Sports psychologist: Stop getting in your brain’s way

We’ve all been in this place in our lives, whether it’s at
our job or in our marriage or on the field or coaching our
kids. We’re down. We’re struggling. We’re having a
tough time. We’ve been taught all of our lives to “keep
our nose to the grind-stone” or “fight through it” or
“think positive.”

What if doing those things actually make it worse? A
prominent psychologist says there’s no such thing as will
power. We should all believe in still power, the power of
letting our minds regulate themselves.

According to Garret Kramer and his new book “STILLPOWER:
Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life,” the harder you
try to fix your mental state, the further you get from
success. Kramer believes our thoughts get in our brain’s
way.

Kramer is a sports psychologist and former pro athletic.
He told MyNorthwest.com that when you’re struggling in
life or on the field, you shouldn’t try to fix “it,”
whatever “it” is. Don’t try to use will power. Use still
power.

“The human mind, when we’re low, if we leave it
alone, the human mind will regulate back to clarity, back
to consciousness, back to freedom, back to the zone,” he
said. “We don’t have to do anything. It kind of works
that way.”

Kramer believes all the things we try to do to get back to
success when we’re struggling actually get in our way.
Self-help books. Seven steps to this or that. He said
they only provide short-term results. “We can’t control
our thoughts,” Kramer said. “We can’t try to think
positive or try to have confidence. It just doesn’t work
that way. The more you try to control thought, the more
bound up your thoughts become.”

Kramer used a toddler as an example. They might throw a
horrible tantrum one minute and without any training or
self help books, they get back to normal in a few minutes.
He said the child’s mind simply regulates itself back
to normal. As adults, he said, we have to find our way
back to that place.

Kramer believes this way of thinking can do a lot
of good for youth sports, and this is likely where
you’ll find yourself saying ‘this goes against everything
you’ve ever been told by any coach in your life.’

I’m just wrapping up my sixth year coaching youth
baseball and this threw me for a loop. When a kid makes
an error, Kramer said I shouldn’t say “hey, get in front
of
it” or “keep the glove the down.” The kid knows what he
did wrong. My yapping, he believes, only makes the player
concentrate on the mistake and fixing it, not simply
forgetting it and moving on to the next play.

“Point out to that player ‘hey that happens to me too,'”
Kramer said. “‘That happens to Derek Jeter too. That
happens to Barack Obama too. It happens to everybody.’ If
they know that and if they can relate to that, which they
definitely will, especially a young person, they’re not
going to step on the gas pedal. They’re going to
understand and just keep playing. It will clear up.”

Kramer’s not saying “don’t correct the behavior.” There’s
a
time for that, but it’s not during the game.

Kramer believes a lot of coach-speak simply increases a
player’s anxiety and stress and makes it harder for them
to succeed.

Kramer’s also not saying that you don’t have to put in the
work
to get better. He believes in hard work and practice to
hone one’s skills and performance, but when you’re
struggling, he thinks external thoughts can cloud one’s
inner thoughts and make success more difficult.

Kramer suggests clearing your mind and not banging your
head against the wall with other thoughts while at work,
in your relationships, and every other aspect of
your life.