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Fans Like Emotions 

​One of the things that fans like most about sports is the emotions. They want players to be aggressive, intense and play hard. They want them to take a hit, shake it off and keep going in a calm and composed manner. In short, fans want players to be masters of their emotions. 

Mastering Your Emotions

Think of emotions as a series of stimuli based on your circumstances and life experiences. How you react to these situations either creates stress for you or it doesn’t. A reaction is quick, impulsive and not well thought out. A response is intentional and carefully considered. So, one of the first steps in mastering your emotions is learning to respond to situations, instead of reacting to them. To do this, you must gain control over your thoughts. 

3-Step Process

Here are three questions to get you started:

Question 1:  What am I feeling? 
To master your emotions, you must acknowledge your feelings. We start with feelings because they are easy to recognize. We all know when we are happy, sad, scared or mad. We might not know “why,” but we do know “what” we feel.

• How do I feel about that call?
• How do I feel about that hit?
• How do I feel about what coach just said?

Question 2: What am I thinking?
The next step is to figure out what you’re thinking. Your thoughts are the driving force for your feelings. Some thoughts serve you. Others don’t. Positive thoughts are uplifting. They make you feel happy and full of energy. Negative thoughts are destructive and draining. They make you feel sad, scared and insecure. 

From a physical perspective thoughts stimulate the brain, which produces hormones in the body.

• Positive energy releases testosterone into the body. Testosterone fights depression, decreases body fat, increases muscle mass and may improve your heart rate, bones and libido.
• Negative energy releases cortisol into the body. Cortisol eats away at your cells. Elevated cortisol levels increase blood sugar and suppresses the immune system and inflammatory pathways. It causes weight gain, poor sleep, high blood pressure, mood swings and muscle weakness. So, there are some clear health benefits to managing your emotions.

Question 3: What am I doing?
​Your thoughts and feelings affect how you show up in life. If your emotions are out of control, you are out of control. And being out of control impacts every area of your life, including your game.

• Coaches and other players may find it hard to work with you. You may receive more penalties and fines from referees. Fans may say negative things about you. The media may scrutinize you more closely.
• Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, which means what you do matters.

Using the 3-Step Process

Here’s an example of how to use the 3-step process:
It’s early in the morning and you’re in the middle of a run. You feel burned out, checked out and you want to stop.
 
Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling? I feel tired. 
• What am I thinking? I'm thinking how hard this run is this morning.
• What am I doing (because of these thoughts and feelings)? I'm running slow and feeling unfocused. I’m not breathing correctly or using proper form. 

​Feeling tired is common for runners. The key is to figure out if you’re physically tired or mentally burned out before you stop running. You’ve been running for well over a mile now, so you’re not physically tired. Which means you’re probably mentally tired. In cases like this, you have about 5 seconds to shift your energy before you give up.
                            
To shift your energy, you must change your mindset. Your brain likes to conserve energy, so it creates patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors to make things easier for you. To change these patterns, you must create new ones. Basically, you’re telling your brain what you want it to do. 

• In this case, you must tell your “brain” to tell your “body” it has enough energy to keep going. "I can do this. I’ve run faster and further than this before. I just did it yesterday. I have more than enough energy to finish this run."
• As you do this, your mindset changes. Your energy increases. You pick up speed. Your form and breathing improves. You also stop “thinking” about running and “just do it.” 

Mastering your emotions requires the same focus, discipline and intention that you put into mastering your body. There are times when you need to turn the intensity up and times to turn it down. The more you activate your emotional muscles, the stronger they’ll become. So, as you master your emotions, you not only master your game, but also your life!

​Until next time...