Embracing Negative Thinking

How to live and deal with negative thinking as an athlete - by Daniel Ferguson

There was a man who was fed up with the rain and just wanted to get away from it. Being from England where it rains a lot, he thought he'd go to Italy. He was very happy on his way, "finally, there'll be no more rain." However, when he landed, it was raining.

"God sake," the man said, "I'm going to Egypt." He's on the plane to Egypt, whistling and singing away to himself, "no more rain, no more pain, I'll have sun, no more rain."

All goes well in Egypt, until he's on his way to visit the pyramids and it starts raining. So he goes to Spain. It rains. Then Germany. It rains. "Surely it won't rain in Kenya," the man said: it rained.

The man in the rain

Now imagine the rain in this short story is our negative thoughts, the truth is you can't run away from them, as hard as that sounds. It's about learning to embrace them and co-exist with them: accept them.

Negative thinking is also contagious so even if you can get away from it in your own mind, being around other people thinking negatively still has an effect.

Negative thinking as an athlete

Let's say you're a runner who has a cross country one day and you wake up thinking, "I'm not good enough to do this today" or a boxer who thinks, "my opponent is going to beat me, he looks so much better than me." Whatever sport, whatever event, negative thinking can consume your mind and here are some consequences of thinking this way:

reduced confidence
lack of concentration and focus
tense feelings
increased anxiety and stress

Why do we think negatively?

Naturally, through our ancestors we are built to think negatively. Imagine being an animal in the wild or a cavemen/woman and you hear a rustle in the bushes, you would assume it's a lion or a predator coming after you before thinking it was just a squirrel running around. Why? Because it was life or death. So now, even with comfortable lives, we are drawn to think this way. Here are some reasons and forms of negative thinking:

Jumping to conclusions: making assumptions about what others are thinking or how an event will turn out ("I'm not going to play well today")
Catastrophizing: always thinking the worst of a situation ("we're going to lose my so many goals today")
Unfamiliar environments: competing in new venues can cause negative thinking as you aren't comfortable in that environment, which can also be the same when having a lack of experience in something (perhaps, a certain skill in your sport)
Generalization: thinking other experiences will be negative after having a similar negative experience in something: assuming it will always be negative and never change ("we always lose against this team, so we will lose again")

How can you deal with negative thinking?

Journalling and reflecting: journal how training sessions go and ask yourself questions to reflect such as, What went well? How did that feel? What can I improve on? Being kind to yourself and working on your negative thoughts rather than fighting them,
Mindfulness: take some time to breathe and sit with your thoughts, rather than avoiding them, studies reveal mindfulness relieves both worry and stress. In a busy world, especially as an athlete, we never sit with our thoughts, so take the time too and understand you aren't in control of them, but you can control how you react to them.
Smile and ask why? Ask yourself why am I feeling this way, then you can label thoughts as being negative and work on reframing them into something more positive. Also, simply smiling and embracing these thoughts and not taking them seriously can ease some tension.

I hope you enjoyed this blog and understand you can't control what negative thoughts come into your mind otherwise we would always be thinking positively, but you can control how you react as a person and an athlete. Take care and look after yourself.