Do you feel that your female athlete can’t get out of her own negative thoughts? Does it seem like her one mistake is leading to the dreaded spiral of negative thinking and then more mistakes?

Everything you say might not be getting through, and as her mom, you want to help her. 

But how exactly can you help?

The Spiral of Negative Thinking

First off, we need to fully understand what the spiral of negative thinking looks like and why it happens. Your daughter falling into the spiral of negative thinking could look and feel like a lot of things, such as:

• Her one mistake is leading her to overthink many negative outcomes
• She only focuses on the error in your car ride home
• Her one mistake causes her to believe that she’s not good and will never be
• There will be a lot of negative “what ifs”
• Her negative feelings radiate and are felt by everyone in the family

These scenarios are not good at all. And it could feel rather difficult to handle. This kind of negativity should be taken seriously because our thoughts create reality. 

Imagine a circle/wheel with arrows around it. The head of each arrow points to the tail of another arrow forming a cycle. Let’s say there are 5 arrows in total that’s completing the circle. 

The first arrow is labeled as situation, and it’s pointing to another arrow labeled as thoughts. And then thoughts point to or lead to feelings/emotions. Next, emotions point to actions. Actions lead to results. Results lead back to the situation, thus creating the unending spiral.

Situation > Thoughts > Feelings/Emotions > Actions > Results

Now, the other piece of this is your daughter needs to have the opportunities to stop these negative thoughts. Your daughter needs strategies to stop negative thinking. And these are the things we provide in Confidence Boost Membership. 

This week we taught our students to “Stop, Breath, Replace”. So it means stopping when they recognize it, then doing something to break the cycle like breathing. And then replace the negative thought with something more productive. 

As much as you can shape the environment and help her in those moments, nothing will replace her, having the ability to shift and shape her thoughts on her own. Because she is the thinker, not you. 

She has to learn how to recognize her negative patterns. And know that this negative spiral happens because that’s how our brain tries to protect us. Our thoughts create our reality, so we have to be mindful of it. 

There are a lot of strategies we could do to stop negative thinking, and you as her mom have a role in it. You can support her and shape her environment by being a good example. And provide her the opportunities to learn and grow. 

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