| Self-awareness is very important characteristic of elite athletes across all sports. I will often receive requests from athletes who tell me they need to learn imagery or relaxation skills without the athlete having considered if these skills are actually needed. It would be wrong to teach relaxation skills, for example, to an athlete who in fact is coming into competition too flat and unmotivated. Un-self-aware athletes run the risk of wasting time or even learning techniques that could be detrimental to their performance because they don't know what they really need.
By self-awareness, I mean the ability to know how you are feeling, thinking, and behaving at all times. Everyone - athletes and non-athletes alike are born with a degree of self-awareness that allows the individual to know if he or she is injured or ill. The nature of sport demands a much higher level of self-awareness from athletes who must be able to make finely tuned determinations, such as, "Am I pushing as hard as I possibly can in this weight workout?", "I'm tired, but am I overtraining?", or "Does this knee pain mean I should stop or push through it?"
Athletic self-awareness means using your self-awareness skills to gain a clear sense of your competition and training needs. To do this, top-level athletes invest the time it takes to look back at their past competitions and training to evaluate what works and what doesn't. "How did I do during the last competition and why?" I encourage athletes to question themselves like this more often as a way to build their self-awareness. Another exercise that is often used, particularly to enhance competition self-awareness, is the "Competition Reflections Form," developed by Dr. Terry Orlick, a sports psychologist who has worked with numerous Olympic caliber athletes. He poses the following questions to help athletes to understand more about what really happens to them, mentally and physically, in both successful and unsuccessful competitive situations.
Think of your best performance in the past year and respond to the following.
1. How did you feel just before competition?
No Activation (flat)...........1..........2...........3..........4............5...........Highly Activated (charged)
Not worried/scared..........1..........2...........3..........4............5...........Extremely worried
2. What were you saying or thinking to yourself before the start of the competition?
3. How were you focused during the competition? What were you aware of or paying attention to during the competition?
Now, think of your worst performance in the past year when responding to the following:
4. How did you feel just before the competition?
No Activation (flat)...........1..........2..........3...........4...........5...........Highly Activatied (charged)
Not worried/scared..........1..........2..........3...........4...........5...........Extremely worried
5. What were you saying to yourself or thinking before the start of the competition?
6. How were you focused during the competition? What were you aware of, or paying attention to during the competition?
Now, compare these two competitive experiences:
7. What were the major differences in your energy level and your thoughts prior to these two performances?
8. What were the major differences in your focus of attention prior to these two performances?
Athletic self-awareness is enhanced the more you can pay attention to details of your past performances and training. Journals can be particularly a rich source of information as long as you are keeping a good, detailed record. I have encouraged the athletes I have worked with to sit down as soon as possible after a competition and actually take notes about what happened before, during and after each competition, in terms of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Now you can sit down and analyze what is needed. By increasing your athletic self-awareness in these ways, your training can become more efficient and you will increase your chances for success
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