I wanted to write a piece based on the positive reinforcement message that Cefyn was taking about in our April meeting, this is something I have been working on, alongside Cefyn, all season.
First thing to realise is that development points on assessments, or mentor reports, are just that. They are not weaknesses, weakness is a negative word, and thinking of these areas of your game that you do not perform as well on as others in a negative way will cause you to always under perform in these areas. You will always see here as things that you do badly.
The key is to turn this thinking into positive thinking, for example:
A recent assessment says that you play advantage well, however you do not come back to, both, the offender and the player against which an offence has occurred.
Here it is easy to think “I play advantage and I don’t come back to the offender”. The fact that you are using the words “I don’t” are negative, and will have an adverse affect on your advantage next time you play it.
Instead of “I don’t” think instead “I will”, using this phrase change s the above sentence to “I play advantage and I will come back to the offender”.
Immediately you can see that this now comes across as much more positive in your mind.
Now, the next time you play advantage you will be thinking, as you are shouting “play on, advantage” with your arms outstretched, “I will come back to the offender” and very quickly you will find that you do start to come back to the offender.
It is also very important to understand how you feel when you manage to improve your development area as this will also allow you to train yourself to do this. The feeling of improving, and getting something right, is vital in improving our mindset and our actions on a repeated basis.
Try this in your next game and beyond, good luck for the remainder of the season.
Paul Bell
