How To Bulletproof Your Mind from Choking

You're on the 18th tee and all you can see is the water on the left. You are a couple points away from upsetting a better player. Why do these situations all of a sudden make your body feel like you've never done anything athletic in your life. Why does your mind start thinking of when your coach yelled at you when you were 9 years old. And what the heck do we do about it. This episode we break it all down for you!

Transcript

Chris 0:11

What's up guys? Welcome on this beautiful Monday night that you won't be listening on a Monday night, but that's okay. Um, we'll come in. So today we are going to talk about a recent experience springtime, which is prime sports time. Lots of things going on. I actually just got back from St. Louis. Uh, the great city of St. Louis where I was like, what is there? And then I remember the arches there. So that was, uh, that was fun for a March Madness. The Queen's University of Charlotte Royals, uh, my alma mater made our first game, our, uh, first tournament appearance ever. We were division two when I went there. And so the fact that we're even division one and in the tournament, I felt the need to go and so I dragged my wife out there. And, uh, we watched him, watched our team lose by like 34 points. So

Matt 1:04

we were trying to channel some of that UMBC magic that we had back in the day.

Chris 1:08

I did have that thought. I was like, we were a 15 seats, so not quite a 16, but I was like, I was there. We, I mean we were there and I was there for the six, the 16 seat upsets. Maybe it's me. But then I realized that it was not in fact me. Um, but it had us thinking. Between the recent, uh, the last five PGA tour events, the leader of the tournament going into the final round has not won March Madness. There's always some upsets. There was one last night with Iowa beating Florida and a thrilling game. There's also been some crazy finishes and then there's always upsets. Um, as well as just a ton of things going on. We, we figure this would maybe be a good time to have a discussion about pressure and sports handling it. Uh, what goes on with the, with the psychology as well as just overall in terms of how this relates to every day life. And, and especially if you're not a professional athlete, like what does that look like?'cause we all do face different pressures and it certainly affects us. Um, but there's just certain things that sports kind of expose and allow us to have these types of conversations in. So, um, yeah, we'll, we'll kind of go from there. So tell me,'cause you actually were the one interested in this topic. Tell me kind of you start us off.

Matt 2:30

Well,

Chris 2:31

I mean, I'm interested in this topic too, but

Matt 2:33

Yeah, I think, I think I wanted to set up Chris's expertise in this topic for us to be able to learn something. But I do think it brings together a couple of our favorite episodes. It's actually funny. This week I had someone come up to me, avid listener of the pod, said, you know, my favorite episode you've done is your anxiety episode. It was a friend visiting from out of town, and I think I've heard that probably 20 times. I think that anxiety episode is by far our favorite. And so I think this episode's fun in the sense it brings together a specific type of anxiety with performance, which we did the performance episode and perception early on in the podcast. So I think this one's kind of fun in that it brings in some relevant sports themes from the spring and, and what's going on right now that you can kind of even watch the, uh, sweet 16 Elite Eight this upcoming weekend and kind of think through the lens we're gonna talk about. And then I think it also has very applicable themes to day-to-day life like you're thinking. So I just thought it'd be a cool, relevant topic that kind of brings together some different themes of the podcast throughout the years.

Chris 3:38

Yeah. So here's the thing is, is. I could probably spend eight hours talking about this, so I'm not going to go in depth into like every single thing. But I wanna start off, I I would actually, this would be start off with you and then I'll, I'll give my thought of like, how would you simplify, like how would you define choking slash like crumbling under pressure? Like what mm-hmm. In the moment, like what do you think it is and what causes it?

Matt 4:09

I think in general, a choke is where there's an expectation of success or a high likelihood of success, and you fail to achieve that either because of your skill level or because of your, uh, the expectation of your winning, either by definition of Las Vegas in the bookies or just by definition of prior record. Or by skill level, these teams that have more skilled, highly rated recruits, however you break it down essentially an expectation that you are better in some way or more skilled in some way. And that there's an expectation that you should have a successful outcome in a moment that matters a lot. That's kind of how I break it down.

Chris 4:54

Yeah, that, that was good. I'm glad you brought up the word expectation'cause I think that has a lot at play.'cause it's really hard. To choke when you're a huge underdog. Like there's, it doesn't even really exist, right? If you're a huge underdog or you're playing from way behind in terms of like the scoreboard or just no one expects anything out of you, um,

Matt 5:14

well, that's kind of like CNN and Duke this past weekend. And once CNN got going and actually got ahead, you, you see that shift where the expectation actually starts to shift. When you look at the whim probabilities, they're, they're not necessarily seeing those models, but in their head they're saying, oh, we're up by seven with. X amount of time left, we're up by five with X amount of time left. That means we actually have over 50% chance of winning and that, and that mental model starts shifting.

Chris 5:40

Yeah. And you're a hundred percent right, the, the quote unquote pressure shifts and what it does. So I'll kind of start with like two basic terms, like mindsets here that there's, if you were to like oversimplify the mental game in, in sports, which again, I think translates to life. Is you have the, what I would call like an opportunistic mindset, right? Where you're, you're viewing the thing, the task in front of you as an opportunity for something. Whether it's an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to achieve something, an opportunity to just compete and enjoy, like there's some form of like something to kind of look forward to or enjoy. There's an intrinsic Yep. Piece to it. And that's obviously the mindset that we want to be competing in. And we are sometimes naturally put into it based on those situations. Like Sienna against Duke is the 16th C. There's no expectation, no pressure for them. And so it's all opportunity mindset. Now you flip that with the, the opposite, which I'm just gonna broadly called the threat mindset, where you are viewing that task now as somewhat threatening.

Matt 6:54

Right.

Chris 6:54

And. Be, and there's a ton of different things you could be threatened by. I'll go into more detail in just a second of what those things are and how they affect us. But, um, that can, so like, let's say Duke started out in the threat mindset because the expectation was on them. There's really nothing for them to gain per se, because they're fully expected to win. But now, as you say, Sienna gets up 10 points, it's the second half. Now Sienna's kind of expected to win and that can flip in the moment. And those types of things do happen all the time where Sienna loses the opportunity mindset and now they are like, crap, this is our chance that we don't wanna blow against, you know, our one chance against Duke. And Duke's like, well, looks like we're gonna lose. So they kind of almost freeze them up in that mindset. Shifts both ways. Um. And that naturally occurs in the only way you have to kind of be aware of it in order to not let that happen. Yeah. If that makes sense.

Matt 7:55

Well, it, it really takes me back to playing competitive soccer growing up. And there, there's the people, when it comes down to penalty kicks, there's always the people who really want that pressure because they love it. And then there's always those people who. Are probably some of the more skilled players on the team, but they, they almost never, they, they have to be like forced to take one. They always were like, they never said anything. They never stepped up. They never really wanted it. And I think that's really that dichotomy of the people that want the ball in that situation see it as an awesome opportunity, even if it's in a selfish way of like, oh man, get all the glory. But they still see it as an opportunity, whereas the, the threat mindset there is, oh, I, I could have this glory, but if I miss. Then the consequences is this. And I think that's really the dichotomy kind of at every level of this is when you see the opportunity, you're really focusing on the positive outcome. And when you have the threat mindset, you're really focusing on the negative outcome if you fail.

Chris 8:58

Yeah, a hundred percent. The the cool, the coolest statistic, this is one of my favorite statistics, just period, and it's. Illustrate, and I'm glad you brought up penalty kicks'cause it's 30 years. This guy studied every penalty shootout for 30 years, like at every level. And so it was a massive sample size. And when it got down to the final kick, so basically you either had a, a penalty kick to win the mm-hmm. To win. Or the flip side of you had to make the, the kick in order to keep your team alive. Mm-hmm. Right. So basically miss and you lose. If you had the penalty kick to win, you made it. I'm not gonna get exactly, but it was right around like 89% of the time. It was like a very good percentage because you're viewing that as I can be the hero and if you miss the, it's just a tide. You, it goes back to being tied. So you don't, you're not actually the one that loses the, so there's kind of almost a risk-free feeling to it, but also the chance to be the hero. So put you in that opportunity mindset if you are the one where, if you miss, it's the last kick of the game. That percentage drops to 67%. It's about a 22 to 23% difference over a massive, with the only change. Like that's a pretty, um, controlled experiment with the only variable being kind of how you perceive that kick. And it's a massive difference like that is beyond statistically significant. Um, and I think that shows the power of those two mindsets and which one you're in.

Matt 10:32

Which one were you? More naturally? I feel like my personality, having anyone that knows me, knows I have very little shame. That emotion doesn't really register in my brain very well. But I think a pro to that was when I got into higher levels of sports and more competitive levels. There was very rarely fear. Um, and so a lot of times I think I naturally was. Almost always more than an opportunity mindset, no matter what the level was or what the consequences were. I rarely, rarely thought about the negative consequence of failure. Um, so I think I do wonder if some people naturally, especially people that are successful, naturally kind of gravitate towards that mindset. Or if it's just some people are so skilled they. The, the more natural default mindset is threat. I, I'd imagine the default mindset is threat mindset.

Chris 11:26

Yeah. The, the overwhelming default, the natural instinct is to go to threat because of the survival instincts of not letting people down and et cetera, et cetera. So it is ra, but it is out there. There are definitely people who have that. It's almost like having a screw loose is kind of a good thing in these situations because you don't really even think about the negative outcome, right? Like you actually kind of want those guys, but as a normal person, you can certainly work on it and. And you asked what was my natural, it was kind of dependent on the situation in the context. So like for example, in basketball, I very rarely remember ever being in the threat. Like every time I shot it was to make it, and I loved, you know, pressure shots and late moments in was able to hit a few kind of like, you know, things that, memories of clutch shots and things like that over my career. In golf, there was definitely a mixed bag. Like there is, like, for example, in putting, because I was putting was my best skill. I always felt like I was more in the opportunity mindset as my default. But man, there was definitely some tee shots I stood over where I was not seeing the opportunity in it. And it certainly affected me. Um, and you know, when I, like if I just wasn't hitting the ball well, like you just, all you start to see is the, the, the trouble out there and you don't even look at the flag and. And, and so it's definitely, I've definitely experienced both. Most people have. Um, but but also like when it was close, like if I was ever in a close golf tournament, I loved the thrill of like the final couple holes and shots like that. I always used that opportunity, but there was, yeah, definitely some rounds going into it where you're like not feeling good today and you just, you you see danger more so than birdies.

Matt 13:13

Yeah. This is kind of a fun contrast though, because in a different episode when we were talking about having the right arousal level or confidence of, there's probably a sweet spot of if, if you're too opportunistic, you, you're laissez-faire a little bit and you almost assume success. So you're, you're not necessarily at the correct level of arousal to, to have the success that you're maybe looking for.

Chris 13:43

Can I give an example of that? Yeah, would be curious. So like the, the classic one to me of that is like the heat check in basketball where it's like a guy might have the proper mindset where it's like he, you know, hits a couple threes, but it's off of good possessions. And then because he hit two threes in a row, he, he all of a sudden thinks I can do, like I'm, I'm Superman and can make it from anywhere on the corner and they take some garbage, 35 footer. And it's like, that wasn't what made you made two open corner threes. Mm-hmm. Like you, you didn't make a 35 footer follow away. And then they, you know, they kind of, the confidence grows too much. There's too, there's almost too much of an opportunity. Right. And there's no. Like you said, consciousness of like, this probably isn't the best shot. And so yes. Like maybe a hint of just discipline is, is good, right? You don't want, we all know those guys that you, you know, either play pickup basketball with or they've never seen a bad shot, uh, or a shot they didn't like. Like there is definitely, I don't know if to be threatened is the right word, but just kind of an understanding of like. What is a good opportunity? Right. Versus you know, just anything as an opportunity.

Matt 14:57

Yeah. So you work in two sports that are super, they can have moments of loneliness where you, it is just you and the moment and the outcome. Talk to us a little bit about what counseling a tennis player and big moments about. Serving or returning or just those big points in a match? What, what's the normal mindset? You hear the normal fears, and then how do you kind of try to re reframe those for them?

Chris 15:28

Yeah. The most, the most common two areas I would look is, is one perception, like how are they perceiving it, which we touched on, but the other is the, the type of goal that they have for that particular moment. So. The, the worst type of goal you can have in really anything is a outcome oriented, result oriented goal. And a lot of times when people are playing really well and then all of a sudden they just like, they get close to winning. Like this happens all the time in tennis where someone will. Get up like five, two in a set and then lose the set seven, five, or something like that. And it's because they're, they're playing free and they're playing with the right type of goal, which is like to just have smart targets and hit with committed shots and focusing on kind of process oriented things like footwork and, um, you know, strategy. And then all of a sudden they get up five two and their mind goes to, oh, if I just win this game, okay, win this point. It goes to all of the, like winning the result. Type of goals, or it can even, the worst is when they have like the threat result of like, I don't want to, don't lose this point. Right? That's like the double whammy. Um, but that goal shifts a lot of times in mid match and even in those very, uh, it can happen very, very quickly. Um, and so that's extremely common. I, again, I think it happened like in golf would be another example of like, as soon as the, as soon as a player gets the lead. Their mind goes to winning as opposed to what got them the lead and staying focused on those types of things. And so their, their type of goal goes from usually some type of healthy, you know, kind of controlling what they can control and process around all those cliche things. But they're true into, uh, how do I need to win this now? And, and that's the whole, that shifts your whole system. Like there's literally science behind that where your psychology shifts and the. Chemical reactions and, you know, everything shifts, so you have a completely different physical experience because of the, that.

Matt 17:42

There was a very confusing study that Chris and I were texting about this week, and it kind of was touching on the neuroscience of, of what you were just talking about, but the, the short version is essentially when you have an opportunistic mindset that removes a lot of the internal feedback in your brain. If that goes on when you're trying to learn a skill or when you're trying to improve a skill, and it allows just the natural skill to kind of operate on its own, meaning there's not a lot of conscious thought about it, there's not a lot of feedback about it. You just kind of do what you know how to do without having your brain kind of providing too much input into that situation. And when people started to think too much about. These threatening things. It actually caused the brain to go into overdrive in terms of how much feedback it was giving and that, and that immediately caused people to have difficulty performing the task. And it also causes confusion. I think the best example I, I can't even think of in re like years was that Ilia? Malin and,

Chris 18:52

yeah.

Matt 18:53

Figure skating. I, yeah, you could see it was

Chris 18:55

at the Olympics. Yeah.

Matt 18:56

It was like you could see his brain. Doing this of, I have an automatic process that does this. As long as I get my skate here at this time, my body will do this 99 outta a hundred times. And when he missed the first one, it was like, you could see him thinking as he was skating. It was one of the most fascinating programs I have ever watched. And you could see him processing like, I'm going to lose. Of this and freaking out more and more as the program went on.

Chris 19:26

Yeah, it was, it, it was true. I've, I've used this with some of my athletes as like an example of, um, and, and I, I'll talk about why I think that happened in a second, but like, it's a hundred percent what? Like the, he got threatened. Buy something. And that's all, that's more of my job is like, I always try, so that stuff's cool of like the neuroscience of what's happening, but what I focus more on is like, why is that occurring?

Matt 19:57

Mm-hmm.

Chris 19:58

More so than what is occurring. Um, and my interpretation of, of IA Melanins, uh, you know, unfortunate collapse basically was. He had a overwhelming, in my opinion, from, from what I understand, and obviously I'm making a lot of assumptions here, he had an overwhelming identity, like performance-based identity in, in figure skating and being the number one figure skater and the quad God, and both of his parents are professional figure skaters and everyone expected him to win. It's like he had this avalanche of things that were. His, his self-identity and his self-worth were really tied in with his performance. And when that happens, your brain kind of freaks out because it, it's like, well, what if I don't? Then who, you know, it's kind of like, who am I? And his whole world was kind of under threat if he didn't perform very, very, very well. And so that kind of sent, that sent his brain into that. That cycle that you just talked about. I just, um, just for simplicity's sake, I just call it fight or flight because that's essentially what is happening is your brain thinks you're in a life or death situation. And so, uh, it doesn't function very well. And, um, there's a lot of different ways that we can be sent into fight or flight mode. Survival mode, threat mode. Again, there's all the same, talking about the same thing here. Um, but one of'em is having a performance based identity in, in that task, which is something that I had, which is what for some of my, um, issues that I experienced in, in, especially in high school, was just too much, too much value of my life was coming from performance, especially in athletics. And so. You know, it's kinda like when you are one you can, or a, like a recovering whatever, you can kind of spot it and I'm like. That definitely tracks. Uh, and, and he talked about it in his quote. He said, um, right before I got out there, I, all of the negative, I had all negative thoughts and all of the traumatic experiences I've had in my life popped into my head right as he got out there. I'm like, that, that doesn't tell you that, you know, your, your fight or flight Yes. Is going off then I don't know what does.

Matt 22:21

Well that's, it's funny how much the, what you're saying, you, you care about the. The

Chris 22:27

the why, I wanna know why it's happening.

Matt 22:29

But the how matches perfectly where in the study he was saying the, the other parts of the brain becoming too aroused. What they cause is, and this is similar to anxiety, we talked about this, the rumination aspect of anxiety, the hyperactivity of the other aspects of the brain because they're under threat or fight or flight, causes them to obsessively play out the scenario. At hyper speed in your brain before you even do it. So these people were basically doing all these mental models of the thing before it happened. It's like, how are you supposed to freely operate when your brain is playing out all these different situations or how it could be or what you should do. There's, you're not possibly gonna perform at a high level when you're, you have that much mental load. When we talk about being in the zone, that's the, the opposite of being in the zone or playing free.

Chris 23:16

Well, it's definitely in the zone or definitely the opposite. And what, you know, the, the, the person who I think doesn't understand the, the depths of psychology in that, and this isn't like a knock on people who aren't psychologists, but it's like, oh, well just, that's future thinking. Like, just stay in the present. But it's like, yes, but you, you can't get there unless like there is a deeper reason why that is occurring.

Matt 23:43

Yeah.

Chris 23:43

Um. And that has to be straightened out first in order to kind of actually truly get over that. You can kind of maybe bandaid it with a few small interventions for a few moments, which maybe would've been helpful, but at the end of the day, like he was so threatened by that situation. Clearly. Um, that he has to do that type of, that type of work. Like that would be my thought for him is like, he's got to learn to not over identify with, with skating for the next time he goes out there or else. And, and what's, here's the funniest part is the next week or next couple days, like Alyssa Lou who won the gold for the women comes out and is like, yeah, I, I don't really like care that much about results. I'm just kind of coming out here to like. For fun and artistic expression and like, I just love doing it now, uh, and, and goes out and like just performs with such joy and wins gold and it's like, it's almo. It's just so we, we've almost never had a better example of sports, of like contrasting someone with such an identity in their sport to someone who has really. Gotten that identity into a very healthy place.

Matt 24:56

Yeah.

Chris 24:57

Um, and how much freedom and joy she was able to perform with, which obviously enhanced the performance versus ilya's uh, experience.

Matt 25:07

I have a couple of thoughts. One is, it's funny that that is the reality because we idolize the people who are obsessive about their identity and their sport. I, I would say until 10 years ago, every single person in our era of growing up that was like the people that everyone wanted to be or pretended they were in the driveway were those people that were obsessed with their sport. Kobe Bryant is the name that comes to mind. Tiger Woods. Right? It's like those don't get me

Chris 25:38

started on the mama modality.

Matt 25:40

Like it's just, but it's, it's funny because that is the, the thing that gets the worship in, in the culture though. I think the second thing is. And, and this also goes back into practical application, some in the anxiety episode, but there's kind of two approaches you can take with this situation, which is you can either be extremely fearful that your mind's gonna revert to that right when you need to perform. Or you can have an acceptance that it may go there and you can actually prepare for your mind to go there. The analogy that I saw was, it's kind of like when a pilot flies into fog and then all of a sudden their, their dashboard's super foggy, so they have to fly by instruments. Well, it only freaks you out if you've never practiced flying with your instruments. Right, right. So there's an element of preparation where you can say, yeah, I'm gonna have an acceptance that these thoughts, probably because it's a really high pressure situation, might come into my head and just be like, cool. That means we say this all the time in in road running or whatever. But. I'm having these thoughts that this is a high pressure situation or an important situation. That means it's a really cool opportunity, right? You, you don't take that thought and catastrophize. You take that thought and say, wow, this is an indicator that I'm about to do something. That's really cool. I think the Chris told me I had five minutes to talk about this, so I'm meant talk about it now. There's, uh, one of the best bike races of the year was this past week in Milan, San Ramo. If you're not a bike fan. Just go look up the highlights. Todd Pcha best bike race in the world. He, uh, I thought of this as, as this was happening this weekend, he has, this is probably the race that is the hardest for him to win because of some different factors, his weight to the people he's going against, yada yada. He crashes right before the most important part of the race with 30 kilometers left. He is like, everyone's like he's done, like he's not gonna come back. He not only gets up, rides back to the main group and then attacks on the climb. Um, and he ultimately ends up winning. And I just was thinking the whole time of like, man, I, because in his mind that race means so much. He spent the whole year preparing. He's been reconning these climbs. Like that race is so important to him. I was like, I really wonder if he has mentally gone through this. Like, if something bad happens right here. I still have a plan of like how I'm gonna execute this race because most people, when that happens, would freak out because they crash and your bike's on the ground, you have to get your chain back. It's like there's all these things that have to go on and he was so like calm, like he had mentally rehearsed. If something bad happens in this race, at the key point I'm like, I'm gonna be okay and I have a plan of how I'm going to execute the way I need to. And I, I think that's such a great. Picture of what we want to do in these situations of it's okay to actually visualize and think about some of the things that may happen. So you don't freak out. You don't want the first time a bad thought comes into your head before a performance to be when you're stepping into that performance.

Chris 28:42

Yes. So, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of good things in there. So my first thought as far as like, do you, should you be prepared for, for poor negative thoughts coming in? Absolutely. Should you be prepared for those types of situations? Absolutely. I, I think of Efan Hassan at the Olympics, the last summer Olympics, I believe it was maybe two ago, similar crash, and then afterward it comes back and wins. I think it's like the 3000 meter and says, I, I was prepared for that. Like I had visualized that situation just in case and. Like, so yes, that, um, that is definitely something elite people do and, and we should do like. Uh, a layman's version of is like when I give a talk to a team and I'm using technology, like Right. I'm prepared for the technology in case it doesn't work. Yes. Like, versus what happened one of the times, the first times they did it, you know, as an inexperienced person, my technology was working, I freaked out. Right. And it's like, now I'm prepared for that. Um, so there's a little bit of that. It's just experience, but Absolutely. Um, now with that said, I think there's a difference between. A few negative thoughts coming in of like you crash and you know, obviously there's gonna be some, probably negativity that comes in unwittingly and there, there's a difference between that though. And like what I Malin and experience, I think that's like the full, that's the brain shut down. Mm-hmm. Like I don't even know if you can have acceptance in that moment because you're so. You're literally shut down. Like your prefrontal cortex is completely shut down, your amygdala has completely taken over, and it, and your body feels completely. So it's like you actually have to learn. And there are ways to actually get out of that and, and turn, you know, shut down that brain signal. But, um, I feel like there is a difference between a few normal, you know, negative experiences and thoughts, and then the, the like. True. Just collapse. Mm-hmm. Where people are like, so they'd have no idea what's even going on. Um, so I would just differentiate those two a little bit.

Matt 30:57

Yeah. I think that's, that's very true. And there's the difference in the performer sports, individual performance sports, team sports. There's, there's definitely some psychological differences in terms of. The amount of time. I think one thing about golf is you have to walk to your ball each shot, right? So it's so different than so many other sports where it's a constant going

Chris 31:21

there. There's no more, there's not a bigger like. Middle finger than having the like, like a, an an analogous middle finger, obviously of like hitting it offline into the woods and then like having to look for your ball as a constant reminder that you hit it over here for the next five minutes and it, it's, can't think of another sport like, um, but I, I did wanna just go through a, a couple just to kind of give a, again, a broad overview. I'm not gonna go in depth into all these, but. I've summarized what can cause this fight or flight or, or choking response, if you will, into kind of like eight reason, eight main reasons. There's probably some other ones, but like eight main reasons that I have seen, and the first one I talked about, which is your identity, kind of performance based identity. The second one is worrying way too much about your social reputation. So the difference between identity is how you view yourself and social reputations, how others view you. You're way too concerned about that. Uh, I talked about your type of goal, so like your result, if you're focused on results that can, that can cause it your perception. We talked about the PK study and things like that. Uh, one that, uh, I find interesting is actually being connected to your purpose and to why you're doing that thing. Uh, can, if, if you lose sight of your purpose and, and your why, I feel like that can actually cause some, uh, potential fight or flight response if you're really just, your motivation is completely outta whack. Uh, things a simple one that is like controlling what you can control versus focusing on uncontrollables. Uh, you talked about. The seventh one is expectations. Your expectations just being off or too high. Um, I actually talk about them a lot of times, being too narrow, meaning you're, you're looking for this one specific thing to happen, and if it doesn't, you're gonna be frustrated. Versus a mature competitor understands there's a lot of different outcomes that can happen. And then the last one, just being your own ego or pride. Uh, you know, just, just not being able to think outside of yourself or be happy for anyone else. And. Uh, all that matters is your performance. And you, you know, just get pissed off at everyone, at anything that goes against that. And so I, I feel like any of those being a little bit off can kind of set this alarm system off, which I joke is like, why the mental game is so hard. Because to me, even if just one of those is, is off, uh, this will probably be set off. Um. And so it's really difficult to get it all aligned all at the same time. Um, which is why it's pretty common to, which is why we marvel at people that can handle pressure. Mm-hmm. Because it's, it's rare and it's hard to do.

Matt 34:23

Yeah. Those are good. I feel like that's a, a really nice way to kind of wrap it up is just with the, all these different examples and, and kind of eight categories that you can think through for yourself to say, okay, how. How do I do in this category? How do I do in this category or what, which one of these am I being most prone to struggling? It was funny as you were saying those, I was thinking how context dependent those are. So for a team sport and you think about how that, that plays out in a team sport or an individual sport like tennis or golf or running or more in an endurance sport. I was thinking especially about the, the perception one of, there are so many moments in races, especially as you get better where. You, you become so in tune with how hard something should feel and so when, how hard it feels doesn't match what the numbers you're seeing are. How easy it is to get freaked out, and how easy it is to become attached to, uh, these limits that are kind of self-imposed. Because you've seen the numbers match to the different thresholds or the different limits of your physiology and how easy it is to let perception kind of guide your performance rather than. Letting what your body can do that day and the competition and just kind of what is going on guide how you perform. Um, so I was thinking about that one. We talked a lot about that in the Boston episode of how in that race it was like, my perception of what was gonna happen was I was in really good shape and then immediately it felt hard. So much harder than it should have. Now, whether I was sick or not, who knows, but. It was like there was immediate expectation, perception, reality, mismatch, and mentally it was just like,

Chris 36:10

yeah, it,

Matt 36:11

it was impo. I just was like, this is, how am I gonna do it? It immediately what happened was thinking, instead of thinking, wow, this feels really hard right now. It was like, how am I possibly gonna do this for two hours and 35 minutes or 26 miles? It's like that's so far away that it is hard to break that down. So I actually. After that race, worked on some of that and do a lot of, um, what's the right word for it? We break things into pieces. I basically will break,

Chris 36:41

I know what you're talking

Matt 36:41

about. Yeah. I'll basically break

Chris 36:43

long

Matt 36:43

things, like five minute

Chris 36:44

segments or whatever.

Matt 36:45

I'll break things into different parts. So to me, a marathon now is zero to 13 miles. That's kind of just like be asleep 13 to 18 or 13 to 20, depending on the course is kind of. Okay, like we're in it now. And then 2020, that's like earning the right to finish. And then 20 through 26 is enjoying like the, that you've basically earned the right to, to finish a race hard. And so doing that really helps because you're, I'm like, I'm running three races. I never think further ahead than whatever the end of that specific part of the races. And I think that's been super helpful in the last couple races.'cause I would get, so I'd be like, oh, mile one, it's like 25, but. Now I'm just like, oh, I just have to make it to 12 or 13. And there's usually something there, whether it's like person that has traveled with me or uh, I do stupid stuff like, oh, I'm gonna take my favorite gel at this mile. Or you break it up by gel. Yeah, a lot of times. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, mile 4, 8, 13, I take a gel. They're really good. Something I really enjoy, you know? So you really never think more ahead than whatever that segment is. So you're like, oh, I have four miles to go. I have four miles to go.

Chris 37:55

It's a fun game. It's actually something I've been doing as I've kind of categorized this for myself. I've actually been doing it on myself. And, and maybe you can kind of go along with this. I'm gonna, I, I wanna just do an finish with like an example, like a real world example of like, what this, how I do this to myself and also would do this with someone is like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use my stupid example of playing goalkeeper in my men's league. Mm. Yes. Uh, really high level Division three soccer in, in the Charleston Mens League, but the point still stands because I care about it. And so it's like, this can be anything that you care about that's performance related. Like it doesn't have to be high level. So it's like, check in with my identity. Well. My identity isn't, that obviously isn't like super into being a goalkeeper, but it is being into, I do view myself as a good athlete. So like that part for me is something I have to not over identify with because that is, was a struggle for me as a kid. And so it's like I at least want to, you know, not like I don't, so I have to keep that in check. Um, personally, so I, you know, I check in with my identity and my over-identifying with. Just athleticism in general versus, and if I am, then again, I can be threatened by that. Like Ilya Mallin was, um, social, social reputation or, or just kind of social, the social part of soccer of like, as a goalkeeper you make an error, you let your team down and that can be like. That's the threat. Mm-hmm. And so versus being comfortable with everyone out there makes mistakes, many, many mistakes, especially in a low level men's league. So it's like, I need to allow myself to make a mistake. And other people should allow that as well. And they do like, so, you know, that's thinking more like that. Uh, what is my type of goal? The, the, the obvious goal as a goalkeeper is like a clean sheet. Well. I don't have control, I don't have control over that. Like they could get three penalty kicks and have tap ins across the net with no defense. Like my type of goal is every opportunity I have to make it safe. I'm gonna make the best, I'm gonna put myself as, you know, as best position out I can and make the best effort toward it, and that's all I can do. Right. And so kind of making it more of a, um, an own personal definition of, of success type of goal. Perception. This one's kind of interesting as a keeper. I, I think similar to like kickers in, in football, we almost want your team to get stopped so you can have a, a chance to kick it. Like, as a keeper, I feel like you almost should want your defense to break down a little bit so that some shots come in on you so you have chances to make saves. Um, obviously you don't want that from like a team perspective, but just kind of thinking that way I think is helpful to be like, all right, I, I actually want them to get. Chances on me, so I, I can impact the game. Um, so thinking of that opportunity, perception, purpose, just connecting with why I'm out there. I'm out there because it's, it's social, it's fun. It's something physical and athletic that I get to do and work on, be outside, like there's a lot of purposes for it. Um, and, and have, you know, do something competitive. So just reminding myself of that, uh, controllables, kind of similar to the type of goal like. What can I control? There's a lot you can't control as a goalkeeper and just understanding that, but, but also, you know, focusing on the things that you can, um, expectations. Uh. Having proper expectations. I, I go out there once a week on a Sunday and I, you know, I haven't really had formal goalkeeper training, so I shouldn't expect myself to be perfect. Um, you know, just, just managing the expectations, setting them proper understanding. I might do some good things. I might do some bad things, and that's okay. And not, not let either of those, you know, get me too high or too low. And then, um, you know, eager pride. This one's not really a huge thing, but just not making it about yourself and, and again, just kind of connecting with. Your purpose and you're not, uh, you know, the most important thing is important. So kind of just, it's a good check thing to be able to check in with. And if you are feeling a ton of pressure or feeling you're like, you're in the threat, if you go through that, you actually should be able to kind of be like, Hmm, that's the one, uh, you know, I'm, I'm thinking too much about results or my perceptions off like you were talking about, or Hmm, I, I, you know, if it's like something job related, like my identity might be too much in this. Um, so there's, it is just a, it's a great way to kind of check in and, and have an idea of where that threat's coming from.

Matt 42:35

That's good. That's good. Well, I hope this has been a helpful episode for you guys both on just a kind of interest level of thinking about these, these topics from a high performance side of things, but also from a practical level of thinking about how can I take some of these. Ideas, apply them to everyday situations, which is really our goal with this podcast. So hopefully that's been helpful in this way. And we thank you guys again for tuning in. And if you enjoyed some of this, you might wanna check out some of those older episodes where we dive into some of those specific topics. If you haven't done that or you're newer to the podcast. But appreciate you listening and we'll see you next time. Thanks. Bye.