Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #94: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Developing a Competition Mindset" Powered by Coach O

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#94: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Developing a Competition Mindset" Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. Hi, my name is Katie Follett
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  with Elevated Performance and today I'm going to be talking
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  about a competition ready mindset.
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  This was a skill that was super valuable to me when I was a
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  professional athlete for over a decade, and it's been really
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  helpful to work on this skill with the athletes that I work
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  with now as a licensed counselor.
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  A lot of the athletes I work with come to me and they want to
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  feel confident. And I really think that feeling
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  confident comes from being prepared, standing on the line,
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  being ready that you know that you can handle whatever is
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  thrown at you in that moment. And it's kind of like having a
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  mental toolbox. I want athletes to feel like
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  they can reach into their mental toolbox and have a variety of
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  tools in there that they can pull out and use to solve
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  different obstacles or problems when they come up.
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  And if you've been listening along, that's kind of how I've
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  been doing this podcast series. Each series is a tool that I
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  found really valuable to me during my career, and then that
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  has been valuable for athletes when they've pulled it out first
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  is, well, what do you do when the distraction that comes up is
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  internal, when it's negative self talk?
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  And we kind of talked about how that's the boogeyman and you can
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  actually come up with a plan for different situations that
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  trigger the boogeyman and kind of a framework to work through
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  that so you can feel prepared in that situation.
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  And then we also talked about, well, what do you do when an
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  athlete fails to meet a really big goal and they're kind of
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  bumping up against that discouragement?
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  What makes all the hard work worth it?
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  And then today I kind of want to dig a little bit into what do
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  you do if the distraction is actually an external unplanned
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  distraction? Things that happen when you're
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  in a race that you have 0 control over and and can often
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  kind of throw you for a loop. Maybe this is like a weather
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  delay or something happening in the race where it's just not
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  going according to plan. You trip and you fall, or an
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  athlete that you were expecting to be there with you isn't, or
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  an athlete that you weren't expecting to be there is and
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  passes you and is ahead of you. How do you stay in the moment in
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  those sorts of situations, the ones that you can't necessarily
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  prepare for? And oftentimes when this
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  happens, a strong emotion shows up that the body responds to.
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  And that happened to me actually quite a bit during my own
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  professional career. And it was something that I
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  really had to work through. I would often get stuck in past
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  thinking, Oh no, XYZ is happening again.
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  Or I would get stuck in future thinking what would happen if I
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  failed again? What does this mean about the
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  rest of my season? What if I let people down?
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  And both of those would lead to disengaging or shutting down and
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  being out of the moment. So our goal is to be able to get
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  athletes to re engage quickly. And I really like this
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  illustration from a sports site that I worked with Jim Bauman
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  leading up to the 2016 Olympic trials.
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  And I'll just describe it for you since you're not going to
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  have the illustration in front of you.
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  But imagine a stick figure, runner figure with a line above
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  its shoulders, so a line separating its head from the
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  rest of its body. The head is like the software
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  center, the thinking and emotional center.
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  And from the shoulders down the body, that's the hardware
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  center, the doing part. And so he would describe the
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  ability to have flexibility to move and make some of those
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  parts big and some of those parts small as a skill.
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  So an ideal competition mindset are the thinking and emotional
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  parts of our self is small and the doing part of our self is
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  big. But that's not ideal all the
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  time. It's not black and white.
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  We want sometimes for the thinking and emotional part of
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  ourselves to be big and the doing part to be small, probably
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  similar to what we're all doing right now as we're listening to
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  this podcast. But that's not ideal when that
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  happens in a competition setting for the thinking and emotional
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  part of ourselves to get big and the doing part to get small.
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  So a mantra that I actually used quite a bit touching back on
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  mantras was, hey, just turn your brain off and let your body do
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  what it's ready to do. That's kind of the ideal in
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  competition mindset. That's going to have saved
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  energy and increased power output.
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  You're going to have a clear head and calm and focus only
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  what's on what's relevant and getting the job done.
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  So here is a tool that I like to use with athletes to help them
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  do this, help them stay in the moment where the doing part of
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  themselves is engaged the most. And that's important because
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  it's the only place that they can actually impact the outcome.
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  And so the skill is learning to refocus on what they can control
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  quickly switch from maybe some of that initial shock.
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  Why is this happening to problem solving mode?
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  What can I do about it? And to do this, I use the red,
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  yellow, green light thinking model.
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  So red lights are thoughts where you're starting to get stuck in
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  a why way of thinking. And you want to bring that
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  mindful awareness always key to every skill online, recognize
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  it, stop it and redirect the focus back into what can I do
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  about it or a green light way of thinking, which leads to action
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  as quickly as possible. So in the red light or problem
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  focused mindset, the focus is on what's wrong.
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  And this is creating a spiral of negative thoughts, and the mind
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  is drifting into the past or into the future.
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  And this can really trigger a lot of those negative emotions
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  like frustration or anger or confusion.
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  And then this puts the athlete at risk of overreacting and
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  shutting down or feeling helpless.
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  And this kind of sounds like, why does everything happen to
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  me? I can't because there's nothing
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  I can do to change my future. Why bother?
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  This is a failure. So when an athlete's in that
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  place, we want them to stop the red light thinking and we want
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  to get them to yellow light thinking as quickly as possible.
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  And the way to do that is to focus on the next actionable
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  step, which is really just breaking the situation down into
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  a small manageable step. And this can help them move
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  forward without getting stuck and overthinking and staying in
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  that problem puzzle solving mindset.
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  Coach Dan Paff would always say to me, champions love puzzles.
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  And so that was something that I really appreciated as an athlete
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  and that's what I always try to remind the athletes that I'm
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  working with. Champions love puzzles.
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  Everything that comes at you is a puzzle.
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  And so if they're doing that, they're focusing on the next
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  actionable step, then they can really quickly get back to that
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  green light solution focused mindset where it's what can I do
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  about it? And this mindset is more
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  empowering and action oriented. That's where they're focused on
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  what's within their control and they're grounded and they're
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  adaptable during challenges. Maybe flow state would be
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  encapsulated with this term because I think anxiety often
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  stems from feeling like an athlete is helpless or
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  powerless. And so focusing on what's my
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  next move can get them to refocus on what they need to do
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  to impact their immediate environment and keep that puzzle
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  solving mindset. Which ultimately leads to a
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  sense of hope and might sound more like, OK, look what I can
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  do. I can make things happen.
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  I can succeed if I work hard, I can solve this puzzle.
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  Failure is feedback. Today is a data point.
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  And so that last one, I think actually is a mantra that can
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  really help get athletes back to green light thoughts quickly.
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  I can give 100% today is a data point.
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  If I stay engaged, I will learn and grow.
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  I encourage them to think about what's their destination, what's
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  their end point? And just like AGPS recalculates,
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  how can they get there quickly? And so the plan that they had
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  might not actually be the best plan when they get into the
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  moment. So really a lot of this skill is
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  being flexible and adaptable when the athlete is in this
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  problem solving mode. It helps them to maintain an
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  internal sense of calm when there's a lot of chaos going on
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  around them. Because often these big race
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  environments or just a race environment in general is fairly
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  chaotic. And there's a lot of things
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  going on at all times that are outside of their control.
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  And a lot of information that they're taking in that is
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  actually completely irrelevant to their goal for the day, which
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  is just getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible,
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  if you want to say it in the simplest terms.
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  And so really what getting in this green light thinking does
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  is it also helps athletes kind of tap in with that internal
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  calm where they're thinking, what do I need to do in this
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  moment to run as fast as possible from point A to point
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  B? And that can really just help
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  with staying in the moment and that focus.
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  And I'll just end with a story kind of highlighting how
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  important of a skill this was for me as an athlete.
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  One race that comes to mind in particular was the 2015 USATF
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  Championships in the women's 5K, the final.
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  And obviously going into that race, the goal is to get top
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  three make team. But somewhere in the second to
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  last lap, my foot in another runner's foot, we got kind of
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  tangled up and I almost fell and found myself separated off the
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  back of the pack. So not the ideal situation you
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  want to find yourself in when you're coming into that bell
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  lap. So in the moment, this was a
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  situation where things would have typically escalated for me
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  into a little bit of a spiral of chaos where I would have been
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  really frustrated and overcome with emotions, got it out of the
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  present moment. But since I've been working on
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  this skill so much with Jim, it had really come become second
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  nature. And so I was like, OK, my goal
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  is to be with the lead pack and give myself the best chance to
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  get top three and that last 400 meters.
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  So how do I need to do that? What do I need to do to solve
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  the problem? Right now there's this gap, it's
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  not ideal. How do I close it as smoothly as
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  possible without wasting any excess energy and reattaching
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  myself? Just really not getting in past,
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  not getting in future. And so I was really proud of
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  myself. I was able to do that.
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  I caught back up, I stayed with the leaders.
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  I even ended up taking the lead at one point.
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  And even though I didn't make the team, that was a really big
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  success for me mentally. And I applied this same mindset
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  to the rest of my season. Oh, it's not ideal that I missed
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  making the team this year, but I'm in really great shape.
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  What can I do about it? And so I tried to just set up as
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  many good races for myself as I could in the postseason.
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  And that was awesome because I ended up winning my first
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  Diamond League in Stockholm in the 3K.
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  And so I think that this mindset tool is really valuable, both in
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  the immediate, like in a workout or a race, but also over the
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  course of the season. And AS we all know, it's even
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  more important when you get into other areas of your life post
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  athletics. So thanks for listening along.
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  I hope that you found some of this helpful.
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  If you'd like to learn more, there's so much more I can say
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  about all these topics. And you can find me at fall at
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  KB on Instagram. You can e-mail me, Katie, at
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  Elevated performance dot run. I have a resource that you can
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  download for free in the show notes and also on our Elevated
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  Performance website. And I'd really love to hear from
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  you if you or an athlete you know could benefit from kind of
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  beefing up their mental toolbox. And finally, thank you so much
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  to GAIL Athletics. I'm really grateful to take part
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  in this. And I think what they're doing
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  to elevate coaches is just so awesome.
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  So I hope that you have a great rest of your day and I would
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  really look forward to hearing from you at some point.
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  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
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  episode in the Youth and beginner series Powered by Coach
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