When you race or train has a negative thought ever impacted your performance? Despite all attempts to stay positive with our thinking, bad things will undoubtedly happen during training or racing and runners must respond to these negative events. Runners may cramp up, be unexpectedly passed, tie up in the legs, or simply feel a bit less than perfect. These are the times that negative thinking has a chance to creep in to thought patterns and negatively impact performance. Negative thinking often occurs in identifiable patterns (Lauer, 2010). Do you, or other athletes you know, ever have thoughts like the following during performance?

Poor me- "Coach overtrained me" or "My roommate kept me up and that's why I'm tired" or "The dining hall didn't have my Cocoa Puffs and I'm running bad because of it"

Entitlement- "I deserve this and the performance should come so easy to me that I don't have to work hard."

Catastrophizing- "Sally just passed me and now we have no chance to win the team title" or "I went through that first mile so slow that it is impossible for me to rebound and have a good race" 

Self-Handicapping- "Joey just passed me which is OK because he's the reigning conference champ"

Negative thinking probably happens to even the best runners, but what separates people and their performance is how they cope with negative thinking. Sports psychologists argue that the best way to respond to this poor and irrational thinking is to use thought stopping and replacement statements. Thought stopping is exactly what it sounds like and involves acknowledging a negative thought and then leaving it behind (Porter, 2003). When you stop a negative thought it is actually helpful to incorporate a physical action to reinforce the elimination of the thought. It may be helpful for runners to literally imagine the that the thought has been left behind on the track/road/course as they continue to run. Runners can also try brushing thoughts away with their hand in the same way that they might wipe away sweat. Finally, a deeper than normal breath may also reinforce a state of relaxation after the negative thought has been eliminated (Lauer, 2010). Be consistent with whatever strategy you decide to use, practice it regularly, and be sure to put the strategy into action at the first sign of negative thinking.

The next step is to add a new thought to replace the one that was just eliminated. The new thought should be positive and process-oriented rather than outcome-oriented. This is because individuals have control over the process and actions that they choose, but less control in regards to how these actions impact the desired outcome (Porter, 2003). For example, runners can always control how competitive they are, how hard they train, and the strategy that they use to run a race. Yet if the outcome is winning a race or running a certain time, runners have little to no control in regards to the weather, the other athletes in the race, and how their legs feel on that given day. Bring the focus back to the process when creating a replacement statement.

As an example, let's pretend that Tim came through the first mile of his race too slow and had the negative thought "I'm not fit. I'm just going to stay here and not move up." Time should realize that this is a negative thought, because he is self-handicapping his ability in the race based on how fit he thinks he is.  He is also catastrophizing in believing he is not fit simply because he started the race too slow. Maybe Tim only needs to get himself mentally into the race and start to work his way up. Once Tim realizes this is a negative thought (which should be as soon as possible so the thought does not continue to negatively impact his performance) he should accept it and let it go. Tim could wipe the sweat off his brow, but imagine that he his wiping the thought away from his present mental state. Tim could then say to himself, "I'm a racer!  I compete no matter what.  Let's go and get these guys!" The affirmation statement should be whatever works for Tim, and it should be practiced on a regular basis just like any component of physical training. Used in this manner, thought-stopping and self-talk can be an effective way for runners to eliminate feelings of doubt and have the best performance possible on that given day.  

References

Lauer, L. (2010, February). Disciplined thinking, confident athlete: Thought Stopping and Positive Self-Talk. Presentation at the Youth Sport 

Summit, Wingate, NC.

Porter, K. (2003). The mental athlete. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics.