Playing in the Box: a Practical Guide for Helping Athletes Develop Their Mental Game by Dr. Pete Temple

Author:Dr. Pete Temple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-02-14T00:33:01+00:00

Emotional Cruise Control

There are three reactions to disruptive events. We’ve discussed how the first two, gas on and gas off, are problematic. The third option is to use your emotional cruise control to regulate extreme reactions and prevent them from undermining your performance.

You can train yourself to be aware of your unique emotional set point, or how you feel when you’re in the BOX. This self-awareness will help you quickly realize when an emotion has taken you out of the BOX, so you can take immediate action to get back in. You can’t prevent disruptive events from occurring, but you can learn to maintain or restore your emotional equilibrium when they do.

When you are aware of your ideal emotional speed, you know where to set your emotional cruise control. Just as a driver may purposefully override the cruise control to pass another vehicle, an athlete may allow emotion to accelerate their play or fuel a competitive burst. For example, a football player may respond to being beaten by a wide receiver by making a great hustle play that saves a touchdown. However, in these situations, athletes need to use their awareness and tools to return to their emotional set point so they don’t continue to play with heightened emotion that can become detrimental to their performance. If the football player continued to play angry, for example, he would be susceptible to mental mistakes.

It takes time and practice to train your responses when emotions are triggered. I would never tell an athlete, “Don’t let it upset you.” Athletes are human. They’re also competitive. So instead, I would say, “Let’s work on what you do when you get upset.”

There’s nothing terrible about emotion unless it’s getting in your way. Athletes must learn to recognize when their feelings have pushed them from the BOX and know how to find their set point so they can quickly return to it. If your performance or experience is affected negatively, view it as an indicator that you need to work on the emotional mechanics.

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