MindYourWicket

Optimism: a constant in a successful athlete’s life. Staying positive is essential, nay, crucial to the making of a Champion. It is easy to stay positive when things go your way. But staying positive even when everything goes wrong in your game is what sets aside a Champion from the others. Ask any successful athlete, and they’ll tell you the importance of staying positive and always believing something wonderful is about to happen.

But it is not easy to think positive all the time. It seems even foolish at times to be optimistic about the future, especially when it looks bleak and dire. Our minds refuse to look at the glass as half-full and instead embark upon a pessimistic and anxious spiral. Many times, the same pattern is copied and pasted, though the situations and conditions may differ. But the end result is the same – feelings of worry, anxiety, restlessness, distractedness, sleeplessness, an overall mood of impending doom.

But more harmful than thinking negative thoughts is saying them out loud. Our minds are our masters. But the tongue is the mind’s biggest influencer. This is the reason the skill of self-talk is emphasized for athletes, iteration after iteration. Talking to ourselves, not only using our mental voices but also physical is instrumental in changing our minds and moods. It can take an athlete from worried to confident in a manner of minutes, if used in the right way.

While we think of radiating positivity, let’s not forget the importance of strategical analysis. When we process an athlete’s negative thoughts during my sessions, many times they turn out to be more analytical than negative. It is because of the wrong perspective that they’re taken to be negative. Infact, those very thoughts can be crucial to planning for a game. Here again, the right self-talk becomes important. Statements like, “My team’s fielding is terrible. We are going to lose for sure.” instead can become, “We might have to rethink our field-sets so that we play to our strengths and win this game.”

Positive self-talk is great but it is also very essential to say positive things while talking to others. I have seen many cricketers who think positively but speak negatively. Many times it is done as a cover for insecurity, perhaps just to ease the acceptance of failure. Sometimes it’s done very unconsciously because it has become a habit deeply ingrained in their personalities. But the outcome is more dangerous than we think. Pessimism is a dangerous toxin which spreads quick and infects all. This is the reason coaches love players who are incessantly optimistic. A coach would happily an average player whose optimism can be relied on, rather than a high-performer who spews negativity and may bring down the whole team altogether.

It is important to think positively, and it also important to say positive things, not just to yourself but also to others. Regardless of how you’re thinking inside, this helps you paint your image as a positive and strong cricketer, someone who can be depended on, someone who is practically impossible to sit-out for any match.