personality and sport

"Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin."

- Ivan Pavlov

Let’s think about our lives for a few moments in simple facts. For example: Where you were born, if you have traveled out of the country, and what your hobbies are. For many people knowing facts, or as Pavlov states it ‘recording’ facts, is where our intelligence is content. But what happens when we want to know the why? This is the why behind every child’s question when they are growing up. Children do not know who they want to be, who they are, or what their place is in the world and so they are constantly asking ‘why’ about everything. The ‘why’ leads us to discovering the core of our being or our psychological core which is the base of our personality. Being exercisers, If we are satisfied with simply collecting our exercise statistics (i.e. having a strict pull-up or being able to run two miles without stopping) without digging into the ‘why’ behind the facts that define us we have barely tapped into our full potential.

How do we tap into our full potential? The answer is simple: psychology. Specifically for us athletes, sports psychology. Google defines psychology as, “the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context.” Exploring, employing, and practicing this topic in our lives will not only open our potential as athletes but also as parents, students, employees, or leaders to go beyond merely recording our facts. And this is why you should listen to me:

The chart above was the result of a study that W. Morgan performed on all different types or athletes comparing the successful athletes with the unsuccessful athletes’ personality traits. It clearly shows that the athletes with the higher Profile of Mood States (POMS) measure have a more positive mental health than those with a negative mental health. This is called the iceberg profile, let’s not be the Titanic. Athletes with a strong, positive mental health are much more successful than those with a weak, negative mental health. My wish for you at the end of this series is for you to be equipped to unlock your full potential not only as an athlete but in whatever other role you choose to take on in life.

Step 1 - Down to the nitty gritty: Your Pyschological Core

Your psychological core is the base of our personality. We must understand our entire personality in order to start putting together a plan of life domination. This is the deepest component of our being and includes our values, beliefs, interests, and motives. Who you really are and who you want people to believe you are can be different so do not get confused, get real. For example: you might have a psychological core of honesty, valuing your family, and your spiritual beliefs. 

Q: What makes up your psychological core?

Step 2 - Peeling away the onion: Typical Responses

These responses are the ones that come directly from your psychological core and a response from an outer body stimulus. If you are someone that is loud and outgoing in social situations you most likely also have a psychological core of being an extrovert versus being an introvert. If someone at a party sees you being a very friendly and assumes on that ground alone that you are an extrovert, that could be a false assumption. The party might have triggered an abnormal social response from you even though you are actually introverted. This is why observing responses alone is not enough to identify one’s psychological core. 

Q: How do you react in different social situations? At the gym? With a room of strangers?

Step 3 - From the outside looking in: Role-Related Behavior

We take many different roles in our lives. For example, I take the role of daughter, sister, student, co-worker, coach, and friend. In each of these roles I perceive my social situation differently and therefore respond to and play out each of these roles differently. It is common to also have conflict in roles where they intersect and this would happen if you were a parent to an employee of yours. Here your boss and parenting roles would intersect. 

Q: What are your life roles? Which ones intersect?

Step 4 - Wrapping it all up: Mental Strategies

Now that you have discovered the three aspects of your personality: your psychological core, your typical responses, and role-related behavior, you can explore mental strategies and most importantly, a mental plan. Mental plans can be before, after, or during an event as well as having a focus on refocusing. Refocusing would come into play when something unexpected or distracting would happen and the individual would need to refocus. For an athlete this could come in the form of fans, equipment set up incorrectly, a delay in events, or an ill performance. Shown below, is a list of mental strategies used by successful athletes.

- To enhance confidence, successful athletes practice specific plans to deal with adversity during competitions.

- They practice routines to deal with unusual circumstances and distractions before and during a competition.

- They concentrate wholly on the upcoming performance, blocking out irrelevant events and thoughts. 

- They use several mental rehearsals before competition.

- They don't worrry about other competitors before a competition, focusing instead on what is controllable.

- They develop detailed competition plans.

- They learn to regulate arousal and anxiety.

One of these strategies is considered the base strategy and leaves room to build off into other strategies from its existence; this is the refocusing plan. The refocusing plan shows the importance of building personality as well as constantly evaluating mental strategy. From building a mental plan like this, you can measure and maximize your personal growth through structuring your response to your training environment in meeting any situations it presents. 

Q: What is the event you would like to make a mental plan for? What are different situations you would face in that event?

Step 5 - Putting the bow on top: Constructing Your Mental Plan

Starting with a blank sheet of paper, label the top of your page with whatever you desire to be mentally prepared for. As athletes, this could be ‘The WOD’, ‘1RM Testing’, or ‘Competition’. From there, divide your page in half and label the left column ‘Situation’ and the right column ‘Strategy’. To start off your ‘Situation’ column, fill in different situations that could happen during your event. After that, write in your ‘Strategy’ column your mental strategy for whenever you face your particular ‘Situation’ in your specific event. Below I have provided you with an example Mental Plan made by an Olympic alpine skier for their particular sporting event to help guide your mental plan. 

SITUATION: Hassles and distractions, STRATEGY: Use adrenaline and anger as positives instead of letting them bring me down, Let coaches or other personnel rectify the problem.

SITUATION: Delay in start, STRATEGY: Relax, think of anything and everything that makes me happy. 

SITUATION: Loss of ideal focus in race run, STRATEGY: Think of the course in "sections" and deal with a mistake as a mistake in the previous "section;" when entering the "new section," a refocusing occurs. Think of and deal with the remainder of the course as previously rehearsed.

SITUATION: Mistake in race run, STRATEGY: Deal with the mistake as I would a loss of focus. Go for the future, not the past. 

SITUATION: Poor performance -- First run, STRATEGY: Think of the second run with a "nothing-to-lose" attitude.

SITUATION: Poor performance -- Final run, STATEGY: Determine what went wrong and why. Learn from the mistake, train, and see the mistake dissolve mentally and physically. Make the poor performance a challenge to defeat. 

I hope you have found you personality analysis and mental planning effective for your adventure into sports psychology! If you have any questions about the material or putting together your plan, let me know and I would love to assist you (eloise@windycitycrossfit.com). Stay tuned for a coming post on motivation and how you can add it to your mental toolbox.

Listed texts taken from: "The Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology" by Robert Weinberg.