What are you telling yourself?

A colleague of mine gave a great speech recently. The subject? Whatever you put after "I am" you become. Whatever you believe will happen, will probably happen.

In short, it was about self-talk.

Self-talk seems a little crazy to some.

You want me to talk ...... to myself? Yes. But before you call for the guys in the white coats, note well: we do it all the time.

As people we are constantly talking to ourselves. It may not be out loud (that's when the dudes in the white coats appear), but we're telling ourselves all kinds of things, usually about how we view our own ability to achieve a goal, overcome an

obstacle, about our self-worth, or intelligence.

You know the old saying: garbage in, garbage out.

For athletes, players and coaches, self-talk is critical to their success. And not just any self-talk, but positive self-talk

We live in a world that leans towards the negative. Turn on the local or national news and you know what I mean. It's 90% negative, followed up by a story about a rescued cat so the newscast doesn't sound all bad.

Then there's the pressure of fitting in. Walking, talking, and dressing like everyone else, listening to the same music on the latest gadget as everyone else.

It can sometimes be hard to rise above a lot of the negative energy and peer-pressure.


2-Minute Power-Play:

There is a solution. Hint: it's fixed to your neck.

Talk to any high performance athlete and they'll tell you most of their success comes not from their physical training or natural ability but from their mental ability to stay focused, to have strong self-belief, which ensures they'll use their physical skills or gifts to the fullest.

Think Martin Brodeur
Think Roger Federer
Think Alex Ovechkin

It starts with you.
It starts with your HEAD.
It starts with what you tell yourself about YOU

5-Minute Power Play:

Tell yourself you're the greatest.

the greatest coach
the greatest player
the greatest goalie
the greatest finisher
the greatest hockey parent (or parent for that matter!)
You're unstoppable.

Good things will happen, guaranteed. And it's not reserved for NHL players. It works for anyone.

I've written about communication being a skill that is just as important as stick handling, shooting, skating, or passing. Your mental skills are equally important. Without strong self-belief, none of those other skills are allowed to work at top level.


5-Minute Major:

Stay away from negative situations or negative people.

Negative people always find fault first in anything, or with anyone.
Negative people always gripe.
Negative people are always 'meddling'.
Negative people are always quick to ridicule your ideas --mostly because they don't have any cool ideas of their own.
Negative people usually get left behind, no matter how good they are.


Penalty-Kill:

The easy path is to let yourself fall into the negative world that bombards us all day. Make it a point to surround yourself with positive people. Insist on it. Positive energy and positive self-talk gives you energy to understand what the path to success looks like, whatever the task is.

Put good stuff in your mind everyday and you're sure to achieve things you never really thought possible before, but were always capable of.