PUSH: Why Talking to Yourself Wins Games

As athletes, we're always taught that losing is part of the game. The thing is, nobody likes losing. I don't know about you, but I've never been a fan of ties, either. Missing an opportunity during competition wasn't really something I worried about too much because I learned to trust myself more. I want to be very clear that I'm not some cocky know-it-all – I was simply confident in my teammates and myself that we would be able to get the job done. Sure, there would be times of uncertainty, but that's usually when the fun begins. You start to get tested and are awarded yet another chance to show what you're really made of. I wish I could sit here and tell you (over Zoom) that I had that mentality for the duration of my time playing lacrosse, but I can't. What I can tell you are some tricks I learned along the way, thanks to mental skills training (MST).

Before my head-on collision into the world of sport psychology, I used to get down on myself pretty frequently while playing. It would happen during practice, during games, and even occasionally while working out! I had gotten injured during a fall scrimmage, which tested me in many ways (you can read more about that story and how injuries affect an athlete's identity in sport in our blog, Molded by Adversity). One of the things that tested me most was my confidence after getting cleared to play. I would still work my butt off in practice and rehab my ankle – that wasn't the issue. The problem was that I had such high expectations for myself while having others around me have similar thoughts. As you'll learn in the blog mentioned above, it was also challenging for me because I had never had a significant injury before missing more than a few weeks of play.

It's easy to get in your own head after missing the shots you used to be able to make with your eyes closed. It got to the point where I started passing the ball instead of shooting when I had a wide-open shot – all because I would get discouraged after missing so many shots. It took one of my best friends on the team to tell me that it's ok to feel uncertain, but to move on from it – to have a "Next-Play-Mentality." I took that, and I've used different variations of it ever since! I didn't even realize it, but I had started practicing our first MST-related topic of the day, Self-Talk phrases.

Self-Talk phrases are split up into 2 parts: Arousal Statements and Process Cues. Arousal Statements are what we won't use to kick things off. These statements should match your current mood in the moment. For example, if you're the kind of person to get hyped up before competition, you could say to yourself, "I'm excited!" Conversely, you could say "I'm locked in" if you're more of the cool, calm, and collected type before games.

Process Cues are any short, simple phrases that are descriptive in nature. These cues are the phrases, positive words, or images we want to focus on during that specific moment of competition. Those cues are most effective when you use different ones for different situations. For example, while shooting, I might say "lead yourself open" so I know to begin getting ready to catch and shoot.

A Self-Talk phrase is exactly what it sounds like – any statement or thought we can say to ourselves that allows us to stay present. And that was the thing I hadn't considered whenever it was, I would feel a lack of confidence because I wasn't present in that moment of competition. Instead, I was distracted by thinking about things like, "what if I miss my shot and the other team gets the ball?" It was cool to see how quickly my confidence and performance began to pick back up after using those techniques.

Eventually, I was back 100% and able to experience flow again. I wasn't feeling distracted anymore, and things were firing on all cylinders. After playing in a couple games where I used Self-Talk phrases, I felt like I had everything under control. I had even been utilizing the MSTs during my lifts! Because I had injured one of my ankles, my one leg was much weaker than the other. As a result, I had to almost start over completely – talk about a humbling experience. The weight I was using had been cut down by more than half of what I had been lifting before my injury, but that didn't make it any easier. I was doing fine physically – it wasn't like I was going too hard or anything like that. Instead, I had this mental block that I needed to overcome. In my mind, I was thinking about the possibility that I was going to re-injure myself. I had made significant progress but was still dealing with that fear. That's when I started talking to myself during my lifts. I would say things like "up, up, UP!" to myself when I benched, so why not say something similar while squatting? And so, my infamous "PUSH." phrase was born.

Then in one of our games in the middle of the season, I dropped an easy pass that I would typically have caught. Worse, if I had caught it, I would have been able to dish it to a teammate who was wide-open for a shot to tie the game. After dropping that routine pass, I started thinking, "I can't believe that just got messed up. How'd you even allow that to happen?" I was going down that path towards negativity and caught myself before I got any deeper. I had one of those "aha" moments right then and there. I felt frustrated and disappointed in myself, similar to how I felt when I wasn't confident in my squats. Those emotions must've been the common denominators because I distinctly remember myself saying "PUSH." out loud, so only I could hear. That was enough to get me on my feet to turn on the jest to track down the guy on the other team who had picked up the groundball.

I don't have a great memory of what happened for the next few minutes of the game because I now know I entered a flow state. I know from what my teammates told me and from pictures of the following sequences of plays. After I said my phrase, I ran this player down who had gotten my dropped pass, delivered an "icepick check" (search that one on google and thank me later), then proceeded to scoop up the ball, causing a fast break, where I ran past everyone and scored. I got the ball again the next time we were on offense, and the same thing happened – my body took over and went to work. I beat my man and scored again, this time to take the lead. Then the other team got a penalty, and my teammate made a great pass to me, where I had the opportunity to score for the third time that day. We were all so fired up, no one was going to stop us.

We won that game by 3 points, thanks to a total team effort. That one little phrase "PUSH." seems like a silly thing when you think about it at first glance. All I have to say is that you gotta try it for yourself and see what happens. When you get thrown into moments of uncertainty or any kind of stressful situation, acknowledge the fact your uncomfortable (for just a moment), then keep pushing through. Come up with a couple phrases that work for you and test them out! There's still time to win (and always time for legs, don't skip out on training them).