Mental Toughness

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Re: Mental Toughness

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost;
For out in the world you’ll find
Success begins with a fellow’s will;
It’s all in a state of mind.

If you think you are beaten, you are:
If you think you dare not, you won’t
If you like to win, but don’t think you can
It’s almost certain you won’t.

For many a game is lost,
Ere even a play is run,
And many a coward fails
Ere even his work begun.

Think big and your deeds will grow,
Think small and you’ll fall behind;
Think that you CAN and you WILL;
It’s all in a state of mind.

If you think you are out-classed, you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise;
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can.
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Just that the above deserved quoting from the link Liz posted, I great way to look at mental toughness!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Liz,

'A lot of ability, lets himself down mentally'.....

Is the general opinion of me.

What sort of things can I do to become more mentally tough?

Visualisation of success
Self hypnosis
Self talk

and......

?

Thanks.
 
Re: Mental Toughness

kallis fan said:
'A lot of ability, lets himself down mentally'.....

Is the general opinion of me.
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I am sorry to hear this but it is a common opinion of so many about so many. Sometimes it's true ;)

Out of curiosity, is this what you think about yourself? Please be honest.

Before I answer your question, tell me a little more about yourself...

How old are you?
Do you play for a Club?
If so, how big is it?
How competitive are your matches?

...that sort of thing.

If you can remember, give me an example of when this may have been true. PM me if you would rather.
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Liz I think you know my story from the Harrowdrive forum. I had a mate in my team that was on my case at every mistake I made and in doing so totally undermined my confidence and eventually the bloke was saying "Dave you need to give up bowling - you can't do it". Yet that team disolved and I joined another team and I'm still doing it and potentially getting better every day.

Yeah - when I bowl and it doesn't even land on the strip I'm affected and it's something to work on, but I know it's practice and more practice and with that will come success and with success will come confidence. I'm never going to become confident if I don't practice. On top of that I believe that I am good at it and yeah I do use the visualisation technique and I'd say it does work - but what I do is difficult - Leg Spin (See the leg spin thread in the bowling forum), but unlike the rest of my team and there's 3 other leg spinners I am the only one with the variations the others are all one trick ponies, so I believe I am an asset to the team and that I will get better over the months!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

I believe that Cricket is in two parts, 50% of it is fitness and physical, the other 50% is mental. In any sport, "if you aint hard enough," then you wont succeed.

People often get confidence mixed up with arrogence, i myself have both. ;)
 
Re: Mental Toughness

That's good if you've got that as well and it gets up their noses that not only are you good at it but arrogant on top of being good - superb! Some other aspects of life I'm there with you - but Leg Spin bowling and cricket I've a way to go before I can start applying arrogance!!!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Sorry, I have been on freezing cold rugby pitches all day :eek:hmy:

I did get your pm and found it extremely interesting; I need to give you a considered reply and will get back to you as soon as possible.
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Sorry I did not reply yesterday Kallis Fan, unfortunately I did not have enough time to give it justice; the worse thing I could have done was to throw out a quick reply.

Basically, I really wish you were one of my players. You obviously have the skills in abundance but, I am afraid, that is not the be all and end all of talent!

You have given me very little information and I would really need to talk to you for a few hours to get the whole picture but reading through all your postings (and others!), I have at least a first sketch. ;) I think the problem is… you are a little gifted. Fortunately, your Pro sees this, even if your team mates do not!

I suspect you are as good as you are with little sacrifice. Although many would love your problem it does make you a little less hungry than most. You are also very thoughtful and I do not think that winning at all cost is too important to you. Your back niggles do not help either. It will always be in your subconscience; not wanting to go that extra mile in case you aggravate it.

Notwithstanding all this, you could maximise your potential by assuming the right mindset:

You need to want to be successful.
You need to know that you can be successful.
Then you will be successful.

I think confidence is a little problem for you but I am not sure why at the moment. Is confidence just an issue in cricket or in your everyday life?

I know success breeds confidence and you need confidence to be successful; it’s one of those Catch 22 situations that you always find in life, you just need to find a way to get into this cycle and it will develop.
Try and cultivate confidence, then imagery, self hypnosis etc will come easily but they are impotent without confidence!

It may be easier to address motivation first; ask yourself why? what? when? how? etc You need to know why you are playing cricket, what you want out of it, when you expect to get it and how you will achieve it. I am a great believer in Performance Profiling; you need to know where you are and you need to set specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic, time phased targets or goals to work to. This is a great motivator.
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Dave, your greatest assest is motivation; you know what you want and you know how to get it. Another asset is age and with it, a certain amount of confidence. When your 'mate' knocked you down, you got up, dusted yourself down and got on with it. You knew what you could do and, after all, who cares what anybody else says? Good on you Dave!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Liz,

Thanks for the detailed response.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I'll be very honest.

To be fair, I'd say all of my team mates recognise I've got a little talent, though all are aware I let myself down mentally.

I play cricket a lot over the summer, and 'practice' a great deal. Very little practice with an aim of achieving something measurable at the end, but I do a lot of 'practice'. Winning is important when I'm the captain - and if you measure my performances as captain and when I'm not captain, there will be a noticeable difference.

To be quite honest, I'm a bit of a wind up merchant. Not so much on the pitch, but it does seem that I've become someone who a lot of people want to see me fail.............now I really have not got an issue with that, I'm not bothered by what comes from this, the sledging and the like. In fact, I do it to try and motivate myself. I like to try to make it so I have a mindset of 'I can't fail'. Not that I ever tell people this, but I actually am a very nervous person, in everything I do. To be quite honest, I'm scared of failure. I hate having obvious flaws in my game. It really gets to me and I do devote a lot of thinking time to 'what if'.....

And I will be goal setting in the near future.....
 
Re: Mental Toughness

There is a little disease in this country. It has many names but it's symptoms are clear.

It mainly affects sportspeople; they wish to do well, they wish to be the best in the country but they do not wish to make it obvious. They do not want other people to know how great they want to be in case they do not make it and fear ridicule.

Do you think you are a sufferer?

Sometimes it is easier to be ridiculed for not trying than for trying and failing. After all, it is easy to say, '...well I wasn't really trying.'

It sounds like you are great at taking responsibility for others and it appears important to you that you do not let others down. However, you have no problem letting yourself down. I know you fear failure but it is almost as if you expect people to accept your failure so you give it to them!

You are almost there actually. You know what your faults are and you have a good understanding of your environment. You clearly need SMART goals; first to iron out the obvious flaws and then to motivate yourself to achieve.

Try to get hold of the Performance Coach at your County, have a chat and get him/her to carryout a Performance Profile for you and help you set goals.

Know that you have the ability to go a long way; you have the ability to succeed. The only thing in your way is you!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Thanks Liz.

I think you are most probably correct with that first statement!

It's about now (as in the winter) I desperately want to experience success. Yet come the playing season, I find myself 'not wanting to play' or 'not wanting to bat'.

With regards goals, is it best to set targets based around stats or targets about the state of your game in general?
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Kallis Fan, I know where you're coming from with the "Everyone wants to see me fail" thing. I've had that all my life and as Liz says it's a uniquely English disease. Probably like you when I'm good at something I do like to blow my own trumpet - if you ask me what I do well I'm likely to tell you and then go on to tell you that not only do I do it well - but I do it better than most! I don't brag though and I'm quite understated in a way that when I do perform - which is then seen as arrogance e.g. If I take a wicket I don't run around screaming and hollering I just get on with the next one - because I expected it and knew it would happen - it's what I do. It's what I spend hours and hours training to do over and over making sure I get it right. So when it goes right I'm not surprised, just pleased that the plan fell into place. But that understated response winds other people up for some reason, the air of confidence just means they want to see you fail and fall on your face. Needless to say I do sometimes, but it doesn't worry me - I just pick myself up analyse the failing and try and rectify saying "I'll be back".
Even now in my job (I'm a lecturer in Photography) I walk around telling anyone that wants to ask me about it that the course that I run is the best one of it's kind in the UK and I can justify the claim to some extent, but some of the people who work with me who do not have the same experience, knowledge, technical ability, communication/teaching skills and more importantly CONFIDENCE hate the fact that I'm so arrogant and sure of myself and my abilities that they have real issues with my claim, yet they're supposed to be on my side making sure that we live up to such a claim!!

If you're good and you're confident you will always have people trying to bring you down. But man - if you are good and the plan comes together it feels really good!
 
Re: Mental Toughness

kallis fan said:
It's about now (as in the winter) I desperately want to experience success. Yet come the playing season, I find myself 'not wanting to play' or 'not wanting to bat'.
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I think you do want to play and you do want to bat; you just don't want to fail. You can't fail if you don't play but hey, you can't succeed either!

If you fail five times, it all fades when you eventually succeed. We have to experience failure to truly experience and appreciate success :D
 
Re: Mental Toughness

kallis fan said:
With regards goals, is it best to set targets based around stats or targets about the state of your game in general?
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For me, I would start with the state of your game. These goals can be based on technical, tactical, physical or psychological qualities. You really do need to talk to somebody about this, you need to challenge your thinking and channel your faith [in you]!

If you cannot get hold of a performance coach, pm me with your email address and I will help you but it would be better to talk to somebody face to face.
 
Re: Mental Toughness

Though it may be slightly different, I always set myself targets for the season, on a game by game, month by month etc basis.

They can be based on many things, sometimes just simple things like a certain number of maidens per game, a set number of runs or stopping runs in the field.

Set the targets small to begin with as the more you hit the better you'll begin to feel, eventually, you'll find your level and you can then begin to push your talents.
 
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