Unlock Your Greatness

I felt like I HAMMERED coaches last week with my blog on the power of their beliefs when it comes to their athletes. Check it out here. I think being honest is kind! And if I think something will unlock your greatness, I’m going to tell you. So hopefully all who were called out by it have returned to me. Now we need to look at how your beliefs impact YOURSELF. This is another wild one. I’m telling you, your mindset is central to your journey in life. Your beliefs about yourself and your abilities profoundly impact your actions and then in turn, your achievements. Recognizing and overcoming limiting beliefs is essential not only for personal growth, but for the benefit of those around you.  

The Power of Thought

I feel the need to back up a bit and talk through the power of thoughts. Your thoughts are not just little bubbles floating through the air that pop once you’re done with them. They shape the structure of your brain and impact your overall health. Let me say that again, THEY SHAPE THE STRUCTURE OF YOUR BRAIN. That gray mass between your ears? It changes when you say things like, “I can totally do this” or when you say, “I’m just not good at math.” Jesus’s apostle Paul understood the power of thoughts when he said, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Is what you’re thinking a beneficial thought? Does it help you be the person you want to be? Hold it captive, and adjust it into something else that will bring you growth. “I’m not good at math” turns into, “I am struggling with this concept.” Think even about the word change between “can’t” and “struggle”. I tell athletes all the time that “can’t” is a period where “struggle” is a comma. Struggle lends itself to asking for help, to finding a different way, to fighting through adversity. The word “can’t” is for someone that is already defeated. This is firing me up for you!! Anyone else feel the room heating up?!  

The Brain-Body Connection

When you don’t believe you are capable of a task, your brain undergoes specific patterns of activity that can hinder your performance and limit your potential. Here’s a breakdown of the brain science behind this phenomenon:

1. Activation of the Limbic System

• Amygdala: The amygdala, part of the brain’s limbic system responsible for emotional processing, becomes active. It plays a crucial role in fear responses and emotional memories. The amygdala acts as a threat detection system that is constantly scanning for things that could be potential dangers to us.

• Fear Response: When you don’t think you are capable of a task, your amygdala will shut down power to critical thinking so it can keep you safe from the threat. Believing you cannot succeed at a task can trigger fear or anxiety responses handled by the amygdala. This can lead to avoidance behaviors or a heightened stress response, which can impair cognitive functions. 

2. Impact on Cognitive Functions

• Working Memory: Negative beliefs can occupy your working memory, which is essential for holding and manipulating information during tasks. This reduces the brain power available for problem-solving and execution.

• Attentional Focus: Negative beliefs can shift your attention towards potential threats (such as failure or embarrassment), diverting focus from the task at hand.

3. Neural Pathways and Plasticity

• Confirmation Bias: The brain tends to seek out evidence that confirms existing beliefs. If you believe you are incapable, your brain may selectively attend to information that supports this belief, further reinforcing it. This supports the view of Henry Ford when he said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right”.

• Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself and form new neural connections (neuroplasticity) means that prolonged negative beliefs can shape neural pathways that keep self-doubt going and limit future performance.

4. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

• Behavioral Confirmation: Believing you cannot succeed can lead to behaviors that align with this belief. For example, avoiding challenges or not putting in full effort.

• Performance Effects: These behaviors can lead to actual performance outcomes that confirm the initial belief, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5. Impact on Motivation

• Motivational Decrease: Negative beliefs about capability can decrease motivation to engage in tasks perceived as challenging or risky.

• Dopaminergic Systems: Believing in your capabilities is associated with increased dopamine release in reward pathways. Conversely, doubting yourself can diminish dopamine release, affecting motivation and enjoyment of tasks.

6. Psychological Factors

• Stress and Cortisol: Negative beliefs can increase stress levels, leading to elevated cortisol levels. Chronic stress and high cortisol can impair cognitive function and decision-making.

• Emotional Regulation: Difficulty in regulating emotions related to self-doubt can further impair performance under pressure.

7. Physical Factors

• Increased sweating: Have you ever been pulled over and immediately started sweating or is that just me? This kind of “clammy hands” or even a red face is due to fluctuations in blood pressure due to stress.

• Tenseness in Body: I can’t think of a single athletic thing that is done better tensed up. Please let me know if you can, because I say that all over the country! Your body tenses up under stress because it feels the need to protect itself.

Overcoming these limiting beliefs is not just a cute way to think better. The brain’s response to believing you are not capable of a task involves a complex interplay of emotional, cognitive, and neurobiological factors. These processes highlight the importance of addressing and reshaping limiting beliefs to enhance performance and unlock your full potential. Addressing these beliefs changes everything.

Impact on Coaching Effectiveness

Let’s look at how these limiting beliefs look specifically in coaches. Your beliefs influence not only your coaching strategies, but also how you perceive and support your athletes. If you believe you are incapable of implementing new training methods or adapting strategies, it limits the innovation you can bring to your coaching. I was a middle hitter almost my entire volleyball career. For me that meant I didn’t play defense (unless I didn’t go for a block, and in that case I was faking it anyway), I didn’t serve in a game, and I didn’t set. That formula makes for a pretty one-dimensional athlete. So when I started coaching volleyball, I had to learn so much about how the game was played.  I allowed my ignorance to fuel my growth. I asked a billion questions of those I was around, I studied, I got better. I believed in my ability to learn despite my lack of experience. I really believe that the simple belief of “I didn’t know enough yet” pushed me to be a great coach. Remember, hard work is a multiplier of talent. I didn’t innately know how to do things, but I worked really hard to learn them!

Change Through Personal Reflection

I’m going to get a little real here. Stay with me. Sometimes these beliefs are subconscious assumptions or perceptions. So we don’t even realize our beliefs are holding us back. “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do that because…”, can come from childhood or could have been developed through personal experiences. You may believe a certain way because it was true at one time. The brain is a giant predictor machine. One of my favorite ways to demonstrate this is to read teams a book called “Chester van Chime Who Forgot How to Rhyme” by Avery Monsen. Poor Chester has woken up and has forgotten how to rhyme! The book sets you up with Chester’s problem and then goes on to be wildly frustrating. It says (I recommend you read this outloud now!), “It baffled poor Chester. He almost felt queasy. To match up two sounds, it was always so…simple. See Chester loved rhyming, in poem and song. It always felt right, but today it felt…..not right. Very not right”. Your brain is filling in these rhymes as they are normally said, and it’s like nails on a chalkboard to have our predictions thrown off! 

Your brain does the same things with your situations. Someone gives you a look, and your brain is predicting that look’s meaning based on a past experience. This is helpful, until it’s not. It is so important that you challenge certain assumptions that your brain creates. This thinking about your thinking (or metacognition) allows you to take captive those thought patterns and begin to adjust them. Neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt, shows that we are not victims of our biology or circumstances. Through conscious effort and practice, we can change our thinking patterns, heal from past traumas, and build a healthier, more fulfilling life. Your intentional effort can shape how you perceive challenges and opportunities in your coaching career. As coaches, identifying and addressing these beliefs within ourselves is crucial before we can effectively guide our athletes through their own mental obstacles.

Reflecting on our own beliefs and experiences is the first step towards fostering change in ourselves and our athletes. Consider the childhood messages or societal norms that may have shaped your beliefs about coaching or athletic potential. Were there moments when you felt restricted by self-doubt or fear of failure? By acknowledging these experiences, you can begin to dismantle limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering truths.

Embracing Growth and Resilience

One of the most powerful tools in overcoming limiting beliefs is resilience—the ability to bounce back from setbacks and challenges stronger than before. Take inspiration from athletes like Lora Webster, whose determination and faith propelled her to Paralympic gold despite physical adversity. Her story teaches us that with perseverance and a belief in our abilities, we can defy expectations and achieve greatness.

Practical Steps for Coaches and Athletes

1. Identify YOUR Limiting Beliefs: Have an honest conversation with someone you trust about your personal/professional goals and what perceived obstacles exist.

2. Work Through Athlete’s Limiting Beliefs: Encourage open dialogue with your athletes about their goals and perceived obstacles. Allow them to feel the feels, and then hold a brainstorming session where you create a path for them to achieve what they want.

3. Challenge Assumptions: Help athletes question beliefs that may be holding them back from reaching their full potential. Often these are assumptions of what other people are thinking about them. Teaching them to challenge assumptions is a major life skill.

4. Provide Support: Foster a culture of encouragement and constructive feedback where athletes feel safe to take risks and learn from mistakes.

5. Lead by Example: Continuously challenge and evolve your own beliefs as a coach, demonstrating a growth mindset in your coaching practice. Share this with them and you will often earn trust and reciprocated vulnerability that leads to a deeper connection.

Conclusion

As coaches committed to the development and success of our athletes, addressing and overcoming limiting beliefs is not just a professional duty but imperative to a higher quality of life. By cultivating a mindset of growth, resilience, and faith in our abilities, we empower ourselves and our athletes to rise above perceived limitations and achieve greatness. By challenging our beliefs, we pave the way for extraordinary achievements both on and off the court.

Together, let’s inspire a generation of athletes who believe in their potential and coaches who lead with unwavering faith and determination.

One of the ways you can do that is to truly invest in your team’s chemistry. It is so much easier to break into limiting beliefs when there is a sense of belonging and a sense of safety within the team. Check out my Team Building free resource to start that process today!