Anger Management Sports Psychology
Sports Motivation Clinic, Chicago
Anger toward your opponent.
The WAR Mentality
Do you play angry? Do you hate your opponents guts?
Would you bite his (or her) ear off, if you had the chance? Are you
a blood thirsty warrior when you take the field? Do you play MAD? If
any of these apply to you, you are a real
DOPE!
Probably
not your fault, everybody before your time thought foaming at the
mouth and lightning bolts coming out of your eyes was the way to
prepare for the game. They were wrong!
The war analogy has been part of sports from the
beginning, some sports more than others. If you play the vicious
sport of volleyball, the KILL is
the thing. Preparing like you were going into battle, seemed like a
good way to get the players psyched up for the big game. Well, you
might be surprised to know, that playing angry is not the mindset
you want to bring onto the field. How do I know that?
History!
I know, what good is history? It happened before I was born, who
cares? My program is not for the terminally stupid, I can't help
them. But if you want to play better, you need to play
smarter. You
need to know how to train your mind for competition and hopefully,
you'll also want to learn why you are doing it. That's where history
comes in.
Ancient History:
The
Spartan Soldier was one of history's finest warriors. One Spartan
soldier was worth a handful of the enemy. They were around back in
600 BC, where modern Greece is today and were the best for 250
years. The part you need to know is, they prepared for war by
telling stories of past glories and singing songs to calm their
nerves. Fighting angry was prohibited. They knew back then, that
split second decisions can be clouded by anger and in a real battle
situation, can mean the difference between life or death. Even if
you see one of your comrades die before your eyes, you need the
discipline to not let anger take
over your thinking or you might end up dead too.
Modern History:
Our modern day
special forces believe this too. They train to fight with a clear
head, emotions under control. They know that fighting from anger can
get you killed. Whether you are a Greek warrior or a modern day
sports competitor the message is the same. Anger has no place
in war or on the competition field.
Anger toward yourself.
When you screw-up, do you get mad at yourself? How
mad? Does it change how you play from that point on? Do you play better when
you get mad at yourself? Never!
Self-anger is one of the most common reactions in sports and one of
the most debilitating.
I don't recall
any sports stories where self-anger saved the day. No athlete is
quoted as saying, "All I had to do is get mad at myself and I played
like a champion". What usually happens is you get mad at yourself
and you are finished. Sound familiar?
Learning to control your anger is one of the
hardest skills to learn. We all have the capacity for anger, it
comes as part of standard mental equipment the day you were born.
There is good news, anger issues can be channeled and planned for
ahead of time. No matter how severe your anger problems are you can
learn how to get a handle on them.
Anger is energy and every athlete needs to learn how to control and
focus their energy. Real Warriors train to harness their emotions to
stay alive. Athletes can learn to harness their emotions to play at
the top of the game.
Call today
to setup an appointment, 708-824-9057
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