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.
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