To: Me
Can we have a heart-to-heart?
I’ve been watching you for a while now. In many ways I’m your biggest fan–remember when we reached Gold for the first time? That was pretty cool. Too bad you’re hardstuck now. Lol, get gud.
Sincerely,
Me.
The way we speak to ourselves often intensely contrasts how we speak to others and how we allow others to speak to us. There are many reasons as to why we are often our own worst critics, and they are oftentimes linked to our personal wellness and environment (past and present).
Practicing positive self-talk is easier said than done; thankfully, you’ll improve with practice. Not sure where to start? Don’t worry–I’ve got you covered.
THE ADAMAS APPROACH TO POSITIVE SELF-TALK
- Make an effort to notice when you’re feeling tilted. If all of this is new to you, take things slow: can you catch yourself speaking negatively internally? Smaller, easy-to-ignore thoughts of “ugh, I’m so dumb” after making mistakes are commonplace in competitive gaming. Start to correct yourself, and even vocalize your thoughts out loud if it helps! Example: “no, you’re not dumb, you just made a mistake.”
- Focus on your role in-game and remind yourself of what is in your control. Oftentimes there are in-game factors outside of your control, whether it be frustrating teammates or mechanical RNG elements in your chosen title. Take a deep breath, and focus on what you’re looking to achieve during your session.
- Try speaking to yourself in 2nd person when doing self-talk. It’s important to remember that you are not your thoughts–addressing yourself this way can help you do that. For example, tell yourself “you can do this” instead of “I can do this” and experiment to see what works for you!
- Remind yourself of your strengths rather than focusing purely on mistakes or weaknesses in your play. Consider how you would speak to a struggling teammate, and practice speaking to yourself the same way. We are often kinder to others than we are to ourselves.
OUTSIDE OF THE MATCH...
Fortunately, there are a multitude of effective practices to ensure you’re emotionally primed to perform. Beyond general health & wellness tips (which play a large role in your ability to emotionally regulate during a match), we suggest preparing a gameplan or specific focus before your session. What this means is that instead of focusing purely on wins/losses, you can center yourself and refocus on your goal; for example, if you’re playing a shooter, you might be focusing on improving your positioning rather than simply winning the match.
Finally, we’d be remiss not to encourage you to take breaks during gaming sessions. Breaks are essential to keeping a cool head, and are an opportune time to get some physical movement in. Try taking shorter stretch breaks between matches, or breaking your session in half with a walk outside.
We hope you find these useful and easy-to-implement! Once you get the hang of this, you can officially call yourself a (pseudo) performance coach. Report back with how it goes for you–we trust you’ll reap some awesome benefits.
