What you Focus on you Find: The Power of Our Inner Narrative.
Every minute, our brains are bombarded with tens of millions of pieces of information. Literally, tens of millions.
From our emotions to noticing the feelings of those around us, to scanning for safety, and observing what is going on around us, it is constant.
Obviously, we can not consciously process so much information. It's too much, even attempting to process it all would overwhelm our neurons and brains.
So, how do we decide what to focus on?
This is where the Salience Network comes into play. It is a part of the brain that identifies what is most relevant and aligns our behaviour. It then filters out the information that it knows we don't care about or is not relevant to our safety.
In short our brains filter information, providing us with stimuli that aligns with what we care about. For most of us it filters out 99% of the stuff happening around us. At best, we barely notice it. Unless our brain knows we care about it.
For example, I love a pair of Jordan 3's. They are my favourite shoe. Great colour combos, nice clean lines, I love them.
You cannot walk past me in a pair of 3's without me noticing them.
I see someone in them every day.
It doesn't mean everyone is wearing them. It is just that my brain is hardwired to notice them.
I was discussing this in class last semester and one of the students mentioned she had the same experience except with a very specific type of car.
The KIA Soul.
As you can see below, it is not exactly the most elegant of vehicles. You might even call it ugly. She mentioned that she saw them everywhere. The rest of use were a little dumbfounded. Why would you ever even notice them?
Then something weird started happening. Everyone in the class started to notice them. At the start of class each day students shared how they were seeing these cars everywhere. Each day we all reported seeing more and more of them.
We were all blown away. Firstly, why had so many people invested thousands of dollars on this car? Secondly, how had we never noticed how many of them were in our city? It was like Jordan 3's except on steriods. I am now noticing 15-20 of them a day even though I kind of wish I wasn't.
This was our collective Salience Network hard at work.
At this point you are probably wondering what this has to do with coaching and how it can help our athletes.
All of your athletes have a narrative that dominates their thinking. It encompasses their beliefs about their talents and abilities. Are your athletes telling themselves they have no chance against a tough opponent? Or do they believe they have a fighting chance?
Whatever the story they are telling themselves, they are priming their brain to find proof that confirms it.
In many cases, those stories limit our athletes because their story is not a helpful one.
As a coach, you have a story too.
Your beliefs about each of your athletes and their abilities create the narrative around what you think they can do.
Just like the KIA Soul you will find things that confirm those beliefs.
If you were to poll they very best in the world in any sport, the quality of their narrative heading into competition, the majority, would be realatively optimistic.
Yes, they have proof that they can compete at this level, but the best acknowledge the challenge, the importance of the moment and create a plan to succeed.
Of course, like all of us, they have moments of doubt, but for most the story they tell themselves is a good one.
How can we help our athletes shape a narrative that will be helpful for their sport? Even more importantly, creating a narrative that allows them to build a better life.
Here are a few startegies coaches can employ to help their athletes craft a positive narrative.
- Show them the benefits of optimism
According to the Harvard Happiness study, a longitudinal study that followed a cohort of freshmen for 65 years, optimism was the key to a longer, happier life. On average, optimists in the study lived 16 years longer than their pessimistic classmates. That is pretty significant if you ask me.
Help your athletes see the long term benefits of optimism and then help them practice finding the good in things by practicing gratitude daily.
This is a big part of shaping a positive narrative and engaging the Salience Network. Highlighting evidence that there is always some good in their worlds trains the Salience Network.
We took a few minutes at most practices to highlight what we were grateful for every practice this season. At the start of the year it was pretty generic, family, pets (shoutout to Joel's cat Simon Mousey) and basketball. Over the course of the season, they became more skilled at it and were able to find the good in tough losses and failure.
Like anything else we must train the Salience Network.
2. Work on Developing Self-Confidence
This is a huge part of being a mentally strong athlete.
I wrote in detail on how coaches can build confident athletes here so I won't go into great detail, but real confidence comes from hard work in the following areas:
- Putting in the Reps
- Leaning on Past Performances
- Creating a Positive Narrative
- Regulating Emotions
3. Set Ambitious Goals
Setting goals is a key to engaging your athletes. What is the target that we are all working towards. The best in the world don't stumble around hoping to be the best. Instead, they have a clear vision of where they want to go and how to get there.
Goals require a clear target and the steps & processes need to hit the target.
To ensure it becomes part of a positive narrative, ensure that meeting the goals is viewed as a challenge and not as a threat.
Highlighting the positive progress that is being made is another great way to train the Salience Network to spot what is going well.
4. Visualize What Success Looks Like
The last step is important.
Working together to create vivid visuals of what success looks like is a wonderful way to engage the Salience Network.
Visualization prepares the Salience Network by highlighting the things it wants your brain to pay attention to. It is also a wonderful way to tie together all of previous three steps.
The more vivid an image your athletes can create the more power they carry with your brain. So teach them to incorporate all five of their senses. Everyone has a most dominant sense (mine is visual but it isn't for everyone)
Together these steps will allow your athletes to change the quality of their narrative and to start to focus on the looking for the good in their lives and in their game.
At the end of the day, we don't always control the things that happen to us. We do control the narrative that goes along with that event.
Teaching your athletes the keys to authoring their own story is a wonderful way to leave a lasting positive legacy in their lives.
Webinar on the Importance of Coaching from the Inside out.
Here is the link to webinar I did last month on having a clear sense of who you are and how that shapes your coaching.
How can I help you on your coaching journey?
Let's work together.
I help coaches thrive.
I would love to help you or your team build a competitive advantage. Here are a few ways I can help:
- Consult with your team or coaching staff
- Teach mental skills to your team via Zoom
- Work 1 on 1 with coaches
- Work 1 on 1 with athletes
Shoot me an email at jasonpayne@evolutionmpc.com, I love to talk coaching and see how I can help you.
Coaching is hard, let's make it easier.
Check out my website at http://jasonpayne.ca
Thanks for reading and have a great week.