Like it or not, negative thoughts are a part of the game, everyone has them!

No one will hand you 5 wickets or 100 runs on a plate. It is natural to have negative thoughts from time to time and you will need to learn to deal with these to overcome the adversity you face from external challenges, such as competitors and conditions, and from internal challenges i.e. your own thoughts.

A critical mental skill is to be able to turn your negative thoughts into positive thoughts.

Negative thoughts aren’t all bad as they help to make us aware of the things that can go wrong in a performance and tell us that our performance is important to us, making us aware of the consequences of failure. However, in order to be the best you can be, you will need to manage your thinking.  If negative thoughts take control of you they can become overwhelming and lead to you being defeated before you even get into the contest!

An important thing to realise is that you control your thinking and that your thinking does not control you! You need to take responsibility for your thinking including managing and controlling your negative thoughts.

By turning a negative thought around into a positive one you can turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Ask yourself ‘What is the opportunity here?’ For example, if you are concerned that you will perform poorly due to a recent run of poor form, instead of being resigned to another failure, look for an opportunity.  A batsman faced with a wicket where the ball bounces and moves, assisting the fast bowlers may be worried about nicking the ball.  An opportunity here would be to use the bounce and movement the wicket offers the bowlers to leave the ball alone and frustrate the bowlers into bowling to you in your scoring areas.  A bowler may be worried that he won’t get a wicket because the pitch is very flat and offering no bounce or movement.  This is an opportunity to bowl the best line and length of your life and to see how well you go in tough conditions.

Next time you get a negative thought, will you let it control and eventually erode your performance or will you take control and seize the opportunity it presents?

Cheers.

Mark