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Phil Jackson, the successful NBA basketball coach, emphasizes the act of resilience as the most important quality in a successful player. Resilience in an athlete is to be able to experience an inevitable set back (missed shot, opponent success, an official’s call, or even a peak success) and almost immediately refocus to the next play. They do not get caught up in self-criticism or, for that matter, self-congratulations. They stay in the flow of a game as a continually moving forward activity and respond to it naturally without self-conscious reflection. What happened before gets quickly stored as experience (not as wistful regret or worry) and what happens ahead is not the distant outcome but an immediate reaction to the circumstances that are unfolding.

Solutions to the problem: By knowing the dynamics of what is taking place to create the negative performance situation, we are thereby can offer methods to solve the problem. The following are suggestions:

1. Understand how the mind-body reaction state takes place. More importantly, realize that you can deliberately alter or control this response pattern. We call this ability self-regulation. The goal of self-regulation is to recognize that physical reactivity, which is usually a stressing or tightening experience, can be managed therefore part of the solution is to understand how physical arousal can be controlled. Most athletes have some strategies that they have utilized over the course of their experience to calm down or psych up. However, very few of these athletes have learned to do this in a very systematic manner with clear knowledge of how to implement these strategies with volition in competitive situations. This ability can be taught to nearly every person.

2. Recognize that there is a natural inclination, when something “goes wrong,” to attempt to solve that situation by what becomes a counter productive response. That response frequently utilized by many competitive athletes is to try harder. Trying harder usually means putting more pressure and demands on one’s self in order to correct the problem with effort. Paradoxically, this increases the tension or anxiety response that is the culprit in preventing one from getting back to homeostasis or natural ability. Think of the example of a rubber band. A rubber band has considerable elasticity and flexibility. If you hold the rubber band with a minimum amount of tautness between two fingers you will note that you still have flexibility on how that rubber band can be directed or used. However, if you pull the rubber band creating more tautness the tension goes up and the rubber band has less control.

That is ok if you want to snap someone hard inflicting injury, but not good for a more fine tuned response.

The skill is to not try to solve the problem by working harder, stretching tighter, and thinking more--but instead to relax more, trust instincts, and return to a more natural comfort zone of performance. Besides understanding this concept there are very specific images and instructions that a sport psychologist may use to invoke a more appropriate response with an athlete who is trying too hard. For example, to reduce “white knuckle grip” (holding the club too tightly, preventing the player from “feeling” the shot) have the player imagine the golf club grip is an egg shell which must be held with a certain looseness to prevent breaking.

3. Another solution that differs from a focus on how to control the physical response is to stop the mental response or thinking process that creates the tension. There are several strategies that can be used for stopping critical thoughts. One is the use of positive affirmations—self-statements that immediately replace inflicting ideas with affirming ideas. “I am a good foul shooter,” “I am strong, I am capable”. Another when becoming initially aware of some tension is to use focus and relax commands, “I am calm,” “I can relax”. Another is to use a personal mantra, a word that serves as a reminder to stay in the moment.