Everyone, including officials, must employ self-talk at some point. Is your self-talk positive or negative? Does it enhance or hinder your performance? Does it boost your confidence or diminish it?
These are all questions we must ask ourselves. It needs some practice if your self-talk sounds something like, “Get your mind in the game!” “Remember the rulebook!” “No mistakes this time!” or “Ignore the crowd!” Self-talk can help or hinder and significantly shape our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
A constant stream of negative self-talk does not benefit us. We experience enough negativity from coaches, fans and players. This stream often distracts us from where our focus should be and puts us in a less-than-ideal mental state.
The Danger of False Confidence
Concentration and confidence are closely aligned. Have you ever encountered officials who appear calm under pressure? Those who carry themselves as if nothing can ever get to them? No anxiety, self-doubt or indecision is ever found on their face.
According to Dr. Alan Goldberg, one of the nation’s top sports performance consultants, they are denying reality. Fighting a thought sometimes takes more mental energy than addressing it.
Emotions like anxiety aren’t bad or undesirable; they are part of the human experience. Pretending they aren’t there or shutting them down internally doesn’t get rid of them — it just pushes them down the road for us to deal with later.
“False confidence isn’t in the best interest of an official,” said Dr. Gary Bennett, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in sports psychology at Virginia Tech University. “The trick isn’t to deny the feelings but to recognize and reinterpret them. Anxiety can be interpreted as a desire to do well.”
Change Your Thought Relationship
One key to effective concentration is getting in touch with our thoughts and how our minds work. It is possible to “rewire” our brains and change our thinking. Becoming aware of our self-talk and learning to replace negative thoughts with positive ones is possible. This is a powerful tool we can use for personal growth and self-improvement as officials.
Our thoughts aren’t the problem; the problem is how we engage our thoughts. We must learn to change what we focus on. This change starts by acknowledging that we have negative thoughts, self-doubts and anxieties. Controlling our mindset requires us to have a high level of self-awareness. Improving our self-awareness and working on it should be as high a priority as learning the rules of the game. Without self-awareness, we won’t improve our mindset.
“Concentration is having the ability to focus on what’s important and letting go of everything else,” Goldberg said.
The Right State of Mind
When we officiate, we have a lot going on at once. There is the game itself, the reaction of the coaches, fans and players, and the stimuli of the arena or stadium. Then, internally, we have our thoughts, emotions and other cognitions.
We can have two types of focus during a game: internal or external.
- Internal Focus: Concentrating on our thoughts, perceptions of others, the repercussions of mistakes and the uncertainty of the future. The messages we communicate to ourselves dwell in our front brain. This area of the brain responds after self-dialogue and assessment, but it tends to be slow and inefficient.
- External Focus: Staying present and responding to our surroundings. This is where we perform best because we react to what is in front of us rather than what’s happening in our minds. Maintaining an external focus shifts the work to our hindbrain. This part of the brain is non-judgmental, examines what it senses as a whole and processes complex stimuli instantaneously.
How to Do It
Achieving an optimized mindset is simple; just be mindful. The easiest exercise to develop this mindset is to focus on your breathing without trying to control or change it. Just observe the inhale and exhale. While doing this, notice what thoughts and emotions enter your consciousness.
If the thoughts are negative or disturbing, allow them to exist and understand they will eventually lessen, worsen or stay the same, but they don’t define you or have to influence anything you do. Choose to coexist with whatever your mind presents to you.
The next step is to shift your focus from your thoughts to what is important to you. We want to base our behavior on our values instead of our thoughts. Determine what you value most and commit to acting on those values instead of your thoughts.
It takes time and introspection to learn what you value most. If you value ego, attention and the impression you make on others, you are more likely to remain stuck in your front brain. There, you will become internally focused and preoccupied with distracting thoughts about whether your performance is good enough, all to uphold your ego.
Conversely, if you prioritize making the next call accurately, ensuring a fair outcome for the game and protecting the safety of the athletes, you are more likely to be externally focused. This fosters a mindset of observing and reacting, allowing you to pick up on external stimuli and respond using your experience and knowledge. Your efficient and quick-thinking hindbrain will operate without needing to process information through the more contemplative front brain.
Practice to Improve Performance
Concentration is a skill, one that we can all improve with practice. It differs from memorizing the rulebook. It is the mechanism that keeps us in the now, activates our hindbrain and gets us to see and react. Courses like Referee’s What it Takes: Forge Your Peak Performance Mindset can teach you real-world techniques to handle all kinds of mental struggles you face as a sports official.
One of the simplest forms of concentration training is to sit and focus on your breathing. Practice noticing, labeling and creating conscious space for your thoughts while gently redirecting your focus back to your breath. You will use this mechanism in officiating when you find yourself caught in the past or the future and need to return to the present. The beauty of this exercise is that you can do it anywhere and for as long as you wish.
It’s also important to reflect on your values. Take a pen and paper to write down the kind of official you aspire to be. Be honest, and when you notice the ego-driven part of you, refocus on the values that prioritize the betterment of the games and your sport. When your concentration falters, you will want to commit to those values and base your behavior on them.
Mindfulness is a lifelong process that we often slip in and out of. Take time to absorb your current surroundings, observe your thoughts and connect with your physical sensations. There is more that our attention can perceive than we typically realize.
Mind your inner voice, sharpen your focus.
