Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #102: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Championship Mindset" Powered by Coach O

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#102: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Championship 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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  I'm with Elevated Performance and today I'm going to talk a
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  little bit about championship race season because this is a
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  conversation I've been having with a lot of athletes lately.
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  And it was something that was really important to me in my own
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  career as a professional track and field athlete, because I
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  didn't particularly like the feeling of waking up on the
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  morning of the Olympic Trials final and just having that pit
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  in my stomach knowing that, oh, this is the day I've been
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  waiting for for four years. And at the same time, it was
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  also the day that I'd been looking forward to for four
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  years. And I was so excited about going
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  out there and competing against all the best women in the
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  country and really seeing if I could get the best out of myself
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  on that day. So one expression that was
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  really, really helpful to me in this was the expression two
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  sides of the same coin, meaning that two things may seem
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  opposite but actually can't exist without each other.
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  And this was something that was introduced to me by Coach Dan
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  Path when he challenged me with the question.
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  OK, so you do feel anxious. That's true.
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  But it's also necessary because you've put a lot of hard work
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  and time and energy into getting to this place that you're at.
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  So which side of the coin are you going to focus on?
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  And this was really helpful for me.
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  And sometimes when I'm talking with athletes at the end of the
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  season, I'll actually just hold up a coin and I'll say, hey,
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  this side of the coin represents some of those anticipatory
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  excitement, feelings that you're having or anxiety.
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  And as athletes, we can tend to focus on that side of the coin
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  or we can tend to focus on the other side of the coin.
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  And then I'll flip the coin over and I will show them the other
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  side. And I'll say this might
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  represent just purely being rational and logic and trying to
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  stuff those emotions down, replace them with positive
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  affirmations or logic. But focusing on each of those,
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  if you just imagine it like a 2 dimensional circle, that doesn't
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  really give you the full picture.
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  And so I would argue that both of those waste valuable energy.
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  And we need to do more than just replace emotions with logic.
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  We actually need to shift the perspective by flipping the
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  coin, looking at it in the air and appreciating it for its full
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  3D dimensionality and acknowledging, hey, both of
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  these things can be true at the same time.
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  We can accept and acknowledge the emotion, and we can redirect
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  that energy really quickly by just saying to ourselves, yeah,
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  I feel this way because I care. There's nothing abnormal about
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  that. In fact, some of this is going
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  to be good. I need some of that anticipatory
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  excitement and nerves when I get to the starting line to get the
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  best performance out of myself. And when looking at the rational
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  mind, we can remind ourselves of all that we've done to prepare,
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  both with mental skills like this and also with our physical
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  training and good workouts that we have and all the races that
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  we've done that have helped with our sharpness and our race
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  strategy because prepared equals confidence.
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  So we do want to remind ourselves of all the things that
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  we've done to prepare, but we also want to flip that coin and
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  we want to maintain this different perspective.
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  And I think one way that is really helpful to do this is
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  with gratitude. Gratitude is an amazing tool to
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  pull out in the moment of pressure because in our body,
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  gratitude can actually help regulate our nervous system.
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  And in our brain, it can help us take off those thinking trap
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  goggles that I was talking about in the first self talk episode
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  by conditioning our brain to filter out the negative.
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  Without getting too much into the details here, I will say
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  that there's a lot of cool scientific research showing how
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  gratitude practices affect the body and the brain.
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  There's actually been studies using scans of the brain that
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  show that the parts of the brain responsible for fear and stress
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  and emotional responses like the amygdala are decreased when
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  someone is actively practicing gratitude.
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  And the parts of the brain responsible for decision making,
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  focus, and impost impulse control are actually more active
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  areas like the prefrontal cortex.
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  That is so cool to be. What does that actually mean?
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  It means that the brain can't be anxious and grateful at the same
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  time is one really simplified way of saying it.
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  There's one study that I came upon in particular to that I
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  think is really cool. It's from Scientific Reports.
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  It was published in 2017. If you'd like to look it up, the
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  name of the article is actually Effects of Gratitude Meditation
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  on Neural Network Functional Connectivity and Brain Heart
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  Coupling. That's a little bit of a
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  mouthful, but the study basically had participants focus
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  on something they were grateful for for 4 minutes and something
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  that made them angry for 4 minutes, and they saw changes in
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  brain functioning on a functional MRI and heart rate.
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  So how can athletes actually harness the power of gratitude
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  and use it the week of a championship race?
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  Well, I think a good place to start is just asking some simple
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  questions like what are you most excited for?
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  What are you most looking forward to?
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  And then also asking some questions that connect them back
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  to some of the other tools that they have in their toolbox.
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  And if you're interested in some of those tools, I there's a
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  couple of other podcasts where I just kind of briefly get into
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  what I think some of those important tools are, but some
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  questions linked to the dose might be OK.
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  What are you having the opportunity to learn?
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  And what are some ways that you can connect with your why?
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  Because I think questions help us use curiosity and compassion.
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  And that automatically gets us into this growth mindset
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  perspective where we're viewing failures, feedback and a data
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  point and we're staying in a puzzle solving mindset.
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  And what that does is it really frees us to use all these tools
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  in our toolbox and take risks and become the most resilient
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  version of ourselves. I also think This is why it's
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  really important for athletes to keep detailed training journals
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  and training logs. When I started doing this, I
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  noticed that it really impacted my performance in more ways than
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  I thought. Because if they have those
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  going, then they can be regularly journaling who they're
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  grateful for. I'm grateful for this person's
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  support. They can be journaling what
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  they're grateful that they get to do.
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  I'm grateful for the opportunity to train or compete or improve
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  my skill set today. I'm they can be grateful that
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  for what their body can do. I'm grateful that my body can
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  perform or recover or handle training today.
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  They can be grateful for challenges that are forcing them
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  to learn and grow. They can be reflecting on what
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  they're proud of. So they can, one, be reminding
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  themselves of what they're looking forward to.
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  They can 2 be journaling what they're grateful for and
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  reflecting back on all the things that they've been
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  grateful for over the course of the season.
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  And 3rd. And this ties back into the self
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  talk episode. I think it's also really helpful
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  to have some of those mantras for when the boogeyman shows up
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  include gratitude. So often times I'll leave
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  athletes with the homework, OK, what's one thing that you can
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  stand on the line and feel grateful for it Because that
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  automatically gets them into this different perspective where
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  they're flipping the coin and they're appreciating all of
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  those elements instead of getting stuck focusing on the
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  one thing in the moment, which is largely maybe how they feel
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  and if they don't like how they feel.
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  So this is going to be especially helpful for those
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  athletes that are standing on the line and just really getting
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  overwhelmed by the moment. And one last analogy that kind
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  of comes to mind. The this is a boat drift in the
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  ocean that's anchored down. When there's little waves, that
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  anchor isn't really as important, but that anchor
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  becomes really important the rougher the seas get and the
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  more waves are or the stronger the pull is, that would take
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  that ship out to sea. So I think these big
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  championship races, they're an important test of what tools
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  does the athlete have in their toolbox.
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  And so I always just come back to, hey, you can feel confident
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  because you've prepared, because you've put all these tools in
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  your toolbox, both physically and mentally.
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  And so thank you for listening along.
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  This is kind of the last of the series of all of the little
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  parts that I think are really important for a mentally
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  resilient athlete. And if you want to learn more,
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  there's so much more I could go on for forever.
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  You can find me at ballot KB on Instagram.
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  You can e-mail me at Katie at Elevated performance dot run.
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  I love working with athletes. This is what I do.
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  You can go on to the Elevated Performance website and find
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  resources there. I'm pretty sure you can also
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  download some of those resources for free in the show notes.
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  So if you would like to learn more or there you think that
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  this would be a really interesting topic for your team
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  or an athlete that you're working with could really
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  benefit from this, please don't hesitate to reach out.
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  I am so grateful for all the people who have poured into me.
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  And so I just really, really enjoy paying it forward.
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  That's my why that I always come back to.
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  So finally, thanks to Gil Athletics, I'm really grateful
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  to take part in everything that they're doing to elevate
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  coaches. And thank you very much for
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  listening along and I hope to connect with 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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