Effective coaching puts players and teams in the best position to succeed. Talent, skill development, and integrated offense and defense are obvious success components. But coaches are salespeople and psychologists.
Positive self-talk has support as "you can only be as good as you believe you are." But there is evidence that "interrogative self-talk" is superior to positive self-talk.
What is interrogative self-talk? It means asking ourselves questions, often in two parts:
- "Will I do this?"
- "How will I do this?"
Researchers presented test subjects with anagrams (e.g. words that could be rearranged) and measured solutions after various phrases including the interrogative "Will I?"
They found similar results on exercise (intention and action) by asking "will I" exercise versus "I will."
Author Dan Pink, an expert on motivation, explained the difference between affirmation and interrogative self-talk.
What's the point? Instead of telling a player/team, "You got this," experiments suggest that asking "will you do this" or "will you meet the challenge" has more psychological power.
In a peculiar pre-game ritual for 7th grade girls, I used this interrogatory from Kingsman. I never recommended the film or even gave the source.
If we want more, maybe how we ask for more matters.
Lagniappe: Not enough young players master the glass.