16 Week Face of America Training Plan & Guide | Page 10
following selected key components are some
suggested steps to reducing and managing anxiety
levels:
[For Coaches] Establish viable two-way
communications with all of your athletes. If you
haven’t taken the time to sit down one-on-one
with each athlete, you need to make that time
investment – as it will pay big dividends
throughout the season. In addition, it lets each
individual athlete know up front that you care
about them, want them to be successful, and
immediately improves athlete-coach and coachathlete rapport, trust, and communications. For
athletes who have a coach (and reside in the same
area), it is important to establish these
communications sharing sessions. If your coach
cannot find time to accommodate you – at least
initially and from time to time, then that’s
certainly an indicator to look for a new coach.
Establish challenging, realistic, and quantifiable
performance goals – ranging from daily shortterm, intermediate weekly – monthly goals, to
long-term goals that may encompass the entire
season or perhaps even years down the road. By
setting a goal that is unrealistic, the likely results
are that the athlete won’t “buy in,” anxiety will
increase, motivation will decline, performance
won’t be as optimal, and the athlete may even
decide to quit.
As an athlete, identify what upsets you, what
issues or concerns you may be dealing with, and
think through to the root cause. By empowering
yourself with what the root cause of the anxiety is,
you can establish a strategy (i.e., techniques,
personal choices, professional assistance) to
alleviate it as best possible. Imagery is often very
effective in mitigating root causes of anxiety. By
visualizing successful handling of what were
previously anxious situations, you can facilitate
feeling more relaxed, and therefore perform
better in the future.
Incorporate Negative Thought Stopping, which I
call turning a negative into a positive – into your
repertoire. For example, instead of “man, am I
nervous!” to “wow, I can feel the adrenaline, I’m
10
ready!” Negative thoughts only perpetuate a
negative downward spiral of psychological and
physical performance. By staying positive, sub-par
performances are treated as learning points, and
can be more uplifting to the psyche – with focus
on future performances.
Teach/remind yourself that you are in control of
your emotions, and not to worry or focus
needlessly about aspects (e.g., weather, who
shows up to race) which are out of your control.
Remind yourself that every day is a learning
experience, and “each training day and race I learn
more about myself and improve.” By learning to
look at everything in this way, and making it a
continual learning process, you’ll be less anxious,
more excited, and feel a growing empowerment as
time goes on.
Breathing (Breath Control Training)
Often called relaxation response or relaxation
breathing, which was developed by Dr. Herbert
Benson of Harvard Medical School in 1975, although
several cultures claim to have been using breathing to
relax the mind and body for nu Y\