Improve Your Cheerleading Performance by Changing Your Thinking
If you want to improve your cheerleading performance at competitions, try changing the way you think! Successful Olympic athletes recognize that their performances are affected by the way they think and they work hard to manage their thought processes.
We are always engaging in silent conversations with ourselves but usually this process is so automatic that we’re not aware of it and yet these internal conversations have a powerful impact on the way you feel and the way you perform.
Remember you are what you think – so, if your thoughts are negative, how do you imagine this will affect your performance?
So right now, in this moment, where are your thoughts? Are they negative? Are they positive? Are they neutral?
The other thing is to consider the time-focus: are your thoughts focused on something that happened in the past? Or are you worrying about the future? Or are you focused on the present moment. Good performance requires focus in the present, in the here and now.
There are so many ways your thinking can be affected at competitions. You might see another team who really nails a complex routine and get jealous or nervous. You might end up comparing your self to that team. Or maybe you and your stunting partner aren’t getting along lately. Maybe you you’re feeling under the weather a bit. Who knows? But if you’re not careful this line of thinking can undermine your performance.
What to do? Well, here’s a quick and simple technique to try:
1. Recognize the thoughts you are having.
2. Categorize them quickly as either good for you or bad for you or having no effect – neutral.
3. Then categorize them in terms of time-focus: past, present, or future.
4. Ask yourself if these thoughts help you to perform better.
5. If not, decide to change the harmful thoughts to another thought (this is hard at first!)
At first I’d recommend just getting into the habit of noticing and categorizing your thoughts. So periodically throughout the day, ask yourself, “What am I thinking?” Remember to put them into a category of positive, negative, or neutral.
Winners believe in the old adage – “Know thyself,” and this is a first step in the right direction.
In future posts I will tell you how to change your negative thoughts into ones that are positive or neutral, but for now, focus on identifying how you think!
Tags: cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, cheerleading competitions, Competitions, negative thoughts