It's not all about the money Mr Lawrenson

I read with interest Mark Lawrenson’s assessment of why England’s Under 21 football team failed to make it through to the Semi-Finals of the European Championship but find it hard to accept his theory that because young players are paid so much they aren’t as hungry for success as other teams. I do agree that being paid a lot of money can have a negative impact on a player but it isn’t because they lack interest. The money creates obligations, expectations and demands on a player, all of which may be understandable but none of which are particularly beneficial to good performances. But does having a healthy bank balance really mean the players lack motivation?

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with many of the best young footballers in the country, including a number of England internationals, over the years and one thing is very clear; each and every one of them would be playing football no matter how much (or how little) they were paid. The main issue that young England players face, I feel, is the intense scrutiny they are put under, particularly from the fans and the media (including Mr Lawrenson). When most of us were the same age as some of these players, we were able to make our mistakes in private with little fear of ending up on the front pages of newspapers. When Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish drank too much on a holiday with his mates, he was only repeating what countless other 19 year-olds have done but in his case his photograph is shared online by millions of people and he is publicly chastised for it. When I did that kind of thing at the same age, the only real comeback was the hangover that resulted (which was bad enough).

From my experience, the main impediment these players have is the huge expectations that are placed on their shoulders. The mistakes they make on the field are scrutinised to such a degree by the coaching staff, the media and the fans, that they start thinking in terms of avoiding making any mistakes rather putting their attention on putting on a positive performance. The more you try and avoid something the more you end up focusing on it so, instead of thinking about playing easy, carefree football, they end up worrying about missing a tackle, making a bad pass, missing a shot or letting in a goal.  As a result of this, they become unconfident, indecisive, hesitant and weighed down by the pressure. This lack of confidence plays a significant role in a player’s energy levels, movement and his ability to think clearly. Players suffer paralysis by analysis and so don’t play their natural, free flowing game. This is why they may seem lethargic. It is more a case of them being stifled rather than being unmotivated. If anything, the players I have worked with are too hungry for success to a point where the fear of failure is too great. To be a winner you can’t be afraid that you are going to lose.

Mistakes are a vital part of a learning process but if you fear making them you are going to have problems. The England one day cricket team has become rejuvenated because players were given permission to go and express themselves. Captain Eoin Morgan received comparatively little criticism for getting out first ball trying to hit a six in the final match against New Zealand because their strategy was to be positive. Mistakes were acceptable so the team played with immense freedom and energy.

England football could learn a lot from this. They need to focus on playing positive, high intensity and flowing football without fear of making mistakes and with a view of accepting the consequences whatever they may be. The media could play a role here by showing some understanding rather than making sweeping judgments on the players. I’m not holding my breath though. Unfortunately, many ex-players seem to forget the pressures they were under during their playing days. 

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind

Arrogance vs Super Confidence

I recently worked with a professional squash player (let’s call her Amy) on issues she had around confidence. Although she told me she wanted more confidence it soon became apparent that she had developed an unhelpful perception of what confident people were like and, in her mind, she had concluded that the super confident people she knew were all arrogant. This caused her real conflict as, although she wanted to be more confident, she didn’t want to become arrogant so she ended up resisting change in her personal growth.

One thing I have found over the years is that we often get trapped in our problem state because we form an unhelpful belief around any alternative way of being.  This was certainly the case with Amy. In her mind she had generalised that all confident people are arrogant which meant that the only way for her to become more confident was to become arrogant herself; something she did not want to do.

The irony about Amy’s belief is that arrogance has absolutely nothing to do with confidence. In fact, it is the polar opposite of confidence as it tends to be displayed by individuals who are lacking in confidence.  Put it this way, if you had all the confidence in the world, why would you feel such a need to tell everyone? One of the most confident and inspiring people I ever worked with was a client called Simon who I was helping develop the culture of his business. Simon is a man of very few words and prefers to listen more than speak. I can remember sitting in on a meeting with him and about 15 of his senior managers who were all desperately taking turns to talk up their role in the success of a project they had all been working on. It was reminiscent of a scene from The Apprentice where everyone was desperate to take the glory at the expense of the remainder of the group and it started to get quite heated.  As things started to get out of control, I could see a grin appear on Simon’s face like that of an indulgent parent. Then he leaned forward, made the tiniest of coughs and, as if he had put a spell on everyone, the room immediately fell silent and all eyes were on him. In a matter of a few, quietly spoken words, Simon had diffused the whole situation, refocused them on the subject that needed addressing, changed the tone of the meeting and then he leaned back again, leaving his team to take turns speaking in a calm and collegiate manner. At no point did Simon speak to them as anything other than as an equal. He is a man of great humility, empathy and modesty, all under-pinned with a big dose of confidence.

Interestingly, when I explained this to Amy, she actually started to feel sorry for the arrogant people that she knew. This allowed her to let go of the limiting belief which had been holding her back and over the following weeks we were able to make a real impact on her confidence levels in all areas of life.

So if you ever start to feel intimidated by someone who is being arrogant remember that they are probably a lot less confident than you are.

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind

Charl Schwartzel’s collapse: A case of thinking too much

The denouement of yesterday’s South African golf championship was very much one of mixed emotions. If there was ever an advertisement for the benefits of playing sport to enjoy yourself, then Englishman Andy Sullivan’s dramatic win on the first play-off hole against Charl Schwartzel was it. Throughout the final round a smile never left Sullivan’s face as he seemed to thrive on the joy of playing the game just for the sake of playing. He was a pleasure to watch and, ultimately, his maiden tour win was well deserved.

It was not, however, such a happy end for Schwartzel, who had been not long before been standing on the 14th tee five shots ahead of the field with only a handful of holes to play and looking a huge favourite to win his home championship for the first time.  Sadly, there ensued one of those terrible collapses that are painful to watch and are what is often cruelly referred to as “choking”. Choking essentially comes about from over thinking. When we are performing well, we process information unconsciously, trusting our bodies to perform the skills that we have learned. When we start to over think, we process information consciously which leads to a deterioration in performance and, in extreme circumstances, can lead to a complete crash.

For me, the telling moment that Schwartzel was over thinking could be found as far back as the 8th hole when he could be witnessed spending a considerable amount of time discussing the mechanics of his swing. There is only one place for dealing with your technique, whatever your sport, and that is on the practice ground. If you take your mechanics into a competitive situation, it forces you to perform consciously and that will always have a detrimental effect on how you perform.  The unconscious mind is your feeling mind so to put in a winning performance, it is far more important to work on your emotional state rather that getting into deep analysis. So while Andy Sullivan was preparing himself effectively by staying in a happy state, Charl Schwartzel was activating his conscious mind by going into over thinking mode.

So if you want to be competitive make sure you leave your mechanics in the garage. 

Have a great week!

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind

How to achieve your goals for 2015

Happy New Year to you!

This is the time of year when a lot of you may be considering setting some goals. You may have even set some goals for 2014 and some you may have achieved and others may be still on the “To Do” list. There are a number of reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. Some of the main ones include; setting a goal that is too big (“I want to win Wimbledon”), having a goal that isn’t inspiring enough (“I want to keep my house tidy every day”), aiming to achieve something that is too vague (“I want to be successful”), looking to please someone else (“I will practise my clarinet for 2 hours every day to keep Mum happy”) or creating a goal that doesn’t have a timescale (“One day I’m going to write a book”).

If you want to set some goals for 2015, here are seven hints to make it more likely that you will achieve them.

1. Make your goal challenging yet achievable. We are more motivated by a challenging goal especially if you have a good reason for achieving it.

2. Be as descriptive as possible, in terms of what you want to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and what resources and abilities you require to get your goal. The mind is always scanning for things in the environment that are relevant to you. If you let your mind know exactly what you want, it is more likely to draw your attention to things that will help you achieve your goal.

3. Break your goal into small, easy to achieve chunks. If you are aiming to be able to run a marathon, the first goal may be to run a mile first. Give each stage a timescale so that you know whether or not you are on track.

4. Tell others about your goal. It has been found that we are far more likely to achieve a goal if we tell everyone about it. If you keep it to yourself, there is a lot less to lose if you give up. One very good reason for using social media.

5. Write your goal down. Research has shown that you are far more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down (remember to make them descriptive!).

6. Have fun. Enjoy the process of achieving your goal. The pursuit of a goal can be far more rewarding than the actual achievement of attaining the goal itself.

7. Take action. Do one thing every day towards your goal. Even if you are not in the mood to work towards your goal, just do one very small thing that moves you towards it. Once you have started, the chances are that you will end up doing more than you intended to.

Have a fantastic 2015! I hope it is all you wish it to be.

Andy Barton

Performance Coach

The Sporting Mind

Want to feel invincible? You need to set the right tone

I recently worked with a tennis player who had become interested in the use of affirmations after reading that her hero Serena Williams used them for her preparations. From a young age Serena’s father would write motivating messages on large pieces of paper for her and Venus which he would hang up around the court where they were practising. Words and phrases such as “Believe” or “You are a winner” would adorn the courtside and would become mantras that they would repeat to themselves to get themselves in the right mindset to perform.

My client told me she had come up with some affirmations of her own but found they didn't really inspire her very much. I asked her to give me an example of one of these affirmations and she proceeded to mumble, in a totally uncommitted (and slightly embarrassed) monotone, the words “I am invincible”.  For a moment I glanced at her fingers to see if she had crossed them for good luck, such was the lack of resolution in her voice. I then asked her how “invincible” she was feeling after stating the affirmation and she admitted that she wasn't feeling it at all.  

This was unsurprising to me as words, on their own, aren't particularly effective for instilling emotions in us. For an affirmation to be effective they need to be stated with the appropriate tone of voice. It doesn't matter whether that is the voice you speak with or whether it is the voice in your head.  For example, if you were to imagine the words “I am invincible” being stated by Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson (go on give it a try!), can you really take it seriously? Now try it using the voice of Darth Vader (the fabulous voice of actor James Earl Justice) and notice how differently you feel about the phrase now.  

An invincible affirmation requires an invincible tone of voice. If you also add to that the appropriate body language, you will find it difficult to feel anything but invincible.

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind

Who's responsible?

I once worked with a footballer who’d been struggling with his performances for several years. A few years previously he had been feted as the next big thing. At the age of 18, those in the know were expecting him to take the Premiership by storm and inevitably take a leading role in the England set up but now, aged 23, things hadn’t panned out quite how he had hoped and he was even struggling to keep a place in the starting XI of the mid-table League One team that he was now playing for.

A reluctant client (he was only seeing me because his agent insisted) the main problem appeared to be that he didn’t seem to accept that he had any control over his world or how we acted or felt. An explosive temper had led to a number of incidents which usually end up in a yellow card, and very often a red. His progress had flatlined and, he even admitted he had been a better player 5 years previously. As a result, he had moved from club to club; each one buying him largely based on his old reputation rather than his present form. And yet, he didn’t believe that any of the responsibility was his. He was very quick to blame everyone and everything apart from himself.

In the sessions we had together at various times he blamed his coaches, his team mates, the tactics, the referee, his fitness coach, his diet, his girlfriend, his boots, the fans and even the pitch. Hand in hand with this was that he also didn’t feel that he had any influence on his performance. He referred to himself as being a ‘confidence’ player. A term you hear quite a lot in football and essentially means he is the type of player who will only play well if he wakes up feeling confident. Unfortunately, those days were becoming few and far between. At no point did he consider anything to have been his fault.

You may be aware of the concept of Cause and Effect (C>E), where one action causes another to happen. The problem is that a lot of people seem to live their lives on the Effect side of the equation where their mindset has them believe that what they do and how they feel is a consequence of external factors, i.e. everyone and everything else. If the world decrees that they are going to be confident that day then so be it, they can go out and perform. However, if the world decides otherwise, then it’s going to be a bad day. Successful people live their lives on the Cause side of the equation, where they feel that they are responsible for what they do and how they feel. Confidence, then, becomes a choice not an aspiration. One way to put yourself on the Cause side of the equation is to take responsibility for what you do and how you feel. Unfortunately, my client saw responsibility as being a bad thing and, unsurprisingly, after a few sessions decided that it wasn’t working for him. The last I heard was that he was playing semi-professionally for a non-League team.

It seems to me that there is very little benefit to surrendering your responsibility to the world, apart from the fact you can have an excuse when things don’t go to plan. Taking responsibility allows you to shape the world in the way that you want to and feel confident, happy, motivated, energised and fulfilled when you want to and not because someone (or something) else decides for you.

As Eleanor Roosevelt so deftly put it:

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind

Feeling bad? Change the label

It was fantastic at the weekend to watch the Ryder Cup victory by the Europeans. The whole competition was an illustration of sport at it’s most intense. Some players, like Justin Rose and Rory McIlory seem to just thrive in these situations and others just find it completely overwhelming.

Have you ever had that feeling when you’ve gone into a competitive situation or even done something out of your comfort zone like making a speech when you feel ‘nervous’? Unless you are devoid of emotion, we have all experienced this feeling at some point. Interestingly, according to psychologists  Shachter and Singer (1962) we don’t experience a particular emotion such as ‘fear’ or ‘nervousness’ immediately.  According to their Two Factor Theory of Emotion they state that we actually experience a level of physiological arousal and then take in our environment and only then put a label on the emotion. So when Webb Simpson stood on the first tee to play the very first shot of the Ryder Cup, he would have been experiencing high levels of arousal and would have then taken in his surroundings (large noisy crowd, 1st tee, European and US flags etc) and quite possibly would then have given this arousal the label of ‘nervousness’ or even ‘fear’ (which would certainly have accounted for the bad mis-hit that followed).

Initially, the physical manifestations of ‘nervousness’ and ‘excitement’ are identical. The head spins, the heart beats fast, hands get a bit sweaty etc. It is only when one of the labels is put on it that we respond accordingly. So, if we call it ‘fear’, we will then put ourselves into a negative spiral which can be quite hard to undo. If however, we describe it using labels such as ‘euphoria’, ‘pumped up’ or ‘buzzing’, then we tend to greet the racing heartbeat as being a good thing. Great sports performers don’t necessarily need to calm themselves down, very often they just need ride the wave of excitement.

When Rory McIlroy was asked how he felt about being drawn against in form US player Rickie Fowler for the Ryder Cup singles, his answer typified his mental approach.

“I’m really excited. It’s going to be a great match.”

When you are feeling strong emotions make sure you pick the right label!

Have a thrilling day!

Andy Barton

Performance coach

The Sporting Mind