“I can”t!”
Those two words are the proverbial nails on the chalkboard to coaches ears. One of the most important things that coaches do is show those they coach what is possible, so it can be incredibly frustrating to have the door slammed in our face.
Alas, on a lot of teams “negativity” is, in effect, banned. Athletes interpret that they must silence any kind of negative self-talk or negative commentary about what’s going on. In the past six months, I’ve had numerous athletes confess to me that they had negative thoughts they couldn’t silence. Each and every one of them was terribly embarrassed by this.
So it was a great surprise when I told them that it’s totally typical to be unable to silence negative thoughts. In each case, the athlete had a very good reason, a major life event that caused them considerable distress.
Trying to quash their own “negativity” led them to isolate in shame, rather than seek out the help of peers and coaches. So a word of caution, of which I will elaborate on further below. Beware of a blanket ban on “negativity”. Instead, create a framework for discussing negative commentary and self-talk within your team.
Complaints can be optimistic
This past fall, I’ve facilitated a number of open complaint brainstorming activities. You might know them as “name for a female dog” sessions.
I have to admit that I have a reflexive distaste for complaints. I don’t like them, and I don’t like it when people make them. But over time I’ve realized that complaints are not inherently negative, and when framed properly, can be quite optimistic.
You see, people don’t complain about things they have zero hope will get better. When people resign themselves to hopelessness, they stop talking. If they’re complaining, they can still be engaged to be part of the solution, and in fact have a clear view on what they think the problem is.
So, have some capacity for people to bring up problems, and a way to turn those problems into a collaborative solution. A ban on complaints and negativity will net you only a backlog of complaints, not actually reduce problems.
Fight Perfectionism
We live in a time when the effects of perfectionistic thinking is incredibly pervasive, especially among young people. Elite student athletes are even more acutely aware, being endlessly evaluated for high performance.
The human mind (for most people) has an instinct when faced with huge challenges. It’s called pessimism, and it’s why your ancestors survived a far more brutal world. Pessimism is still incredibly useful in many life or death situations. If your house was on fire, who would you rather have, an optimistic fireman who says:
“I think everything will work itself out, this fire is not a big deal,”
or the pessimistic fireman:
“This fire is burning out of control and it will be a disaster if I don’t stop it!”
I’ll take the pessimistic fireman every day.
But many of us are not facing life or death. The result of our next 100 butterfly is not the end of everything, and pessimism can unravel us when we have too much time to let it linger.
Pessimism does not improve if ignored, in fact isolated pessimism can get greater and greater power. Pessimism can help you maximize performance in the near short term and be disastrous in the long term.
So have a way on your team for people to discuss their pessimistic thoughts without fear of being judged as “negative” or detrimental to your culture. You’re going to have some work to do to thread this nuance but it’s worth threading.
In doing so, you may be able to help someone break free from the isolation so many of them experience when trying to quell their own negativity.