The Power of Positivity
We’ve all been there. You’re in the middle of a grueling workout, or maybe you’ve had a bad game, and those negative thoughts start to creep in. You ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”, or “I’ll never be as good as___”. Someone has probably told you to switch your mindset, and you may have disregarded them. I know I have. But what if I told you that flipping your mindset has many more benefits than what first appears to the eye– or should I say, the brain?
Toxic Negativity
Everyone has an inner critic; one who will attempt to break you down though pessimistic and unfair critical thoughts. Although some may believe that their inner critics are just a way to cope with failures and setbacks, these toxic and negative thoughts can actually push you farther back in your athletic journey.
Negative self-talk can come in the form of multiple voices, such as mean, hopeless, apathetic, or defeated. These kinds of thoughts can lead to a variety of symptoms and diagnoses including:
Mental Health Illnesses: such as depression, psychosis, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Increased Stress: Negative thinking induces stress as it often causes bouts of anxiety and restlessness.
Reduced Success: Many people hyperfocus on the negatives and miss opportunities to improve. With the brain denying the successes that a person does achieve, it causes the brain to limit itself.
Thinking negatively about yourself often results in a snowball effect. When you think negatively about yourself, your experiences will become negative as well– leaving you worse than where you started.
Negative thinking is worsened when it is rooted by other people. In a world where everyone is hyper-focused on what impression they give off to other people, whether in person or on social media, negative comments from others have a long-lasting impact on our psyches. Humans operate on something called a negativity bias, which leads the human brain to prioritize negative information over positive information. Think of a time when someone has complimented you. Now think of a time when someone has insulted you. Odds are that it was easier to think of the insult and that it had a longer and higher impact on your life. Negative comments from other people only cause your brain to cement its own beliefs, which creates a foothold for more negative thoughts to occur.
Embracing Optimism
Not only does being positive in your everyday life help steer you away from the consequences of negativity, but it also comes with inherent benefits of its own, including:
Greater resistance to illnesses.
Better psychological and physical well-being.
Better cardiovascular health.
Reduced risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, strokes, respiratory conditions, and infections.
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress.
Longer life spans.
Wait a minute… you’re telling me that you can live longer just by being more positive? Yep. It’s unclear as to why people who have an optimistic outlook on life experience these health benefits, but many scientists believe that because positive thinkers can cope with stressful situations better, they experience less of the symptoms that said stressors affect the body with.
If you think about some of the most successful athletes of our time, you may notice a pattern whenever they have interviews or interact with the public, they seem to be humble and kind. This may be because they are making a very comfortable and lavish lifestyle while doing the thing that they love, but it can also be because of the support group that these athletes have. Along with family and friends, professional sports teams have made an effort to implement more and more sports psychologists. In recent years, it is becoming apparent that an athlete's mental health is just as important as their physical well-being.
Learning positive self-talk isn’t just finding motivational quotes or phrases, but a way to provide more stability and confidence in your training. When you tell yourself that you’re doing good, you are building the confidence that you are doing well, and therefore you are more likely to see a positive outcome.
Making the Switch
So now that we know that living a positive lifestyle can be better, the question is how do we make the conscientious switch from a pessimistic to an optimistic mindset? This is much easier said than done, as the human brain is the hardest muscle to train in the human body. Once set in its ways, the way that our brains process information can be super hard to change, but the most important thing is to continue trying. Here are a couple of methods to help you make the switch.
Right off the bat, your brain will continue to notice the setbacks you may experience, and that’s okay. The first step in shifting your mindset is to catch these immediate negative thoughts and acknowledge that they are there. Next, try to switch them into affirmative statements for yourself. Here are a couple of examples:
“I messed up the play again! I’ll never be able to get these memorized.”
to
“I don’t have it yet, but the more I practice the better I’ll get!”
“I missed all my times today, I totally wasted this workout!”
to
“I may not have hit my splits today, but I still got work in.”
As cliche as it might sound, these statements do help to switch your mentality, and that can be the first step towards being positive all the time, even through stepbacks.
Following a Healthy Lifestyle
This is another example of where living healthy physically will promote a healthy mental state as well. When you are treating your body the best, you will be feeling the best. Living a healthy lifestyle by getting proper nutrition and exercise is not only great for your physical well-being, but it promotes a backing for the confidence that allows you to promote healthy thinking.
People who are the most positive are commonly associated with living the longest and having the healthiest lifestyles with lower risks of diseases, as stated above. This is because they often know their self worth which is supported by their positive image of themselves.
Surrounding yourself with Positive People
Possibly the best step towards becoming an optimistic thinker is surrounding yourself with people who will lead you to think positively about yourself. With humans being as social creatures as they are, we are more likely to conform to the social situations that we are put into. That is why it is so important that you place yourself in a spot where you have other positive people who feed your positive image about yourself.
Surrounding yourself with good influences nowadays is more important than ever. With social media and cyberbullying on the rise, having positive role models, such as parents, teachers, or coaches is imperative. Having a good support system can help provide an understanding of your value and help build you up instead of tear you down.
Implication in Sports
Now, having a positive attitude can help you in all kinds of areas of life, but what does this have to do with the world of athletics? With recent developments in sports, athletes and associations are starting to realize that promoting mental health and psychology is providing an upper hand both during training and competition. The biggest issue being faced in the sporting world is the stigma that comes with seeing a psychologist. Many athletes, especially males, ignore the mental and emotional problems they may face because of the astigmatism that they should have their lives together. This, however, is not the case, and it is important to remember that even superstars and world-renowned athletes can still experience the same trauma and setbacks as anyone else.
Positivity has also been introduced more prominently into training and coaching plans. This comes in positive reinforcement. You may be familiar with positive punishment, which is when a coach decides to add wind sprints or another form of conditioning after a poor performance. Positive reinforcement is the opposite, where instead of getting punished for messing up, athletes are rewarded for success. These rewards can vary, from social compensations like compliments to tangible reinforcements like candy, to tokens that symbolize a job well done, like a trophy. All these come from a behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, in a study he called operant conditioning. The idea is that by rewarding the athlete when a certain desirable behavior is observed, it releases stimulants, similar to dopamine, in the athlete's brain that encourage the athlete to do the action again. If this all sounds similar, you may be thinking of the way dog trainers train their dogs, by using treats and praise when they do something well, which is the same concept that is now being applied to humans
Another side of operant conditioning is called negative reinforcement. This may sound like it would be punishment, but in reality, it is more like positive reinforcement. Instead of adding a reward, negative reinforcement takes away a punishment, such as taking off an extra rep of an exercise. Both forms of reinforcement have seen an increase in productivity in recent years and show an example of how being positive and rewarding desirable behaviors pay off.
Conclusion
All in all, with the sporting world being as competitive as ever, athletes must look inward to gain advantages over their opponents, specifically in how they view themselves. By having a positive self-image athletes can unlock confidence that will lead to success in both training and competition.
Works Cited
Driska, Andy. 2019. “Five Principles of Reinforcement - Sport Coaching & Leadership Blog - College of Education – Michigan State University.” Www.education.msu.edu. February 4, 2019. https://www.education.msu.edu/sport-coaching-leadership/food4thought/five-principles-of-reinforcement/.
Leath, James. n.d. “Harnessing the Champion’s Mindset: The Power of Positive Self-Talk in Sports.” James Leath. https://www.jamesleath.com/notes/the-power-of-positive-self-talk-in-sports#:~:text=When%20athletes%20engage%20in%20positive%20self-talk%2C%20they%20set.
Mayo Clinic Staff. 2023. “Positive Thinking: Stop Negative Self-Talk to Reduce Stress.” Mayo Clinic. November 21, 2023. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950.
Nickerson, Charlotte . 2022. “Positive Reinforcement: What Is It and How Does It Work?” SimplyPsychology. November 3, 2022. https://www.simplypsychology.org/positive-reinforcement.html#:~:text=Positive%20reinforcement%20is%20a%20basic%20principle%20of%20Skinner%E2%80%99s.
Scott, Elizabeth. 2023. “The Toxic Effects of Negative Self-Talk.” Verywell Mind. November 22, 2023. https://www.verywellmind.com/negative-self-talk-and-how-it-affects-us-4161304.
Vermani, Monica. 2023. “Why Our Negative Thoughts Are so Powerful | Psychology Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com. September 25, 2023. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-deeper-wellness/202309/why-our-negative-thoughts-are-so-powerful.
Weir, Kirsten. 2018. “A Growing Demand for Sport Psychologists.” Https://Www.apa.org, November 2018. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/11/cover-sports-psychologists.