Master Your Inner Voice - A Key to Unshakeable Confidence
How to craft self-talk so it serves you
You should read this article because learning to control your inner voice or "self-talk," may be the most important skill you can develop to build rock-solid self-confidence and mental toughness.
Here's some self-talk:
What if this tournament doesn't go well?
What if I lose in the early rounds?
Team X always beats us and we play them in the quarters. This is a terrible draw.
What if I'm just not good enough?
If I make mistakes like I did the last game, coach will pull me for sure.
How does it make you feel? Ready to walk on the field and kick some ass?
Probably not.
What are you saying to yourself?
If you want to create confidence in your life at any moment, focus on 3 things:
Body - covered in the previous newsletter
Language
Focus
Language" or self-talk is the voice inside your head that's telling you stuff, evaluating events that happen to you, and describing your self-worth.
For some athletes, this story is empowering and it supports you. The voice is your advocate and personal cheerleader.
For others, your habitual language patterns undermine your self-belief, make you question your abilities, and create waves of doubt.
If you control and script your self-talk, you won't be wondering if you're ready to do battle.
What if I don't make the Team?
I believe this lesson is so important because this is one area in my competitive Judo career, where not paying attention to my self-talk had lasting and awful consequences.
I competed in Judo from age 12 to 31. My Wildly Important Goal was to earn a spot on the Olympic Team and win a medal.
I put in a tremendous amount of work over a long period of time, spent inordinate amounts of money, and had 3 chances.
I didn't make it.
After I retired, I realized that I'd been asking myself a habitual question (often unconsciously):
"What if I don't make the Team?"
It was a perpetual worry that would surface in my head when I would think of upcoming competitions or big events like the Olympic Trials.
It's an undermining question that eroded the confidence I was building as a result of my training and preparation.
Our brains are wired to find answers even when the questions are disempowering. My brain found so shitty answers:
I'll have wasted 12 yrs.
I won't achieve my lifetime dream
I'll be a loser
The fix would have been so easy. Had I been aware of my self-talk, I could have rewritten the question:
"How's it going to feel when I make the team?"
Awareness is the 1st step to making personal changes
If you want to make a change in your life, pay attention to what you're already doing in that area. Start listening to your internal dialogue when you're at training and in competition.
Does your self-talk make you feel fired up or doubtful?
When you're working on technical skills, is your language supportive or critical?
When you think of a big competition, are you excited for the challenge or worried?
If you're struggling at practice, what do you say to yourself?
Assume you're at training and you're struggling to learn a new skill. Are you thinking:
I just suck at this
This is sooo hard
I'm never gonna get this
I hate these drills
Why are we even doing this?
This is dialogue you need to change.
Rescript your self-talk so that it serves you
Let's say you're at practice learning a new technique, struggling with it, but thinking:
I'm gonna get this
I'm a fast learner
I love these drills
Anything I focus on, I improve
How would your body respond? Wouldn't this language accelerate your skill acquisition?
Why do our minds serve up doubts reflexively?
I don't know why, but our natural internal dialogue seems to default very quickly to language that causes doubt and uncertainty.
For example, I decide to write a newsletter about confidence. My goal is to share ideas and lessons that have helped me during my career as an athlete and a coach.
These are distinctions or "secrets" that I wished someone had taught me when I was a teenager. I'm hopeful and fired up.
I haven't even finished this thought dialogue and almost automatically, the voice inside my head starts asking:
What if no one reads your articles?
What if you spend all this time and no one cares?
What if people think you and your articles suck?
I haven't uttered a word out loud but I went from being motivated and excited about contributing, to being anxious and unsure if I should do it.
That's a crazy cycle. It's as if my brain is running on impaired auto-pilot.
Have you had similar experiences?
Suggestions for writing a better self-talk script
Our internal language is too important to let our scattered brains manage it without guidance.
So instead, write down empowering, confidence-building scripts. Then practice them over and over until they play automatically in your head.
Learning a new skill
I'm a fast learner
I love new challenges
I'll get this
I'll master this.
Enduring tough training sessions
Come on [your name]. I got this
The harder it is, the harder I go
I always have more energy
One more rep. One more set. One more go
Breathe, relax, recover.
For competitions
I can't wait to compete
I can't wait to show everyone how hard I've been working
I always bring the fight
I always execute
I pressure my opponents every minute of every match/game
I hope the competition is tough
The tougher it is the better I perform
I'm unstoppable!
Write down phrases you want to say to yourself on a 3x5 card and carry it around with you. Say them out loud with conviction and certainty so that you feel them in your whole body, like an incantation.
Make this new language pattern habitual by practicing it over and over.
The self-talk champion of the world: Muhammad Ali
One of the athletes who best demonstrated how to use "language" was Muhammad Ali.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali became a high-profile, African American boxer during the height of the civil rights movement in the U.S.
When Clay was eighteen, he won a boxing gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. At age twenty-two, he won the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship.
Clay converted to Islam shortly after that and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
Ali was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and refused to be drafted.
He was arrested, found guilty, and stripped of his boxing titles. He wasn't allowed to box for three years. He took his case all the way up to the Supreme Court…and won!
Scorned by white America
Even though Ali was a hero to so many in the U.S. and loved around the world, "white America" wasn't exactly showering a black, Muslim convert, with praise and acceptance.
Despised might be a better description of how he was viewed and treated. Discrimination was always present in his life.
Ali must have decided that his voice was going to be a constant stream of self-empowerment and self-belief.
I'm a bad man!
He was cocky and brash. But he backed up his words with actions. When the public and the press attacked him, he was his own corner man.
Ali embodied the saying, "It ain't bragging if you can do it!"
Visit YouTube.com and search for Muhammad Ali. Find some videos of his interviews. Watch and listen to his language:
I'm the greatest fighter that ever lived.
This may come as a shock to you but I would have beat every heavyweight that ever lived before me.
I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Aaaahhhhh. Rumble, young man, rumble.
I done wrassled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, throwed thunder in jail. That's bad.
Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick. Bad. Fast. Last night I cut the light off. Hit the switch was in the bed before the room was dark.
After I annihilate this Henry Cooper, I want that bear [Sonny Liston]. I want him bad. He might be great but he'll fall in eight.
The man to beat me hasn't been born yet.
Joe's gonna come out smokin. And I ain't gonna be jokin. I'll be peckin and a pokin. Pouring water on his smokin. And this might shock and amaze ya. But I will destroy Joe Frazier. Some people say you better watch Joe Frazier. He's awful strong. I said tell him to try "Ban roll-on."
I'm the greatest. And I'm knocking out all bums. And if you get too smart, I'll knock you out.
I don't have a mark on my face and I upset Sonny Liston. And I just turned 22 years old. I must be the greatest! I told the world. I talk to God every day. I shook up the world.
I am the king of the world. I'm pretty. I'm a bad man!
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/muhammad_ali_643416
Champion's Challenge
Pick a situation where your internal language is not serving you. If nothing comes to mind, think about a really challenging physical practice where you're out of breath, fatigued, and dripping in sweat.
What do you want to say to yourself at that time? What would support and empower you? Write down 4-6 bullet points or cues on a 3x5 card.
Also, think about what you want to say when the training session is over. Write down those cues.
Put yourself in a hard training session. See if you can recite your cues when your exhaustion level is at its peak. If you can't, go grab your card and say your cues out loud.
"Never quit. If you stumble, get back up. What happened yesterday no longer matters. Today’s another day so get back on track and move closer to your dreams and goals. You can do it." —Unknown