The Importance of Self Talk

Hello Schroeder Families!

The other day Coach Chandler shared a wonderful video about the idea of self talk, and more importantly, how both positive and negative versions affect your brain differently. HERE is the quick video (hopefully the link works). 

So last night we discussed this idea as a group and how we can use this in learning moments. 

The scenario was, let's say you are trying out some archery. 

The first case, you see the target and don’t even attempt a shot. 

The second case, you shoot twice. One barely hits the target and the other hits the ground. 

The last case, you fail repeatedly, keep getting closer, finally hit a bullseye and you are ready to take the next shot. 

In the first two cases, we asked the athletes about some of the things they would be saying to themselves, there were ideas like: “I’m not very good at it”, “I’ve never done it before”, “I missed twice, don’t want to keep missing”, etc, etc.

We used the ideas discussed in the video and flipped it to: How would you talk to your friend/sibling if you saw them shooting arrows in the first two cases? How would your parents talk to you? 

And the answers immediately flipped to what you can see on the board. They were all encouraging and positive messages. 

So, if we would talk to our friends that way, why wouldn’t we talk to ourselves that way?

Why beat ourselves down, when we can lift ourselves up?

We challenged the group to find moments during a difficult practice where they caught themselves talking down about themself and tried to flip it like they would be talking to a friend. 

After it finished and we asked the group, several athletes raised their hands and said it helped them get through what was a really challenging practice. 

I just wanted to share with you all so if/when you hear your athletes talking down about themselves, you can use this idea and flip it on them as well! 

We are Schroeder!