My name is Brittany Martinez and I am a Sport Psychology Consultant and Mindset Coach for Sterling Sport Mindset.
There are no doubts in my mind that working with athletes on mental performance is what I was born to do.
There is such gratification on being able to help someone have their mindset do a complete 360 and truly intensify their gameplay. Trust me I could gush all day long about the importance of the mental game and my love for it but that’s not why you’re here!
Let’s rip off the band-aid and get down to it shall we?
As I am sure you soccer enthusiasts have witnessed, a lot of mental practices discuss the idea of feeling your feelings fully.
I, myself, can even be frequently found telling friends, family, clients, strangers on the street, that their feelings are valid, and they are allowed to feel the way they feel.
Whatever emotions a situation or circumstance illicit, you are entitled to those emotions and there is nothing wrong with feeling them.
However, I think it is time to talk about the other side of that mentality a lot of times forgotten or pushed aside.
You see, if we open the door to feel our feelings, that means we feel them all.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
This is the part where I get a little personal…
When we think about being present in our emotions, we rarely think of being present in our positive emotions.
I know you’re probably all thinking: “But Brittany, those are the best feelings to be present in!” and yes, it’s true! It is great to be present in our happy and positive emotions however, for some of us (me), its easier said than done.
I have always been the type of person who curbed my enthusiasm in order to prevent heartbreak or disappointment. The way I saw it, if I don’t allow myself to get excited about uncertainty then the disappointments that may come won’t hurt as bad.
If I go into a game thinking..
“Okay, I am going to do my best and hustle, but I probably won’t get a goal”
...and nothing spectacular happens in that game, then I already planned for that.
Then if I ended up with a hat-trick I can celebrate all I want! As opposed to going into the game expecting a goal and coming up empty.
I leashed my excitement, so that missing goal doesn’t hurt as much.
My thought, falling from the sidewalk hurts less than falling from the top of the building.
This mentality brought me through most of my life, as student, as an athlete, in my social life, and in my career.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst was my mantra.
I never saw this as a pessimistic view, I always considered it me being realistic about my situation.
I went through my entire life up until this point, on a short emotional leash because I was too afraid of disappointment to let myself feel excitement and joy for things to come.
It was recently brought to my attention how much joy and excitement I have missed out on because I have been suppressing those emotions.
I spent so much time and energy trying to squash the good feelings, when I could be spending that time letting myself be immersed in them.
On top of missing out on countless joyful opportunities, I realized that I am a victim of my own self-fulfilling destiny.
I go into something less eager and motivated because I am trying to keep myself from feeling those feelings until I know it’s a sure thing.
Inherently, I don’t show up as me or how I want to show up for myself and others. I can’t help but thinking, if I had let myself off the leash and brought in all the enthusiasm I wanted to allow myself to feel, maybe things would work out differently, so the buck stops here.
Self-fulfilling prophesy works both ways folks. Going into a game with mindset, “I will score at least one goal” inherently makes your odds of scoring that goal better.
You play harder, you hustle more, you do everything in your power to make that goal happen because there is no other option. You will be leaving that field with a goal.
Truth time...
If establishing and owning that mindset was so easy, everyone would do it. If manifesting the game you wanted simply by believing it to be true was easy, we would never experience loss and I’d be out of a job.
It takes a lot of work and like everything else, PRACTICE. Mindset is a muscle, and it needs to be worked every day to be sustainable.
As I’m sure all you athletes are aware, just because something is hard, does not mean it's not doable...and it typically means its worth it.
I am actively working on my mindset and acknowledging the bad and the ugly but also letting the good off-leash more often because dang it, I deserve it and so do you!
We are allowed to feel the way we feel, and our feelings are valid. ALL.OF.THEM. Don’t anyone, including yourself, tell you anything different.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
xhrgpNVPTzqjay
LPtFNrVq