sports psychology books of all time with ‘The Inner Game of Tennis.’ The first step of the inner game is to observe what is happening in a non-judgmental way. The second step is to picture the desired outcome. The third step is to trust your body to reach your desired outcome and not try to overthink it. The last step is to nonjudgmentally observe the change in your performance and results by doing this.
Get into a flow state. To increase your chances of getting into a flow state, you first need to remove or zone out from all potential distractions. It is also important that the task you are aiming for strikes a good balance between your current skill level and the challenge you face. Flow is most likely to happen if the challenge is slightly greater than you perceive your current skills. If it is not challenging enough, you are likely to be bored. If it is too challenging, you are likely to be anxious. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that there are eight main characteristics of flow:
You need to put all of your concentration on the task at hand.
You need to be clear about your goals and get immediate feedback about if you are on the right track.
Flow transforms time, and things feel like they are either speeding up or slowing down in a flow state.
The experience must be intrinsically rewarding or enjoyable in and of itself, and not just a means to another end.
Your performance should feel effortless in a flow state.
There needs to be a good balance between challenge and skills; ideally, what you are doing is challenging and requires a lot of skill.
Your actions and awareness are merged, and you are no longer in your head thinking about what you are doing or worrying about your performance.
You feel fully in control of what you are attempting to do in pursuit of your objectives.
Sub-scale # 7: Freedom from worry — assesses whether you put pressure on yourself by worrying about performing poorly or making mistakes. It also determines if you worry about what others will think if you perform poorly:
Do you worry quite a bit about what others think of your performance?
Do you put a lot of pressure on yourself by worrying about how you will perform?
While competing, do you worry about making mistakes or failing to come through?
Do you think about and imagine what will happen if you fail or screw up?
How often do you do these things — rarely, sometimes, often or almost always?
If you have said rarely or sometimes to most or all of these items, your worries probably impair your performance.
TO FEEL FREER FROM YOUR WORRIES WHILE COMPETING
Try constructive worry. I don’t recommend this strategy during competition, but it is excellent to do before or after a game or when you are training for an upcoming event and are feeling worried. Create a table with three columns, and say what is worrying you in column one, what you can do to address the worry in column two, and when you can solve it in column three. It shouldn’t take much more than 5 minutes and might look like this:
Worries/Concerns
What Can I do to address this?
When can I address this?
What if I lose?
Train hard, prepare well, try my best
Now and at the competition
What if I make mistakes or fail?
Mistakes help me to learn and improve. Remember the Michael Jordan quote about failure leading to success
Anytime I have a setback, try to have a growth rather than a fixed mindset and see what I can learn from it to get better
What if others judge me?
Try to care less about this and focus on what is in my control, which is training hard, preparing well and trying my best. Also, don’t forget to have fun. If others judge me for trying my best, that is more about them than it is about me
Now. I can put my energy into things that are within my control, which is my intention and my actions, and let go of everything else
Practice grounding yourself in the present. Ask yourself: “What are five things I can see right now?” “What are four things I can touch or feel right now?” “What are three things I can hear right now?” “What are two things I can smell right now?” “What is one thing I can taste right now?“. These questions help you to become fully grounded in the present, instead of worrying about things going wrong in the future or ruminating about a mistake you made in the past. Finally, ask yourself: “Am I safe?“. If there is no imminent physical danger, you do not need to be in ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, and your brain can relax while you take a few deep breaths and re-focus on what you need to do next to achieve your objective.
Defuse from unhelpful thoughts. Sometimes it is helpful to challenge our worries if we know they are unhelpful. If you instead think of something more useful to believe, it might eliminate your fears. If it does not, try to defuse from your worry instead and aim not to get too caught up in it. Thinking “I’m going to miss this shot” won’t help, so if it crosses your mind, imagine putting this worry on a leaf on a river and let it float downstream, or put it on a cloud and watch it float away, or put it in a box on a conveyor belt and let it speed away into the distance. There are many different defusion strategies to help you let go of worrying thoughts. Look them up, try them out when you are not competing, see which ones are most effective for you, and then apply the most effective ones during your next competition. The less you worry, and the more you focus on what you can do that is in your control, the better your performance is likely to be.
To answer the title question, the best psychological strategies to improve your sporting performance are the ones that work best for you.See which sub-scales you score the lowest on, try some of these strategies that I have recommended, and then let me know what worked and how much your performance improved. I look forward to hearing about your improvement and growth!
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
Michael Jordan is potentially the greatest basketball player of all time. He is also thought to be the king of staying laser focused and composed under pressure, and consistently performing at his best. He holds the record of 866 straight games in the NBA scoring at least 10 points, and he scored over 20 points in all of his last 47 playoff games.
Jordan holds ten scoring titles for the most points scored in a season, as well as the highest career regular season scoring average (30.12 points per game) and career playoff average (33.45 ppg). He went to the NBA finals 6 times, and won 6 championships with the Chicago Bulls, alongside 6 NBA most valuable player (MVP) awards. Jordan also won the defensive player of the year award once, played in 14 all-star games, made ten all-NBA first teams and won five MVP awards. He was inducted into the basketball hall of fame in 2009, and was named ESPN’s greatest North American athlete of the 20th century. Not too bad a career.
How did Jordan perform to such a high level so regularly, especially when the stakes were the highest? The stadiums were packed with media and screaming and jeering fans, and millions more watched on TV around the world, and yet he managed to consistently step up, night after night.
Maybe it was just was genes or natural talent. However, if this was the case, Jordan’s children should have also been great, and Jordan wouldn’t have been cut from his high school basketball team as a sophomore.
Maybe it was his physical conditioning. Again, this might be true, but there have been plenty of fit and athletic players in the NBA, and not all of them go on to become superstars.
There’s also the infamous ‘flu game’ in game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals against the Utah Jazz, where the commentator Marv Albert said this:“The big story here tonight — the story concerning Michael Jordan’s physical condition. He is suffering from flu-like symptoms.”
Because the series was tied at 2 all, Jordan didn’t want to let his physical state prevent him from playing. Jordan started slow, and later admitted that he felt weak, had really low energy and couldn’t breath properly. In spite of almost passing out and having to slump over with his hands on his knees whenever the game stopped, Jordan helped the Bulls fight back from a 16-point first quarter deficit to win 90-88 and then go onto win the series in 6 games. In the process, he scored 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 1 block and the three-pointer that sealed the game with less than a minute to play.
What separated Michael Jordan from the rest and helped him to become one of the greatest athletes of all time was his mental fortitude and mindset. He never gave up, truly believed that great things were possible as long as he put in the work and tried his best, and he never backed down from a challenge.
Jordan didn’t care about making mistakes or failing in the eyes of others. What he really cared about was trying his absolute best, and not letting fear of failure hold him back from doing everything he could to help his team win. It could be that Michael Jordan is an anomaly here, but I don’t think he is.
If you look at all the greats, their mindset and mental strength played a huge role in their overall level of success. Let’s look at Simone Biles in gymnastics, who has now won 25 medals at the World Gymnastic Championships in her career, including 19 gold.
Biles believed in working harder than anyone else in practice to be the best, but also prioritized being confident in herself and her abilities, and knew that in order to do this, she needed to also ensure that she looked after her mental and emotional health.
What about Michael Phelps, who is the most decorated Olympian of all-time with 28 Olympic medals in swimming, including 23 gold.
Phelps, like Biles, tried to train harder than anyone else to be the best. He also focused on building belief and confidence in himself and not listening to any doubters who tried to tell him that something couldn’t be done. Like Jordan, he did not view it as failure to try as hard as he could to achieve his goals, even if he fell short.
All three amazing athletes had incredible success when it mattered most. Their mental attitude towards themselves, setbacks, practice and competition was no doubt a huge factor in the results that they achieved.
The Equation for Success
Some people may still try to put their success down to talent, but hopefully all of you know that this is wrong. Psychologist Angela Duckworth, in her book ‘Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’ developed an equation for success based on her research into the area:
talent + effort = skill
skill + effort = achievement
This means that the amount of hard work and effort you put into your training and preparation is twice as important for success than your initial level of talent.
Duckworth doesn’t exactly say this in her book, but once the effort has been put in at training, I truly believe that the next most important predictor of success is your mindset and mental strength on the day of the competition.
Finding Flow
Most professional athletes know what it is like to be “in the zone” or in a “peak experience” as Psychologist Abraham Maslow called it. It has also been commonly referred to as a “flow state”, which was initially coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and examined in detail in his book ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience’.
Flow can be defined as:
“being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The ego falls away. Your perception of time changes. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you are using your skills to the utmost, and those skills are significantly magnified. Physical skills, mental skills, psychological skills, social skills, creative skills, decision-making skills. Flow breaks boundaries. You are flow. It is you. There is no thought. You are fully immersed in your body and the moment. You experience profound mental clarity and a sense of oneness. Everything just works.”
I’ve never been to an Olympics before, but I can tell you that when I am confident and in the zone playing basketball or volleyball, I feel like no one can stop me, the game is so easy, things seem to move in slow motion and my level of performance astounds me. I am not exactly the best shooter in basketball, but I have had some games where making a basket was as easy as throwing a stone into the ocean from the edge of a pier.
If you don’t know what I mean, check out Klay Thompson’s shooting performance in only one quarter of basketball, smashing the previously held record:
Notice how it didn’t seem to matter where he was or who was defending him; he was in the zone, and he was going to shoot the ball as soon as he caught it, and those shots were going to go down.
The book ‘The Rise of Superman’ by Steven Kotler suggests that extreme and adventure sport athletes are the best at getting into flow states consistently and remaining there while competing. Because of the real risk of death and serious injury with mistakes, flow is not just a desired state to aim for but a necessity in these sports. Consequently, only the athletes that can consistently do it survive, both in the sport and in their lives.
Kotler tries to go beyond flow to explain unbelievable performances, such as pro-skater Danny Way jumping the great wall of China with a broken ankle:
Kotler says that every athlete has the capacity to get in the zone. Unbelievable performances are about experimenting with the impossible once you are in a flow state, pushing your limits, and seeing what you are truly capable of.
The opposite is also true. When I am not in a good headspace or my confidence is low, even the most basic moves feel difficult and scoring points can feel almost impossible. I’m going to guess that most of you have had similar experiences in your own sports too. When things just aren’t clicking. Where you start to doubt yourself. Where no matter what you try you just can’t get out of your head and you tense up. You start to miss free throws like Shaq:
What if you could be like Michael Jordan or Danny Way, and consistently perform at your best and reach your potential when it matters most? How would that feel, and how much would you pay to figure that out?
Fortunately, I won’t be charging you anything, but I do hope to help you unlock your own secrets to consistently great performance. In my next article, I’m going to teach you the mental skills and strategies to bounce back from adversity, take on helpful feedback from your coaches, and remain focused and composed even in highly stressful and distracting situations. I’m also going to help you to become more consistently confident and motivated, have clear objectives and be well prepared, perform at your best under pressure and not let your worries interfere with your game or prevent you from getting into a consistent state of flow. Stay tuned.
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
Values are guiding principles for our lives that are endless pursuits. We cannot achieve a value in the same way we can accomplish a goal. However, at any point in time, you can connect with them, act in accordance to them, and receive the vitality, energy, improved self-worth, greater emotional well-being and happiness that are often the result of living consistently with our values.
To figure out your most important values, first write if each value in the list below is very important to you (V), quite important to you (Q), or not important to you (N).
It is essential that we choose the values that feel right to us, rather than pick the values that we think our parents or society might want us to follow.
Then, for only your very important values, score from (0-10) how much you have been living according to this value over the past month, with:
0 = not following this value over the past month,
1 – 3 = following this value occasionally,
4 – 6 = following this value sometimes,
7 – 9 = following this value often, and
10 = always living by this value.
VALUES LIST
Connecting with Nature: Importance of value to you (V, Q, N?) = ________, Consistency with value if it is very important to you (0-10?) = _________
It will be difficult/impossible to always live by all of our very important values, because some values will come into conflict with each other. However, if you are have scored it a 5 or below in your consistency rating, then try to set a goal for the next month of how you can live more consistently with this value.
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
PLEASE NOTE: These value descriptions were taken from a values cards exercise that I did during my doctoral degree. I am not sure who developed it, but will happily give credit to them if anyone can let me know who did.
I’ve been afraid to say this for a while because of how it will be perceived, but my favourite book of all time is actually a textbook. So before you think that makes me someone you would never want to speak to, I’ll ask if you have ever read anything by Irvin Yalom, American Psychiatrist and Author?
His book ‘Existential Psychotherapy’ is a true masterpiece he worked on for 10 years and is written as eloquently as any of his other titles, including ‘When Nietzsche Wept’, the best fiction novel award winner in 1992.
What is Existential Psychotherapy?
Existentialism is the philosophical exploration of existential issues or questions about our existence that we don’t have an easy answer for. We all suffer from anxiety, despair, grief and loneliness at times in our lives. Existential Psychotherapy tries to understand what life and humanity are about.
In the book, Yalom explores what he considers to be our four most significant existential issues in life:
Death
Freedom
Isolation
Meaninglessness
These existential issues or ultimate concerns are “givens of existence” or “an inescapable part” of being an alive human in our world. He shows how these concerns develop over time, how we can run into problems with each of these issues, and what they might look like in patients coming to therapy. He also talks about how we can try to live with these concerns to negatively impact our lives less, even if we don’t have clear-cut solutions to them.
Let’s go through each of these ultimate concerns…
1. Death
Homo sapiens, or humans, as far as I know, are the only species in the animal kingdom that are aware that one day they are going to die.
The first time I heard this, it fascinated me and made me wonder if life would be more comfortable not being aware that one day we cease to exist.
Imagine it. Life is going well. Then suddenly, it is no more. No worry about what the future holds. We are born. We experience life. Then we are no longer there. No fear. Just nothingness.
Being aware that we will die shapes and influences our lives much more than we would like to admit. This is because so many of our anxieties and phobias at their core are fear of some loss or death.
Irvin Yalom says that while the actuality of death is the end of us, the idea of death can actually energise us.
If we don’t know when we will die, being in touch with the fact that one day everything will vanish is enough to overwhelm some people and make them panic.
For others, it is enough to make them follow the maxim of carpe diem and helps them to seize the day by appreciating everything they have so that they can make the most of the precious time they have left on this planet. Time is really just a bright spark of lightness between two identical and infinite periods of darkness — one before we are born and one after.
Death is the ultimate equaliser, for no matter how much we have achieved or done with our time on this planet, the truth is that we will all one day die.
It is also true that we will not know exactly when death will happen. It might be with a car accident tomorrow, from cancer in ten years, motor neurone disease in twenty years, a heart attack in thirty years, a stroke in forty years, or during our sleep in fifty years.
Because our knowledge of our inevitable death is so inescapable and hard to confront and deal with directly, we instead focus on smaller and more manageable worries or concerns in our lives that we can do something about if we want to. If we successfully address all these minor concerns, however, we then come in contact with our fear of death again, and the cycle repeats itself.
Most people tend to have one of two basic defence mechanisms against their fear of death:
A. They can think that they are “special” and that death will befall others but not them, and try to be an individual and experience anxiety about life.
Or
B. They can think they are an “ultimate rescuer” and try to fuse with others and experience anxiety about death (their own mortality and that of their loved ones).
A breakdown of either of these defences can give rise to psychological disorders:
narcissism or schizoid characteristics for the “special” defence, and
passive, dependent or masochistic characteristics for the “ultimate rescuer” defence.
In general, trying to be an individual is a more empowering and effective defence than fusing with others. Still, the breakdown of either can lead to pathological anxiety and/or depression.
The way to feel better about death anxiety is through an exercise called “disidentification”:
To begin with, ask yourself the question “Who am I?” and write down every answer that you can think of.
Then, take one answer at a time, and meditate on giving up this part of yourself, asking and reflecting on what it would be like to give up this part of yourself and your identity.
Repeat this with all the other answers until you have gone through all of them.
You have now disidentified yourself from all parts of your identity. See how you feel, and if there isn’t still a part of you, that feels separate from all the labels you give yourself. This provides comfort and reduces anxiety about death and life for a lot of people.
What I try to manage death anxiety is to only focus on whatever is most important to me that I can do something about in any given moment. I try to appreciate and be grateful for the time that I have had with each important person in my life. I try to be as fully present in the moment and with others as I can be. I try to use every moment and meeting as an opportunity to impact someone’s life positively. That way, I’ll hopefully not have too many regrets and be glad for the time I have had on this planet, no matter how long it ends up being.
2. Freedom
The second ultimate concern is about freedom, responsibility and will.
Every country in the world talks about fighting for the freedom of its citizens and about taking away some people’s freedom to ensure the safety and security of all. Therefore, the existential dilemma is how much freedom do we give up to others to feel safe and secure, or how much safety and security do we give up to feel genuinely free? Are these concepts in direct opposition, or is it sometimes possible to have enough of both?
Responsibility means taking full ownership of:
“one’s own self, destiny, life predicament, feelings, and if such be the case, one’s own suffering” — Irvin Yalom
In the past, one’s life was set out for them by their parents or society, and many people struggled to fight for the right to live an authentic and genuine life.
These days, most people struggle instead with the amount of choice that they have in their lives. They come to therapy because they don’t know what they want to do or how to choose, given all of the available options. They also know that if no one else is telling them what to do, it is ultimately their responsibility if things do not work out the way they want them to. People wish to choose for themselves but fear not having someone to blame when things don’t work out.
There are various defences that we engage in to avoid responsibility and shield ourselves from freedom, including:
compulsivity
displacement of responsibility to another
denial of responsibility (“innocent victim” or “losing control”)
avoidance of autonomous behaviour, and
decisional pathology
We can do something over and over again to relieve anxiety or stop thinking about things. This can present as OCD, hoarding, or any addiction ranging from technology to drugs and alcohol and even dependency on others.
We can try to coerce others to make decisions for us or seek out and find controlling partners, bosses or friends. But, we can also play it safe and try to do what we think everyone else does; focus on keeping up with the Joneses, engaging in passive activities that don’t require much effort, and feeling stuck in an unfulfilling relationship or career.
The problem with giving up the responsibility for how our lives turn out is that it creates an external rather than an internal locus of control. Depression and other forms of psychological disorders are more highly correlated with an external locus of control. It can also lead to learned helplessness, where people no longer feel like they can do anything to change their life in a positive direction.
The way to manage the responsibility and freedom paradox is to developan internal locus of control. This is generally more beneficial for most people’s well-being unless we blame ourselves or change things out of our control. This includes what has happened in the past, what other people do or say, and acts of nature.
The serenity prayer nicely spells out how we should approach responsibility:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
Paradoxical intention is a good antidote too. This means that we try to do the opposite of what we typically do for a period of time and keep an open mind and observe how things go. We can then see if the outcome is better than what we usually do or if it has taught us something about what will be best for us going forward.
Anything that creates a double bind is potentially helpful for encouraging people to take more responsibility in their lives. One way is to remind someone who struggles to make their own decisions that by not deciding, they are still making a choice not to choose. This means that no matter what they do, it is impossible not to make a decision that impacts the direction of their lives. Even if we choose to follow what someone else wants us to do, we still choose to do this. Therefore, why not take responsibility for our own lives and forge our own paths?
3. Isolation
There are three types of isolation:
“A. Interpersonal isolation: isolation from other individuals, experienced as loneliness
B. Intrapersonal isolation: parts of oneself are partitioned off from the self, and
C. Existential isolation: “an unbridgeable gap between oneself and any other being.”
A common way that people try to escape from existential isolation is to fuse with another fully. This is also a strategy for dealing with death anxiety, with people trying to be the “ultimate rescuer” of someone else. It can lead to an individual feeling temporarily less alone. Unfortunately, however, the less isolated we are from others, sometimes the more isolated we are from ourselves.
Other people try to overcompensate for their feelings of isolation by never relying on anyone and trying to be fully independent. Both extremes can have negative consequences.
The main thing we can do to manage our feelings of isolation is to realise and accept that we are social creatures and have always relied on others to survive. This drive creates a desire to feel closer to, more understood, and more connected to people than we can ever achieve and sustain.
Growing up, many people feel loved and comforted in an unbalanced relationship towards their needs being met over their parents. They then try to reenact this within their adult relationships and usually end up feeling resentful, angry and disappointed as a result.
Yalom believes that a good relationship involves “needs-free love”, which is about loving someone else for their sake. This is opposed to “deficiency love”, a selfish love where we only think about how useful the other person may be to us. Creating a relationship where you want the best for the other person is a healthier way to manage interpersonal isolation than demanding for them to meet every need for you.
Some of the best solutions to intrapersonal isolation are to have time to get to know ourselves through practices such as journaling, therapy and meditation. Introverts may need to have more of this time than extroverts, so it’s important to tune into how agitated or lonely you feel to know if you have found the right balance or not.
Unfortunately, existential isolation cannot be fully breached, and therefore needs to be accepted, as it is out of our control. To feel the pain that comes with this isolation and our desire not to have it is challenging, but it can help reduce the intensity of the feeling. Being grateful for the meaningful connections we have in our lives and trying to strengthen them without losing our sense of self is another way to lessen the intensity of the feeling.
4. Meaninglessness
According to Yalom and many non-religious philosophers, humans are meaning-seeking creatures in a world without a universal sense of meaning. As a result of this, most of the world turn to a religious or spiritual belief system of one type or another that clearly lays out the meaning of the world and our purpose in it. People who truly believe these systems often provide a lot of clarity, reassurance, and guidance. The tricky part is that these belief systems can vary widely, and it is hard to know which one is more correct than another or if some of them are even harmful.
What we do know is that most belief systems tend to agree that
“it is good to immerse oneself in the stream of life”.
People can try to find meaning through:
A. Hedonism: Seeking out pleasure and positive experiences and trying to avoid pain,
B. Altruism: Dedication towards a cause that helps other people, and
C. Creativity: Transcending oneself through art.
Many philosophers believe that both the search for pleasure and the search for meaning are paradoxical. By this, they mean that happiness and meaning or purpose in life are tough to achieve when they are aimed at directly, but possible if they are aimed at indirectly.
So if you or someone that you know is complaining about a lack of meaning in life, try to see if there are other issues. If possible, address these other issues first, and see if your worry about meaninglessness has lessened or gone away.
The best indirect way to increase a sense of purpose and meaning in life is to build kindness, curiosity and concern for others. This is often best done by helping out with a charity, joining a club, fighting for a cause, or attending a group activity or group therapy.
Yalom strongly believes that a desire to engage in life and satisfying relationships, work, spiritual and creative pursuits always exists within a person. Therefore, the key to managing meaninglessness is to remove the obstacles that prevent the individual from wholeheartedly engaging in the regular activities of life.
We may never be able to find the absolute meaning of life. However, what we can do is work at creating a life that is personally meaningful to us.
Ever notice how any successful story throughout history tends to have a similar cast of characters?
If you haven’t bothered counting, I’ll let you know that most characters will fall into one of 12 principal roles, and this explains why and how we can find favourite stories so relatable. Carl Gustav Jung, a famous psychoanalyst, defined these characters and their journey as Archetypes.
What is an Archetype?
An archetype is something that symbolises primary human motivations, drives, desires and goals. It influences how one finds meaning in life, what one values, and personality characteristics. Most people tend to identify primarily with one archetype, although it can be a mix of a few different ones.
Below are the 12 archetypes, with a brief description below them:
If you’re a visionary, you value innovation above all else. You look for patterns in the ordinary and try to create order out of chaos. You are intuitive and tend to find it much more comfortable than others to predict trends and look into the future accurately. You love to exchange ideas, share your opinions, and try out new gadgets. But you also tend to overthink things or catastrophise if stressed and overwhelmed. When this happens, you need to retreat to somewhere secluded and/or scenic to once again focus on your next innovative idea that you would like to put into action.
The visionary archetype includes the designer, the detective, the director, the entrepreneur, the hermit, the futurist or the strategist.
If you’re a caregiver, you value being compassionate, caring and kind to others, especially your family and friends. You struggle to say no to people because you love to help out and give as much as you can. Burnout is a risk if you spread yourself too thin, however. You are easy to get along with, flexible to various situations, and always willing to do what is required to adapt to and fit in with others without losing your sense of self. Your favourite activities involve spending time with those you love, and you are the person that people call or talk to if they have been going through something tough or are in crisis.
The caregiver archetype tends to include the loving parent, the teacher, the nurse, the doctor, the best friend forever, the rescuer, the mentor, the healer, the veteran and the civil servant.
The royal wants power and to be in control. They love being a leader and the boss and love living the high life and the sense of entitlement that comes with this. The royal is not afraid to throw money at a problem so that it will go away and is willing to use their status, title or name to get what they want and feel that they deserve. Activities, holidays and clothes all need to be the best that money can buy.
Royal archetypes include the king, the queen, the prince or princess, the boss, the executive, the politician, the diva and the networker or social climber.
The performer is all about entertaining others and being the centre of attention, even at social and family gatherings. Like Lady Gaga, they live for the applause and moving others emotionally or making them laugh. The performer wants to be seen and believes that being dramatic and in the right places with the right people is the best way to achieve this.
The performer archetype includes the actor, the entertainer, the comedian, the clown or fool, the eccentric, the trickster, the storyteller, the spellcaster, the magician and the provocateur.
The spiritual person has their faith as the cornerstone of who they are. They are belief-driven and pray and seek for what they know to be true to come to fruition. They love to engage in yoga, meditation, and connecting with others on a deeper level and feel very connected with others and the world around them. The biggest trap for the spiritual person is magical thinking and not doing enough to take action and change the questionable things in their lives. They instead have hope and faith that things will work out the way they want, even when all the evidence suggests otherwise.
The spiritual archetype can include the shaman, the saint, the mystic, the guru, the angel, the missionary, the martyr, the disciple and the Samaritan.
The tastemaker values the beautiful nature of things above all else. They pay attention to trends, fashion and decor, and ensure that whatever they have is as aesthetically pleasing as possible. But, unlike the royal, they don’t assume that this is just about what is most decadent or expensive. A tastemaker loves to explore new restaurants, shops, technology and holiday spots. Their weakness is judging others who do not prioritise aesthetics as much as them.
The tastemaker archetype includes the fashionista, the goddess, the gentleman and the metrosexual.
The explorer loves adventure, exploring the world, and seeking excitement wherever they are. They are curious about everything new and things they are yet to encounter, and as a result, they fear commitment and being stuck in one spot or tied down by someone else in any way. The explorer feels drawn to things unseen and undiscovered and is willing to be practical about what it takes to live their lives in this way. They love meeting new people and immersing themselves in new cultures and experiences.
The explorer archetype includes the adventurer, the traveller, the seeker, the discoverer, the wanderer, the individualist, and the pioneer.
The advocate is always being a champion for a good cause and hoping that things will get better if they fight for what they believe in. They may tend to get too caught up personally in the cause but are willing to back up what they believe in by getting signatures for a petition, fundraising money for a campaign, or organising a protest. They also try to live their lives in a way that is consistent with their values and standing up for those less fortunate or those without a voice, such as flora and fauna.
The advocate archetype includes the hero, the environmentalist, the crusader, the vegan, the lawyer, the feminist, and the human rights advocate.
The Intellectual takes pride in their extensive knowledge about things that are important to them. They are always seeking new information and trying to apply it in a useful way to increase their wisdom. The intellectual can come across as a know-it-all, but they never feel like they have enough new things to learn. They love to spend time reading books and going to museums and are happy to impart their knowledge to anyone willing to listen.
The Intellectual archetype includes the philosopher, the student, the geek, the sage, the scientist, the theologian, the crone, the inventor, and the judge.
The rebel’s core values are justice and autonomy. They are fiercely independent and cannot be contained by the social niceties, order and dutifulness. They do what they want at all times, and like adventure and excitement, challenging convention and being deliberately provocative too. They are at risk of not thinking through the consequences of their decisions, and as a result, can overconsume drugs or alcohol or get into trouble with the law, at work, or with those closest to them.
Rebel archetypes include the warrior, the hedonist, Don Juan, the femme fatale and the wild man or wild woman.
The athlete lives for staying active, fit, and in shape. They love to compete in anything involving physical activity and are happiest when they have achieved a big, athletic goal. The athlete tends to turn everything into a competition, which can annoy others, but they are just as happy pushing themselves to improve their health and body. Clothing is worn for comfort and performance only, not aesthetics. The athlete loves to attend sporting events and is also happy to watch sport on the TV.
The Athlete archetype includes the competitor, the outdoorsman, the dancer, and the tomboy.
The creative loves being original and genuinely expressing themselves. The creative hates to repeat or copy what others have done before them. They are happiest creating something from nothing, and this may include a piece of art, but it could also be a meal, an outfit, a room in a house or even an idea. The creative tends to be a perfectionist, which can make it difficult to begin a new project. Once you get started, you tend to get into the zone until a project is complete or you need a break.
The creative archetype includes the artist, the chef, the child, the poet, the novelist, the shapeshifter and the romantic.
What Are Your Main Archetypes?
At archetypes.com, it’s possible to find out which archetypes you are most similar to. This may help you identify what journey you need to take in life or what areas may be best for you to focus on going forward. Included below are my results:
I’m pretty happy with these results and not surprised by my top 2, but I was surprised to see visionary my third highest archetype. I’ve never thought of myself as imaginative or innovative, but I do want the world to change for the better and am willing to do what I can to improve the mental health of others.
Based on these results, it’s apparent that I love to help others. Still, I need to be cautious about taking on excessive responsibility for others or feeling too guilty or inadequate when I can’t help as much as I would like to. I love to learn and be curious about new things, but I still need to be humble and understand that there’s still so much that I’ll never know. I also need to realise that not everyone wants to learn as I do, which is okay. Lastly, when I have an innovative idea, it is vital that I put this plan into action to make a real difference. I would also benefit from connecting with others and collaborating with the right people to help make these dreams a reality.
I know that archetypes and the test are not highly scientific, but I still found them useful to think about what story I am trying to live out and what values or principles I am being guided by. Caring for others, learning new things, and creating positive change is what I care about. What about you?
Life traps are self-defeating ways of perceiving, feeling about, interacting with oneself, others, and the world.
If you want to get a sense of what your life-traps may be, the book ‘Reinventing your life’ by Jeffrey Young is an excellent place to start, as it goes into 11 different ones. If you want a more in-depth analysis, however, then go and see a Psychologist who specialises in Schema Therapy.
A Psychologist has much more thorough and scientific questionnaires that can give you results on 18 schemas (life-traps), help you identify your most common traps, and show you what you can do both in therapy and outside of it whenever you realise that you have fallen into a trap.
My Life-traps
I have taken the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-L3) three times to help identify my main life traps. The first time was at the beginning of 2014 when I was stuck in the middle of a complicated relationship while also trying to complete the last part of my Doctoral thesis and play basketball at a semi-professional level.
The second time was in April 2017, when I was in a Clinical Psychology job that I loved. I had also stopped playing basketball at such an intense level and played with some friends (and without a coach) twice a week, which was way more fun.
The most recent time was August 2018, where I had just finished up my work in private practice in Melbourne, Australia and was about to leave my friends and family to volunteer for two years in Port Vila, Vanuatu, as part of the Australian Volunteers Program (funded by the Australian Government).
I want to share these results with you to show you that:
context influences personality and how people view themselves, the world and others,
personality and ways of perceiving yourself, relationships, and the world can change, and
Even though it is possible to grow and improve over time, we all still fall into traps at times, which is okay. It’s about identifying when you have fallen into a trap and then knowing what you need to do to get out of it.
When looking at the results, a 100% score would mean that I have answered every item for that life-trap a 6, which means that they describe me perfectly. The higher the % score, the more likely I will frequently fall into this life trap.
By looking at the table above, the green items indicate an improvement in comparison to the prior assessment, meaning that these life-traps are a little bit less powerful for me. The yellow indicates no change since the last assessment, and the red indicates a worse score, meaning that these life-traps may have a more powerful sway over me.
From 2014 to 2017, 7 out of the initial top-10 life-traps had improved, one stayed the same, and two had worsened. Two additional traps not included in the initial top 10 had worsened and made the list (Negativity/Pessimism & Mistrust/Abuse).
From 2017 to 2018, seven out of the 2017 top ten life traps had improved yet again, with one staying the same and two becoming worse. One additional trap (Vulnerability to harm/illness) had increased. Still, I believe this was due to the medical and safety briefings that I had been going through in the preparation of moving to Vanuatu for 2 years.
Overall, I am less likely to fall into any life trap in 2018 than in 2014 and 2017. For example, the average of my top ten in 2014 was 53.29%, whereas in 2017, it was 48.28%, and in 2018, it was 46.13%.
I also rated 21 items a 6 (= describes me perfectly) in 2014, only five in 2017, and none in 2018. This means that I am much less likely to get completely pushed around by my life traps. However, they still have some sway on me, especially the self-sacrifice and the emotional deprivation schemas, and to a lesser degree, punitiveness and subjugation.
Here is Young’s description of these schemas:
SELF-SACRIFICE: Excessive focus on voluntarily meeting the needs of others in daily situations, at the expense of one’s own gratification. The most common reasons are: to prevent causing pain to others; to avoid guilt from feeling selfish; or to maintain the connection with others perceived as needy. Often results from an acute sensitivity to the pain of others. Sometimes leads to a sense that one’s own needs are not being adequately met and to resentment of those who are taken care of.
EMOTIONAL DEPRIVATION: Expectation that one’s desire for a normal degree of emotional support will not be adequately met by others. The three major forms of deprivation are:
Deprivation of Nurturance: Absence of attention, affection, warmth, or companionship.
Deprivation of Empathy: Absence of understanding, listening, self-disclosure, or mutual sharing of feelings from others.
Deprivation of Protection: Absence of strength, direction, or guidance from others.
SUBJUGATION: Excessive surrendering of control to others because one feels coerced — usually to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment. The two major forms of subjugation are:
1. Subjugation of Needs: Suppression of one’s preferences, decisions, and desires.
2. Subjugation of Emotions: Suppression of emotional expression, especially anger.
Subjugation usually involves the perception that one’s own desires, opinions, and feelings are not valid or important to others. Frequently presents as excessive compliance, combined with hypersensitivity to feeling trapped. Generally leads to a build up of anger, manifested in maladaptive symptoms (e.g., passive-aggressive behaviour, uncontrolled outbursts of temper, psychosomatic symptoms, withdrawal of affection, “acting out”, substance abuse).
PUNITIVENESS: The belief that people should be harshly punished for making mistakes. Involves the tendency to be angry, intolerant, punitive, and impatient with oneself for not meeting one’s expectations or standards. Usually includes difficulty forgiving mistakes in oneself, because of a reluctance to consider extenuating circumstances, allow for human imperfection, or empathize with one’s feelings.
Three out of my top four life traps have improved since 2014, but emotional deprivation, unfortunately, continues to climb with each assessment. I think that self-sacrifice, subjugation, and emotional deprivation schemas may be common life traps for people who decide to become psychologists. The therapeutic relationship is meant to be one-sided and focused on the patient or client’s needs, not the psychologist’s needs. For this reason, psychologists must get their relational needs met outside of their job and get their own therapy if needed to ensure that they can have a space about them. I wonder how these life traps will continue to evolve over the next two years in Vanuatu…
How Can Life-traps Be Overcome?
The first step to changing anything is awareness. If you are not aware that you are falling into any traps, it means that you either don’t have any, or you are so enmeshed in your experience that you cannot see them.
Once you are aware of your traps, the next step is to understand them and why they occur for you. Most life traps originate in childhood typically, which is why most psychologists and psychiatrists will ask about your upbringing and your relationship with your parents in particular.
Life traps are actually considered to be adaptive ways of coping with maladaptive environments. This means that your life traps were probably quite useful in the particular family dynamic that you had, or you wouldn’t have developed them in the first place. For example, my family often called me a martyr when I was younger because it didn’t matter what I wanted. In reality, it was just much more comfortable to let everyone else decide and take charge. Then if things didn’t work out, others couldn’t blame me. I saw it as a win-win but often didn’t get what I wanted because I didn’t speak up and then complained that my parents loved my siblings more, who were more than happy to speak up and ask for what they wanted.
However, once you move out of the family home, these coping methods are generally ineffective. They tend to become maladaptive ways of interacting with yourself, others or the world. If I keep playing the martyr and refuse to speak up as an adult, my needs still don’t get met. As a result, I may become excessively demanding of others as a counterattack measure (not likely for me), or I may try to escape from all relationships where I need to speak up about my needs. Either way, it keeps the life trap going, and it isn’t helpful.
I need to realise that there are relationships out there where it is beneficial for me to speak up, as people then know what I want and respond effectively to the situation at hand. It still doesn’t “feel right” when I think about telling others my wants or needs (and I’m not sure if it ever will), but I logically know that it is the best approach for me to take going forward. If I want to break free from my main life traps, I must learn to speak up reasonably when important to me (and others). By doing this, eventually, the life traps will become much less prevalent and less powerful too.
If you have been trying with therapy for a long time but don’t think you are getting anywhere, please seek a Psychologist with experience in Schema Therapy. Also, if you are stuck in a relationship where your needs aren’t being met, it could help too.
Learning about Schema Therapy and undergoing training in it has taught me more about my own personal life traps than anything else that I have done before and really does give me a sense of what my most significant challenges are going forward. I’ve made a lot of progress so far, but there is still a long way to go, and that is okay. I know that I will continue to improve with acceptance, self-compassion, patience, reflection, and perseverance, and I am confident you can too!
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
P.S. For a full description of the other 14 maladaptive schemas, please click here.
On January 1st, 2018 we kickstarted our Deliberately Better movement.
Along with other passionate and driven allied health professionals, we aimed to highlight the various ways that people can choose to act if they wish to scientifically improve their health and well-being.
In January, we aimed to engage in a random act of kindness each day.
This was a fun experiment, and I tried to make a video of my acts of kindness every second day, which I was mostly successful with:
On day 4, I supported a friend on a hang gliding expedition
On day 6, I spent some quality time with my dad and played a round of golf with him
On day 8, I donated some spare change to the Royal Children’s Hospital
On day 12, I bought a copy of the big issue to support a rough sleeper
On day 14, we left a big tip at a restaurant that stayed open for us
On day 16, I donated plasma to the red cross blood bank
On day 18, I topped up some stranger’s parking meters
On day 20, I donated some clothes to charity
On day 22, I supported an organisation that was trying to raise money to protect a wilderness area in Tasmania
On day 24, I proofread a book that my friend had written and wanted to publish
On day 28, I went and played a beach volleyball tournament with my sister.
On day 30, I handed out bottles of water to people who were homeless around Melbourne.
Even though it was weird to film and promote the acts of kindness that I engaged in, the month really did teach me a few valuable lessons. These are:
Trying to be kind to others feels good
2. Viewing or hearing about others acts of kindness feels great
3. Hearing about or seeing others acts of kindness encourages people to be kinder too
4. Trying to be kind to others can improve social anxiety
5. Trying to be kind to others can enhance energy levels and physical health
To assess changes in how I felt from the beginning to the end of the month of kindness, I completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), as developed by Watson, Clark and Tellegen (1988). This scale has two 10-item scales; one for positive affect and one for negative affect.
If you would like to assess your levels, please answer from 1 to 5 on the following questions for how much you have felt this way recently:
1 = very slightly or not at all
2 = a little
3 = moderately
4 = quite a bit
5 = extremely
Positive affect items:
_______ active
_______ alert
_______ attentive
_______ determined
_______ enthusiastic
_______ excited
_______ inspired
_______ interested
_______ proud
_______ strong
Negative affect items:
_______ afraid
_______ scared
_______ nervous
_______ jittery
_______ hostile
_______ guilty
_______ ashamed
_______ upset
_______ distressed
If you want to compare your scores to previous norms, first add up your totals for your positive affect and negative affect.
A 1989 study of 815 Detroit adults by Quinn found an average for positive affect of 36.0. For negative affect, the average was 18.2 (Quinn, 1989).
In 1993, an unpublished study by Wilkinson found an average of 33.5 for positive affect in 114 adult men and 33.9 in 115 adult women. For negative affect, it was 14.2 for the men and 15.5 for the women (Wilkinson, 1993).
What I find interesting about these findings is that US adults report both higher positive and higher negative affect, indicating that they may be more expressive (and more aware) of their emotions than Australians.
My score for positive affect before the kindness challenge was a 32, which was below the norms for both Australian and US adults. Given that I was feeling exhausted by the end of 2017, this makes sense to me. Extraverts are more likely to experience higher levels of positive affect also, and I would consider myself more of an ambivert.
After a month of kindness, this score had shot up to 41, which was more than one standard deviation higher than the norm for Australian men, and much higher than the average for US adults too.
My negative affect was less impacted by my acts of kindness, however, with my score remaining at 16 at both the start and the end of the month. I was slightly less irritable by the end of the month, but I was also a little bit more afraid, and this could have been due to the videos that I was putting up.
Either way, I seem to experience slightly more negative emotions than the average 1993 Australian, and somewhat less than the average 1989 individual from Detroit.
My experiment with being kinder didn’t solve all of my problems, but it did help me to take a few risks, challenge myself, put myself out there more, grow as a result, and hopefully put a few smiles on some people’s faces. That is enough for me, for now.
2018 DELIBERATELY BETTER AGENDA:
* In February, we gave up or cut down on something that was having a negative impact on our quality of life.
* In March, we focused on our diets and looked at what were the most effective ways to lose weight or get into the best shape of your life.
* In April, we looked into the different habits of high performers and how they improve their skills and become as effective as they are at what they do.
* In May, we’ll be looking at how to hijack your hormones and get in control of your sleep, metabolism and energy.
* In June, we’ll be checking out the latest and greatest developments in health and wellness literature, and passing on the top tips from the fields of medicine, psychology, neuroscience, behavioural economics, fitness and nutrition.
* In July, we’ll be exploring the benefits of minimalism, looking at ways to develop and stick to a budget, how to financially plan for the future, how to cut back on spending, how to create passive income streams, and the top tips for investing in or trading on the stock market.
* In August, we’ll be getting into the gym and out onto the track to explore how to bulk up, shred down, get ripped and be the most physically capable than you have ever been in your life.
* In September, we’ll be looking at the latest trends in health technology, and exploring the various options that you have if you want to improve your psychological and physical well-being.
* In October, we’ll be focusing on how to stress less, and sharing the latest tips to calm down quickly if you are distressed and want to live a more relaxed lifestyle in general.
* In November, We’ll be trying something new, and looking at the multitude of benefits that novelty can play in our lives.
* Last, but not least, in December, we’ll be taking stock of the year, reviewing what worked and what didn’t, and cultivating gratitude for all of the fantastic things in our lives.
The opposite is also true. When I am not in a good headspace or my confidence is low, even the most basic moves feel difficult and scoring points can feel almost impossible. I’m going to guess that most of you have had similar experiences in your own sports too. When things just aren’t clicking. Where you start to doubt yourself. Where no matter what you try you just can’t get out of your head and you tense up. You start to miss free throws like Shaq:
What if you could be like Michael Jordan or Danny Way, and consistently perform at your best and reach your potential when it matters most? How would that feel, and how much would you pay to figure that out?
Fortunately, I won’t be charging you anything, but I do hope to help you unlock your own secrets to consistently great performance. In my next article, I’m going to teach you the mental skills and strategies to bounce back from adversity, take on helpful feedback from your coaches, and remain focused and composed even in highly stressful and distracting situations. I’m also going to help you to become more consistently confident and motivated, have clear objectives and be well prepared, perform at your best under pressure and not let your worries interfere with your game or prevent you from getting into a consistent state of flow. Stay tuned.
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
Damon Ashworth Psychology 
You must be logged in to post a comment.