Who’s watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup at the moment? Who’s watching it from behind the sofa? Me too. Thankfully for England fans everywhere, the Lionesses are a lot cooler than I am - even in the most highly pressurised of all sporting situations: the dreaded penalty shootout…
And the good news is that we can replicate their cool-headedness when we face our own ‘penalty shootouts’. Because although it’s unlikely that our big presentation will be streamed to millions worldwide, or that we’ll be abused in the press if we flunk that interview, or that we’ll be offered a multi-million pound sponsorship deal from Adidas for having that difficult conversation - these situations are big for us, and as they approach, we’re liable to react in just the same way as if we were walking up to the spot.
So with that in mind, here are three tactics (plus one bonus one) to try out next time you feel the metaphorical goalie bearing down on you.
Breathe
Sounds pretty obvious and you’ve probably heard it before - but it’s a biggy! Next time you’re feeling anxious or stressed, just check in with your breathing. If you find it’s shallower than the kid's end of a paddling pool and your shoulders are blending into your ears – it’s time to breathe…
Luckily for all of us, there are loads of great breathing techniques that work to quickly calm the autonomic nervous system, helping us out of the fight or flight response and back into a place of calm and control. One classic technique is known as Square Breathing:
- Breathe in through the nose for a count of four.
- Hold for a count of four.
- Breathe out through the mouth for a count of four.
- Then wait for a count of four.
And repeat!
Do this 4-8 times and you’ll feel zen and ready to step up. Do it much more than that and you may fall asleep. Which isn’t much good while at work but useful to remember at 4am!
Check your language
After scoring the winning penalty against Nigeria in the round of 16 penalty shootout last week (woohoo!), Chloe Kelly was asked what was going through her mind as she stepped up to the spot. Her answer: “I’m going to score.” (Good thinking Chloe, been on some Laughology training?)
But imagine if she’d been saying: “I was sure I was going to miss. I could see it every time I shut my eyes; I’ve been having nightmares about it for months.”
Eek. Don’t think we’d have been celebrating an England win, do you?
At Laughology we call these irrational and sometimes catastrophic thoughts Wonky Thoughts (or Common Cognitive Errors in Psychology-speak). We all have Wonky Thoughts from time to time, and they usually show up in times of great stress, which is when we’re operating from what Daniel Kahnemann calls our ‘fast brain’ rather than our ‘slow brain’.
And although the Wonky Thoughts are obviously pointless and unhelpful when we look at them objectively, we rarely do! Therefore, our Wonky Thoughts get to ‘take the penalties’ from time to time if we’re not careful.
We can keep on top of this by simply noticing our internal dialogue in stressful situations. If you find your dialogue is veering towards ‘I’m going to miss’ rather than ‘I’m going to score’, then defo adjust that language. But there’s no point lying to ourselves, though: an optimistic thought we don’t believe isn’t going to help! So it may be about tweaking the negative script just to start moving ourselves in the right direction.
Open questions and mantras are a great way to do this. Mine used to be ‘What Would Will Smith Do?’ But that doesn’t really work anymore, sadly. Do you have a mantra, hitherto unquestioned family saying, or even a theme song that gees you up and gets those thoughts back in line when the pressure is on? If not, why not have some fun thinking something up? Best mantra emailed to Doug wins a curly-wurly!
Visualise
Sports psychology has long told us that visualisation is a must. All the cool kids are doing it. And we can harness the amazing power of our imagination, too. It’s not woo-hooery - it’s cold hard science.
One study from the Lerner Institute, Cleveland, found that a group who performed finger strength exercises in their minds exhibited a whopping 35% increase in finger strength when compared to a control group. Perhaps even stranger is that the increase wasn’t much less than that recorded by the group who did the exercises physically (53% increase).
Now this isn’t to say we should all cancel our gym memberships, but it does, I hope, highlight the profound effect our thoughts have on our reality. And knowing this, why would we spend a single second visualising anything other than our personal equivalent of the ball flying into the top corner and tearing the roof off the net?
And finally for those who stuck with me to the bitter end, your bonus tactic…
Bonus - Have a laugh!
Laughter is the Georgia Stanway of resilience tactics. When everything’s going to sh*t, a quick laugh can single handedly keep us in the game. It relaxes the body, reduces stress, and gives us a big old endorphin kick.
And when we’re stepping up to the spot, that’s the kind of kick that can really help.
We cover all this (and more) in our FLIP-it Thinking sessions. Alternatively, why not get in touch with our Doug - doug@laughology.co.uk - to create something more bespoke for your workplace or organisation?
Jim Rastall’s teaching, facilitation and coaching career has seen him work with everyone from 6-year-olds struggling with literacy to stand-up comedians in LA and senior managers at some of the largest corporations in the world. He has a dream to open a bacon sandwich shop, but luckily for us that’s currently on ice. Luckily for Jim, bacon keeps well if cured.