It’s not fair to say that I hate “fake it til you make it”. It’s not because, as people say “hate is a strong word”. A more apt description of my attitude towards this statement of unproductive positivity is the same one I have to the famed Danish restaurant Noma. That is, I’m constitutionally opposed to it. Thinking about the statement “fake it til you make it” gives me a queasy feeling.
What is vastly under-discussed when it comes to positivity, optimism and the process of cognitive perspective shift is that it must be true. Anything that your mind finds untrue will ultimately be rejected, no matter how hard you try to force it in. This leads a lot of people to frustration, as they continually try to command their mind to accommodate a foreign lie.
Positivity is always true. The process of shifting something is remarkably slow. In my individual coaching with athletes, I often work with them for 3-6 months. In terms of perspective shift, that is a very short time. So what do I do with the limited time I have? I help people to seed positivity. Once something enters your mind, if it passes the “true” filter, it has a chance to grow.
Finding what is both true, and positive, is never easy. It’s almost impossible to do by yourself, except of course for things you don’t care about. When I was a schoolkid, much to my parents chagrin, I didn’t care whether I got good grades. It was easy to have a positive attitude about each and every test I took. There were no emotions to cloud my judgment and promote doubt.
This is one reason why (usually in combination with high innate ability) some people seem to thrive competitively despite a lackadaisical approach to the sport. They just don’t care enough to doubt themselves!
But if we accept that for each individual person to realize their maximum potential, emotional investment is a necessary ingredient, then we must also prepare for what’s next. Thank goodness coaches exist, because good coaches can empathetically reflect that emotion while offering a dispassionate, thoughtful, positive point of view to athletes.
At this point, I feel compelled to offer some examples of positivity that are true and avoid the fake it til you make it trap. The following comes out of thousands of interactions with athletes where I have wrestled with how to influence and seed positivity in such a way that the effect is barely noticeable at first but has a long term pay off.
They are presented alongside the pervasive negativity that you are almost guaranteed to come across in your day to day work as a coach.
It’s been forever since I’ve improved. If you’re in the sport of swimming past the age of 13 you’ve probably felt like you’re hitting a wall. Now, ruminating on your lack of apparent progress does not help you very much to improve. This one has so much branching opportunity for perspective shifts that I won’t list all of them here, Instead, here are three I find myself returning to over and over:
Ask an athlete to talk to you in detail about when they last thought they “swam well” and everything since then. I can say that about 9/10, they will slip up and admit to incremental improvement over that time period, a fact that they will now have to accept as true.
Ask an athlete what they think will create improvement. In order to not get mired, keep drilling down this question to a size where they identify something that is wholly within their control that they can decide to do. You’re trying to build a long bridge of connection between action (right now) and improvement (a goal possibly in the long term future)
Ask them why they think they have been as successful as they have been. I have a way around people who want to argue with you about whether they are successful too, don’t worry. If someone is being that argumentative, ask them to rate their success on a scale of 1-10. Usually they’ll pick something in the middle, like 6. Then you ask “why not 5”, and sit back and listen to them reflexively talk about themselves more honestly and positively.
2. That sucked
3. I’m not talented/I’m never going to be the best- One of the best experiences of my coaching career was the first time I didn’t work with the “best” athletes on a team. At Jersey Wahoos I was responsible for the Senior Group, athletes aged 13-18 who didn’t make the standard to be in our top competitive National Squad or Age Group team.
My whole career I’d worked with athletes that, whether they’d admit it or not, were more predisposed to a certain level of commitment because they knew they were good. They might still compare upwards, as most of us do, and find themselves lacking.
Still, theres a whole different level where some athletes just don’t think they’re good enough to warrant working hard. What’s the point, they figure? It seems almost more common as the competitive level has gone up and it’s a trap I’ve fallen into many times as a coach too. What’s the point of working hard on my coaching if I’m not going to be the top psychology guru in the world?
Don’t be afraid to probe past the question they are narrowing in on. Is being the best REALLY the only reason they’re there? If you want to shift their perspective, insist on knowing any and all other reasons they find for doing what they do. A zero sum game where people only competed and tried would leave us with no athletes.
What is their definition of “good”. A lot of people actually have a definition that is actually a goal within their grasp. Getting them to think about where they WANT to be vs where they CAN’T get to is a massive win.
Organized Positivity
Positivity is something that can’t merely be flipped into place. Like any kind of training, it’s a process, and the most important part of that process is that you must start with something that is true. When you accept that something is true continuing nurturing it, you have a chance to make a powerful shift.