Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Slap Your Inner-Voice in it’s Dirty Little Mouth


Have you ever slapped someone across the face when they said something you didn’t like?  NO?!?  Well, I haven’t either…  But there have been a few times in my life when I had the urge to do that.  Today I want to encourage you to take that step whenever that voice in your head gets out of line…



I don’t know about you, but my entire life I’ve battled my own negative self talk.  That voice in my head has told me I wasn’t good looking enough to talk to that girl across the room, that I wasn’t strong enough to lift that weight, that I wasn’t worthy of the thing I wanted at the time.  You can find any number of books in the psychology section of Powell’s that will provide well laid out theories regarding the psychological origins of  that negative self talk (damaged inner-child, out of whack id, relationship with parents), and you can spend thousands of dollars working with a psychologist to find those root causes, but I’m going to suggest today that you simply learn to slap that inner-voice right in the mouth when it gets out of line, and move the hell on with your life.

This past weekend I competed in a powerlifting competition for the first time in about 13 or 14 years.  I decided earlier this year that I wanted something to train for, so I set up a 10-week cycle and trained for this competition.  It was a very interesting experience for me because not only was it my first time back on the platform in a LONG time, I also cut weight for the competition for the first time in my life (we won’t get into that right now).  I say all of this because there was a moment this weekend that illustrates the point I want to make in this blog.  Powerlifting is a sport comprised of the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift.  During a competition lifters have an opportunity to complete 3 squat attempts, and their highest weight counts towards their powerlifting total.  Likewise, lifters also get 3 attempts at the bench press, and finally the deadlift.  Well, Saturday afternoon, about 3+ hours into the meet, I warmed up for the deadlift and felt like crap.  My energy level was low, and I couldn’t seem to improve it.  I had already committed to my opening attempt being 495#’s (a weight I did in the gym a couple weeks ago pretty easily), so I wanted to finish my warm up with 455#’s in the warm up room.  Well, I did pull 455#’s in the warm up room, and it felt SUPER heavy.  I waited about 5 minutes and decided to pull it again before I went out onto the platform to do my opener.  This time it felt even worse.  At this point that little voice in my head was going crazy…  “You opened too heavy you idiot” “You are going to fail”…  And on and on…

So what did I do???  I told that voice to shut the hell up!  I told that voice that I had easily pulled 495#’s just a couple weeks ago, and I was going to easily pull it today!  I told that voice that I was in fact going to rip the damn weight off the floor like it was 195#’s.  I slapped that voice right across its’ dirty little mouth, then went out on the platform and did what I had prepared to do.

One more example I have is one that didn’t end as well…  A few months back I was coaching someone as they pursued a max height box jump.  If you’ve ever done box jumps anywhere near your max height, you know it can be a little scary.  In this particular case, the woman I was coaching was having a heck of a time putting the fear of missing the jump out of her head.  We were working up in height, and she was doing well, but the self-talk was sitting in the back of her head getting louder and louder as the box got taller.  She made a jump easily around 26”, but when we added 1” she missed horribly and skinned her shins on the side of the box.  Did she miss because she exceeded her jumping ability that day?  26” she could do, but not 27”?  Nope!  She missed the jump because at the moment she jumped she allowed that self-talk to take over.  She didn’t commit to the jump, hardly got off the ground, and in the process nearly hurt herself.  That inner-voice snatched away her ability to succeed that day.

Now, what’s the point of all this???  Well, today I wanted to make a couple points about self-talk that I hope will help you continue to improve yourself, and find a way to rise above the negative self-talk that I think everyone suffers from at some point…

My first point about all of this is simply, learn to identify this negative self-talk and talk back to it (IE- slap that little jerk in the mouth).  There’s a great book written by psychologist Dr. David Burns called “Feeling Good”, that goes into great depth on this subject.  What I want to say here is just that learning to identify when your brain is talking to you in a way that doesn’t reflect reality, is the first step to improving your own self-talk.  Really what this comes down to is that no matter what the cause of that negative self talk is, if we can learn to identify and combat it, we can defeat it.  After all, once you slap that inner-voice in the mouth enough times, it’s going to start saying things you like so it doesn’t get slapped any more.  Re-train your brain to identify that crap, and talk back to it.  Give that inner-voice a dose of reality!
  
The other point I want to make about this is that I suggest you move away from the practice of comparing yourself and your performance to others, and simply compare yourself to you.  Now I’m all for competition, I’m all for holding yourself to high standards, and I’m all for wanting to be the best, but in my own experience I’ve learned that comparing yourself to others can only do harm.  There are VERY few people in this world that will ever have a moment in their life where they can say they were the best in the world at something, and even for those few people it’s a passing moment.  For everyone else there will always be someone better than you, no matter how good you get.  If you’re trying to measure up to others, you can always find a way to ensure you don’t measure up.  Now I’m not going to say you shouldn’t compete with others and that you should go all “rah-rah everyone-gets-a-trophy” on life, but I am suggesting you compete more often with yourself than with others.  Today is the day to do the work to make yourself a better you tomorrow.  If you set a personal record be proud of that personal record, instead of focusing on how it’s not as much as so-and-so’s personal record, then go back to work trying to better that personal record.  I think that success in life comes from the journey of constant improvement, not the end result of being the best.  I think I said this in a previous blog, but take some time to celebrate your successes then get back to work addressing your weaknesses.

So, do me a favor today and honestly consider how you’re talking to yourself and how you’re measuring your success.  If you’re like most of us, there is some work to be done in how you talk to yourself.  That self-talk may well be holding you back from being the best version of yourself you can be (IE-the box jump example), and it most certainly is holding you back from being as happy as you can be.  Next time your mind tells you you’re not good enough, strong enough, smart enough, or whatever…  Slap that sucker in the mouth, and tell it what reality actually is.

No comments:

Post a Comment