Have you ever tried to brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand? Or tie your shoelace with a different method? Maybe your favourite seat was taken at your local park, church or café table and you had to sit somewhere else. When you had something interrupt your routine, how did it feel? Uncomfortable? Unpleasant? Maybe a bit ‘cheesed’ that your view at this new seat wasn’t as good?
We know that structure, routine and predictable outcomes give us a sense of peace and ease. Our brain rewards us with a small dose of dopamine to encourage us to do that familiar behaviour, thought or feeling again. Even when it comes to mindless tasks like brushing our teeth! When these routines are interrupted, our brain doesn’t release those chemicals as readily and we feel an absence of that ‘good’ feeling.
The smallest change in our daily routine can impact us. Can you imagine how a larger, uncontrollable change may really throw us off? Did someone say ‘COVID-19’?
Our natural response to change is to try to control or avoid it. Change is inevitable and we cannot guarantee every outcome of each uncomfortable obstacle we face. To develop a positive relationship with change, we cease trying to eliminate or ‘fix’ change, and instead learn to control our response to it.
What does this have to do with self-talk? When we fail, our self-talk guides the meaning we place on the changes around us. For example, on dropping my morning coffee, I’ve caught myself thinking “Ugh, idiot!” This reveals my deeper belief that athletic and coordinated people never drop the ball… I mean coffee. When I’m not in a rush, I can remember that dropping my coffee has nothing to do with my identity or my performance in the next staff vs student cricket game. Sometimes, this is not so easy.
Negative self-talk can highlight where our fear is. By catching it, we can question its validity and adopt new, more helpful ways of speaking to ourselves. This process actually changes our brain structure! (Kyeong et al., 2020) This is not something we need to do alone. Parents, peers and coaches all help construct our psychological environment (O’Rourke et al., 2014). One study showed that coaches can create a motivational climate that actually influences athlete’s self talk and self-efficacy in their sport! (Zourbanos et al., 2016).
Here at Avondale School, we provide the opportunity to experience and learn through ‘safe’ failure. Maybe your science experiment didn’t work as planned, or a tricky question popped up in the exam or your artwork looked different to what was envisioned. By being surrounded by a community of people speaking positively during unexpected events and even failure, we learn a new narrative about ourselves. We learn to narrate the story: “I am accepted and loved for who I am, not for what I do.”
I once asked an art teacher while she was sketching, “Are you going to erase the leftover traces and errors when you are finished?”
She chuckled and responded with a cheeky smile, “It’s called a drawing, not an erasing.”
We don’t choose the imperfections, the spilt coffee and the squiggly lines that guide our personal growth. We can choose to practise our self-talk. We can choose to listen to what God thinks about us:
“How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!” Psalm 139:17-18 (NLT)
Mr Fraser Howard
School Counsellor
References
Kyeong, S., Kim, J., Kim, J., Kim, E. J., Hesun, E. K., & Jae-Jin, K. (2020). Differences in the modulation of functional connectivity by self-talk tasks between people with low and high life satisfaction. NeuroImage, 217 doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.une.edu.au/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116929
O’Rourke, D.J., Smith, R.E., Smoll, F.L., & Cumming, S.P. (2014). Relations of parent and coach-initiated motivational climates to young athletes’ self-esteem, performance anxiety, and autonomous motivation: Who is more influential? Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26, 395–408. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.une.edu.au/10.1080/10413200.2014.907838
Zourbanos, N., Haznadar, A., Papaioannou, A., Tzioumakis, Y., Krommidas, C., & Hatzigeorgiadis, A. (2016). The Relationships Between Athletes’ Perceptions of Coach-Created Motivational Climate, Self-Talk, and Self-Efficacy in Youth Soccer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 28(1), 97-112. doi:10.1080/10413200.2015.1074630
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