Get Out of Your Own Way and Find the Flow

Four Tips to Get Out of Your Own Way and Find the Flow
By Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D.

 Why do athletes get in their own way? Under pressure, the challenge to play with freedom is even greater. Often times, athletes want so badly to perform well or win that they think if they try harder, be more serious, and focus on technique they will execute better. Ironically, it’s the exact opposite.

When athletes can’t get out of their own way, the mind interferes with what athletes have trained their bodies to do. Most of the time, athletes who can't "get out of their own way" try way too hard, force their game, think too much, or overanalyze.
I have spent a lot of time researching the best athletes in the world and how it is that they are able to perform at their peak. These athletes report having the ability to enter the zone by trusting their skills and avoiding excess thinking that interferes with their performance.

Trust in your skills is the ability to let go of controlling thoughts during execution and rely on what you have already trained in practice. Trust is not the same mental skill as confidence. Trust happens during execution, whereas confidence precedes execution. The more confidence you have in your ability to hit the jump shot in basketball, for example, the greater likelihood of you trusting your shot.

Professional athletes described an almost out of body experience in which they felt like observers (of their own performance) allowing their performance to just happen. As if they were performing on autopilot. When you allow yourself to flow, you trust that your body will execute successfully without over-thinking the movement.

Professional golfer, Stewart Cink spent over 40 weeks in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings and understands the concept of getting out of your own way well. Cink believes that in order to be successful you must shut off your mind and let muscle memory (actually motor memory) take over.

Cink knows that when athletes feel pressure to perform well, they tend to over think. “The pressure, it can get to you, it can get to everyone, and it does, and you have to be just prepared, muscle memory will take over. I think it’s important to let your body swing the club because the muscles don’t forget how to do it. It’s when your mind gets in the way, and it starts trying to control things, that’s when you have trouble. So the best way to approach pressure situations to me is to have as much of a switched off mind as you can, just blank mind and just let the body do everything, and let it happen naturally,” Cink says.

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When you over think or over analyze your game, try to force it on every play or shot, and don't trust your performance, you are guilty of getting in your own way.

When you get out of your own way, you allow yourself to play freely and use your motor memory—just like you trained yourself to do in practice.

Your goal when you compete is to suspend the trying or cognitive mindset so you can let it flow when it counts. This means committing to a less analytical, less judgmental, and less conscious mindset. You shut down the conscious, trying mind and let your vision and feel take over.

Four Tips to Get Out of Your Own Way:

1. Simplify Your Performance. Don't over think your performance. Avoid filling your mind with too much information at once. Your mind can only process one thought at a time. Don't over coach yourself, or try to do everything your coach or instructor told you in competition. Use only a few thoughts to help you perform.
2. Trust what you practice. The purpose of practice is to learn the skills and strategies to perform in competition. The purpose of competition is to let yourself play. Let go of the "how to’s" (your technique or mechanics) and allow yourself to let it happen.
3. Go with the flow and don't overanalyze your performance. Over analyzing your performance only makes matters worse. Be flexible with the situations that might happen during a game. Accept the fact that you will make mistakes. Mistakes are not ok, but you have to make them ok in your mind and move onto the next play.
4. Adopt an "I don't care attitude" Stop caring so much about results. A focus on results does not let you play in the moment. Poor results are not the end of the world. You have to care less and don't attach significance to the outcome. This is what causes pressure for most athletes. Think more about what you can do in the present moment and the results will come.
This article was based on The Fearless Athlete CD program. Learn more about how to be proactive with your confidence.

Sports Specific Mental Training Tip

When you train the correct way, you don't have to think about how to perform in competition. Your performance should come naturally, which allows you to get into the zone...

"People ask me... What was going through your mind in the race? And I don't know. I try and let my body do what it knows."

~ Ian Thorpe, Swimming Champion