Mental Skill: Communication Pt. 2
3.3.1 Guiding Principle: Truth vs. Opinion
What you are seeking in the chatter is truth. When you learn to be aware and regulate your self-talk, you must seek truth verses opinion.
Beware of opinions. Opinions are not always true; your opinions and those opinions of others must be refined before you allow them to hang out in your chatter for too long. A lot of times your chatter, as you well know, will be like a repetitive gong of trashy words and mental pictures that do not belong. The chatter will have you all over the road thinking about different kinds of stuff, most of which is hurting you and has no relevance. Seek the truth in your mind, defining words and mental pictures that reveal what is true.
3.3.2 Guiding Principle: Mental Recorder
This is another separate class by itself and a worthy study, the subconscious mind. It is important to know and understand that as you are sitting here right now, your chatter is running. Every word, every mental picture is being recorded. You have your own internal mental recorder that captures every second of the day.
So let me ask you, what words and mental pictures do you allow to be recorded?
Beware! The recorder doesn’t judge or filter for truth. It only captures what you allow in the chatter, true or not. Everyone outside can be applauding you saying, “great job”, but in your mind, if you are beating yourself up, that’s the dominant message and that is what your recorder captures. More importantly, this detail is how your brain prepares for your next performance.
You must learn to regulate the chatter today, in turn programming the recorder for the next performance. You must learn to pump positive thoughts into your mind, positive words and mental pictures of how you desire things to be. Your recorder will capture it, and in a simplified process, prepares you for the next opportunity. This is the process of skill development over time.
You must remember and accept as truth, your subconscious mind doesn’t judge or sensor your chatter. The recorder just captures it. There is no good word or bad word buzzer that goes off, no sense of a good or bad mental picture. The mental recorder does not censor if your chatter is true or false, beneficial or harmful. This is where you mental skills come into play when regulating.
When you take on the discipline to be aware and regulate the chatter, you force-feed the mental recorder 86,400 seconds of every day. You take your goals, your desires, your ambitions and engineer specific words and mental pictures to achieve such things, and think on them as often as possible.
When you are pumping the weight getting bigger, better and stronger you are now regulating the chatter at the same time. When you are running plays and working on the physical fundamentals you are executing the task a thousand times over and now you are regulating the mental at the same time. If in your chatter you neglect to flex this mental-muscle your most primitive emotions will surface under pressure: fear, doubt and rage.
You know better than I all the trashy chatter that pops up, if you’re not dealing with this in your own inner words and mental pictures, in the critical moment of a real competition, you will increase the odds of failure and fall to the one that does.
3.3.3 Guiding Principle: Nourish & Fight
When it comes to regulating your chatter and using your mental skill of communication, you must learn to nourish like a mother and fight like a father. You must nourish with good words and mental pictures; you must fight the bad ones.
Two agendas when it comes to, “Hey, what does it look like acting on this mental skill of communication?”
It looks like you sitting right here, right now, when you leave here, when you’re sitting in you’re vehicle, sitting on the toilet, taking a shower, any and everywhere, all day long learning to nourish and fight the chatter. It’s a daily thing. No matter where you are throughout the day, your chatter is running and all of the sudden you’re going to find yourself critical and beating yourself up. You are going to be more aware and regulate by flexing this mental skill of communication and replace the negative toxic chatter with nourishing words and mental pictures.
You must work to discipline yourself and regulate the chatter. You must put negative words and mental pictures in a corner or they will put you in a corner of doubt and indecision. It’s like a mad dog in the house; you will remain in doubt and fear, always hesitating, never clear and forever lacking confidence. You must capture the negative words and pictures as if a father saying to an enemy, come closer and you will cease to exist! Every time you capture this chatter and regulate it, you are flexing the mental muscle. You are fighting to defend what is near and dear to you, and only you can learn to carry on this fight.
“The fight is internal, battling within you, both good and bad battling to control one thing, your chatter”
When it comes to nourishing like a mother, you must learn to talk nicely to yourself. You must put good words and good mental pictures in your chatter. Learn to rely on yourself as the primary provider for the nourishing words and mental pictures you need. In the study of emotional intelligence, we call this “self-reliance”. This is where you learn to rely on your own words and mental pictures rather than relying on others around.
Yes, we need words and positive influence from those around us, yes! Yes, it is always nice to hear it from a coach. There is no debate here; even the scriptures validate the notion of fellowship and two becoming stronger than one. However, don’t rely on the external folks as your primary source. You must play the primary role for your own personal nourishment. Do not rely solely on your coach, your family member or someone else outside of you. You do it. It’s your discipline, your gift and your promise for the future. When I say, “Nourish like a mother,” you must find times in your 86-4 (short for 86,400 seconds) when you’re saying, “I can, I will, I see, I know, it’s coming, it’s possible.”
Sometimes you must learn to muster-up the courage to find new words and mental pictures which face your fears. Truth be told, your next great achievement hasn’t happened yet; you’ve yet to experience it. You can experience it in the mind with disciplined chatter and the courage to see yourself winning. A strong mental skill of communication will slowly nourish and condition your beliefs building confidence and self-esteem.
You must first believe it for yourself using the right words and right mental pictures in your chatter. You are going to have to use words and mental images that are new to you when you visualize your next achievements. You must learn to “see” yourself beyond your circumstances with new words and mental pictures. We will talk more about this need for new chatter later in the book.
As a wise point of reference, the scriptures teach to think on whatever is kind, loving, true and honorable. These are your new guidelines for filtering (regulating) your chatter.
3.3.4 Guiding Principle: Conditioning
Your chatter, randomly wandering each second of the day, is captured into your mental recorder. Over time, as the chatter runs rampant and always being recorded, the dominant words and mental pictures create connections in the brain. We call this conditioning, where the connections create habits and are formed by repetitive thoughts. Your attitude for example is often the result of repetitive chatter over time. In our skill development we learn that attitude is nothing more than a habit of thinking. A habit that has been created and conditioned based on your chatter.
The dominant words and mental pictures are those that you repeat over and over again in the chatter, called repetitive thought. These dominant impressions from your chatter impact your own personal beliefs and challenge your own personal value. Before you know it, you’ve conditioned yourself to act and respond based on random chatter that does not support your dreams or desires.
It is important to understand how conditioning works to affect your skills, confidence, and self-esteem. Conditioning even affects how you manage your relationships. We now understand how the chatter can condition positively and negatively. It all depends on you and your chatter.
By learning to develop and understand this truth on conditioning you can use it to your advantage. By regulating the chatter with specific words and mental pictures of good performance, you are conditioning. In other words, during the 86,400 seconds of your day, chatter is running, the recorder is capturing. You must learn to condition yourself to make more mature decisions based on what’s going on in your chatter.
3.3.5 Guiding Principle: The “Fish Tank” Promise
A wise mentor shared this story with me over twenty years ago. This will help you understand the process you are starting as you learn to regulate and apply these new mental skills.
Imagine a large fish tank filled with coffee. This dingy, dark looking water is the result of poor conditioning over time, allowing the chatter to run rampant and unregulated. We’ve all been poorly programmed by allowing negative, unworthy chatter to run rampant, making false and toxic impressions.
Now, imagine a hose of fresh, clear running water and you put it into the fish tank, leaving it over time. What happens to the dark, dingy water? With continued effort of fresh water coming in, the dingy water is out and the new clear water fills the tank.
As you continue seeking new insights and learning to flex your mental skills, refining your chatter is the fresh, clear running water. You are the hose and you are putting new words and new mental pictures into the mental fish tank, reprogramming and reconditioning from within. This takes time and discipline and it’s reserved for only the few willing to look inside.