There Is a Cure for Choking And Loss of Momentum
Is there a cure for this disease?"
Choking and loss of momentum are seen on a daily basis in every sport. Errors and mistakes are inevitable and part of amateur and professional sports.
Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune humorously wrote about choking by one of baseball's super stars, Soriano:
Earth to Alfonso Soriano, come in please. Earth to Soriano … Earth to Soriano … report in, please.
About the only thing that didn’t happen to the Cubs over the weekend at PNC Park was an alien abduction, and the persistent misadventures of Soriano left you wondering if the sun was the only thing in his eyes.
Carrie Muskat of MLD.com once again pointed out the Chicago Cubs propensity for loss of momentum. They have now failed to win their last seven away game series.
Let me emphasize:
Errors and mistakes do not cause choking and loss of momentum.
How we think about errors and mistakes cause choking and loss of momentum!
The cure for choking and loss of momentum is more than changing our thinking. Making successful affirmations is not enough. Affirmations and visualizations of affirmations can improve performance, but will not stop choking and loss of momentum.
Mental fitness training and coaching, specifically, to overcome choking and prevent loss of momentum is the cure.
Amateur and professional players spend hours of time perfecting their physical skills, but very little time becoming mentally fit to cope with the frustrations, disappointments and prressures of their sport.
If you want to elevate your overall performance and success, mental fitness training is for you. You do not have to settle for falling short of your goals.
You can stop choking. You can find a way to keep yourr momentum following an error.
Remember, You Live within the Environment Created by Your Choices!
Dr. Hal
Life and Mental Fitness Coach
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Comments
Steve,
Thank you for your comments and feedback. After reading your comments, I realized the need to further clarify what needed to be said about mental fitness and choking.
I think we both agree on your point that athletes always will have choking incidents; no matter how well trained they are. To completely eliminate choking is an unrealistic goal. It is a devastating expectation when people think that they can get to the point that they will never choke.
Mental fitness training can cure choking only from the perspective of reducing the intensity and duration of choking incidents.
Mental fitness training will not make choking dissappear so you will have no future choking incidents. However, mental fitness training can reduce the frequency of future incidents of choking and also helps the athlete to manage choking more effectively and with less damage to their performing.
In closing, I would like to make a comparison with the use of medicines. Medicines cure us by reducing symptoms and shortening the duration of the illness, but they do not prevent future occurrences of the same illness. When the illness returns, we once again use the mediciene only to reduce symptoms and the duration of the illness.
Mental fitness works like taking medicine. It reduces the severity of the choking experience and shortens the duration of the choking experience.
Dr. Hal,
I’ll have to respectfully disagree on this one. Choking can be minimized though mental toughness/fitness training, but it will never be eliminated in an athlete that really wants to win. It’s not a matter of if an athlete will choke, but when. Show me an athlete who never chokes and I’ll show you an athlete that doesn’t want to win badly enough. I’ve seen this as a professional athlete myself, and in the million dollar athletes I’ve coached. The great ones want to win so badly they sometimes become emotionally overwhelmed to the point of choking. Mental Toughness/fitness training is the best way to minimize these events, but it will never be a cure. (in my opinion)