| The idea that our muscles become stronger and more resilent when they are exposed to physical stress is usually easy for most athletes to understand. For example, when you stress your muscles by lifting heavy weights you stimulate growth in those muscles which, in turn will make them grow stronger.
What is more difficult for some athletes to understand is how the same toughening principle can be applied to our mental and emotional weaknesses.
Here is how it works: Remember that stress is energy expenditure. Muscle stress, then is generated by expending energy. Lifting heavy weights requires more energy expenditure than lifting light weights, therefore, is more stress producing. Likewise, the more repetitions one does, the greater the stress. The important thing to realize is that: Thoughts and emotions involve energy expenditures just like muscles do. Every thought, every image, every emotion is a form of stress.
Very powerful thoughts, images and emotions are just like heavy weights. They require more energy and therefore are more stressful. With this understanding, how do you build mental and emotional weakness into strength? How do you attack negative thinking, low self-confidence, impatience or poor self-discipline?
The first and most important step in strengthening mental and emotional habits is to expand mental and emotional energy in specific targeted areas. Just like you must target a specific motor skill to improve your technique, you must target specific weak mental and emotional habits the same way. The more you think a particular thought, the more often you trigger the same image or emotion, the stronger it becomes. Like muscles, the more thoughts, images and emotions you stimulate, the more accessible they become.
Here is a practical example:
Weakness: Negative habit of thinking, "I hate close, tight competitions."
Consequences: This undermines your ideal performance state and results in repeated failure to perform to your potential in close, tight competitions.
Toughening Process: Expose yourself to new forms of mental and emotional stress.
What to Do: Any one or a combination of the following could be used to build a new more adaptive response.
- Constantly think the affirmation, "I love close, tight competitions!"
- Repeatedly say to yourself during close competitions, "I love it!"
- Repeatedly visualize performing well during close competitions and see yourself loving it. Visualize with strong positive emotions.
- Write about how much you enjoy close, tight competitions and record all the reasons why.
- Combine mental practice with deep relaxation.
The two key things to remember in toughness training are:
1. Growth requires stress.
2. Stress is energy that you expend.
|
