Reframing Moments
Having played professional football for 17 years I have been exposed to many strategies by experts in how to improve my performance in competition.
Usually these strategies have consisted of strength and conditioning techniques such as olympic lifting, plyometric exercises, or recovery methods (protein consumption or sitting in ice baths for periods of time). These methods largely fall under area of science that is physiology. That is if we are bigger, stronger, and more robust, then we are able to out perform our opponents. This is all well and good however the mechanisms that allow us to feel motivated or demotivated have been largely overlooked. How we develop ourselves to over come setbacks such as not getting picked in the starting 11 or if we fail to perform during competition is something that is under addressed in my opinion. In my time observing and coaching at the grassroots level, I feel developing psychological resilience is necessary in order to extract the full potential out of an athlete.
Playing at an elite level, I have found entertaining the concept of mental training is often met with ignorance or a lack of buy in from clubs, club officials, and players (including myself). This could be possibly due to the perception of the identity of males in sport (emotions = weakness), revealing inner thoughts resulting in not being selected in the team, or a lack of trust in confidentiality. I think the biggest reason however, is due to the fact that “seeing is believing” and people expect things to materialise instantly. In other words when we go to the gym we can see our muscles getting bigger after a week or two, but it’s harder to quantify things in our mind or at least see a return of instant success. In my opinion, investing time on psychological strategies take considerable time and effort, but can add value to a person’s life and not just their profession. This is because it allows people to learn situations through different perspectives and ultimately change how they view situations (reframing moments). For example, successful people with a growth mindset view big moments as challenges or opportunities to perform as opposed to a person with a closed mindset (fixed) who potentially view them as a threat.
The recent Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool is a great example. The obvious talking point has been related to Loris Karius’ performance in relation to two goals that he conceded. The reason why being a goalkeeper is the hardest position in football, because the margin for error is so small, and pressure is often perceived as astronomical. One half mistake often leads to a goal and that can decide the ultimate result of a game. The blame or judgement that comes with that perceived pressure often influences how a goalkeeper thinks and feels about how to perform, often resulting in a negative performance. This is likely the case with Karius’ performance during this game, as a result of conceding the first goal he viewed the rest of the game as a threat and ultimately played with over whelming tension. The ultimate goal is not to focus on avoiding situations, but changing the way we think, feel, and experience them.
I believe in understanding setbacks and managing emotions that occur at a much more fundamental level in a person. Certainly in my own life I defined who I am as a person in the same way I was as a footballer. In other words, if I performed well as a footballer then I was a good human, however if we lost then I was failing. This led me to put a lot of perceived pressure on myself and as the saying goes “it’s only important if you think it’s important” rang true. This added pressure has plagued athletes for many years and ultimately has led to what is known as “choking”.
In my case losing to Western Sydney Wanderers 5-4 in a semi-final in where I under performed in a big game is a classic example. As a result, I forced myself to understand my mindset in a much more detailed way and this was a real life threshold moment for me. That is you hit a threshold and are forced to change out of necessity. I realised if I wanted to evolve then I had to change I approached football and my life. This game incident lead me to explore the mechanisms as to why I performed in the way I did, and implement strategies to negate such an occurrence or if it did, I could manage my emotions with better perspective when those situations arose. For me to understand why I performed in certain situational contexts, I needed to investigate why I lived life the way I did. This lead me to:
Visit children in hospital.
Work with people of disability and chronic disease.
Coach people with less ability.
Read literature and look at ways to expand my perspective such as meditation, self-imagery, and writing goal statements.
Basically this process forced me to spend my time giving back to the less fortunate and investing time in developing my psychological self. This has allowed me to understand myself better as a human and not just a footballer. That the result or even playing a game of football doesn’t define me as a human in the first place. That just enjoying the presence of people or being grateful for the opportunities that life brings. The most powerful gift of giving back to others without wanting anything in return was the most profound concept I learned. Lets be honest, it’s a bit hard to complain about your life as a footballer when you meet a child in hospital who’s just had brain surgery , or you meet a person who has never seen or heard anything in their whole life. In other words, being grateful for what I do have rather then what I don’t allows me to have a 3rd eye perspective, it’s reframing moments. Viewing failure as an opportunity to learn and understanding that the learning from failure is the gold to success in the long-term.
Loris Karius’ performance could be viewed as embarrassing and shameful for the club of Liverpool. That his career is now over at Liverpool and he could possibly live the rest of his life knowing that he failed on the biggest stage. You only have to look on social media to see evidence of the perspectives of others who also have made mistakes. Another view is that he plays a sport for a living, getting paid millions of pounds a year to it, that hundreds of millions of people around the world pay interest in what he does in his life. That he played in the biggest club competition in the world in which less then 1% of Earth’s population get to participate in. That this experience is a learning curve and that he can come back even stronger, and you only have to look around the world that we all love a comeback story such as David Beckham or Connor Mcgregor.
In summary, it is my belief that focus should not be on avoiding mistakes because they are unavoidable. It’s through constant failure that one can learn, improve, and develop an unshakable resilience and determination.
Success does not necessarily have to be defined as winning trophies, it could be extracting the most potential out of one’s life and most importantly enjoying the journey of failing. Through constant failure and learning (process) do we fulfil potential and ultimately arrive at success. However real failure is the avoidance to dissolve the ego because of fear, the fear of judgement of not being good enough. It’s how we feel in a moment that allows us perform under “perceived pressure”, or how to overcome setbacks. In other words, it’s how we reframe moments in order to perform at our best.
If anyone would like to know how I reframe moments in my life or would like to share their experiences, leave a comment or message me.
“Leave ego at the door”.