Building Confidence through Thought Stoppage

Have you ever played in a game or performed a skill in your sport where you doubted your ability? Or have you verbally beat yourself up after making a mistake? Well, this simple confidence building exercise may be beneficial in building and maintaining your confidence. But first, what is confidence?

Confidence is the belief that you can perform certain skill successfully (e.g. making a free throw, recovering from an injury, making a decision on the field, or using mental skills). You can develop and strengthen your confidence. By maintaining your confidence, you will strive harder to reach your goals and be able to bounce back from errors and mistakes during a game. A great and simple exercise for athletes is thought stoppage.

Thought stoppage is an exercise for athletes to use on and off the field to build confidence. Think back to the questions above. If you can stop thoughts of doubt or stop dwelling on a mistake, you will build up your confidence. The main focus of thought stoppage is to stop unproductive thoughts and replace them with productive thoughts. Before we dive into how to use thought stoppage in sport, we need to develop a list of the common unproductive thoughts you may have and when you might have these thoughts. We also need to create a list of productive thoughts that could be used instead of the unproductive ones. To do this, follow these steps:

PART 1: Turning the Unproductive into Productive

1. Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper to create two columns.
2. Label one column Unproductive Thoughts and the second column Productive Thoughts
3. Take a few minutes to think about the common unproductive thoughts you may have before, during, and after performance or practice (e.g., I hate this drill, My opponent is better) and write them under the unproductive thought column.
4. For each unproductive thought, write down a productive one that can replace it.

            a,. I hate this drill -> This drill will help me improve _______
            b. My opponent is better -> I have trained for this event/competition.

1. Take each statement and come up with a word that you can associate the phrase with
2.             a. This drill will help me improve -> Improve
3.             b. I have trained and put in effort during practice -> Effort or Strong

It is important to create a productive phrase or word that has meaning to you instead of copying another teammates. In doing so, you will have an understanding of why this word is used to stop unproductive thoughts. The most important thing to remember is acknowledging your unproductive thoughts and transforming them into productive ones. Pick productive phrases or words with which you are comfortable.

Now that you have your transformed thoughts, the next step is to incorporate thought stoppage into sport. One strategy to do this is to use the rubber band method, which is explained below.

PART 2: Thought Stoppage - The Rubber Band
1. Put a rubber band around one of your wrists.
2. Snap rubber band when you have an unproductive thought.
3. Say your productive phrase or word.
4. Repeat steps 1 & 2 every time you say something unproductive to yourself. 

Example
1. I always mess up: Snap!
2. Control
3. Repeat as needed…

You can modify this method by replacing the rubber band with another action or verbal phrase. For example, you can say stop! when you snap the rubber band. A pitcher may throw the ball into her or his glove, a soccer player can toss some grass off to the side, and a basketball player can say stop. The most important aspect of thought stoppage is stopping the unproductive thought and replacing it with something productive.

The awesome thing about thought stoppage is you can use it in your everyday life. Think about when you have to take a test. If you are thinking you will fail, you can use thought stoppage. Snap the rubber band. Say your positive phrase or word (e.g., I studied and know the material, I am smart). By using the rubber band method in your everyday life, it will become routine on and off the field. As you stop these negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones, you will notice your confidence increase. Increased confidence leads to increased effort. Increased effort leads to a better chance of meeting your performance goals. And putting it all together will lead to a happier college experience at BGSU!

Adapted from: Barraclough, J. (2013). Self talk. Believe Perform. Retrieved from http://believeperform.com/performance/self-talk/

Bernadette Compton
Bowling Green State University