Last week (well in 2018 actually) I wrote a blog on motivation. While I could of written a lot. I wanted to break it down to be something relevant for people interested in ProFormance. But I think as you write these things, other areas spring to your mind, and the strongest word that came up surrounding motivation was perception. Probably my most over used word, and the phrase I have used more than any in the last two years, ‘everything is about perception’.
A basic quote or definition of what perception is, is the ability to see, hear of become aware of something through your senses. But quite simply your perception is what affects how you see the world. Your perception will set in place your morals and values.
Your brain will construct ‘your’ reality from you sensory organs (eyes, nose, ears) and devise your reality from the context and your previous experiences.
The context is normally the cause of an illusion and is very hard to overcome. The previous experience fills in the gaps with whatever it thinks is real. To use a recent example;
This dress provided viral internet content with a debate of whether it was gold and white or black and blue.
Also this one tricked your ears, Yanny-v-Laurel also went viral.
Your brain is filling in the gaps and even when you know, you still don’t ‘know’. This can be known as ‘listening fidelity’. There is a gap between perception and reality and it is helpful to fully be aware that you often fill in this gap with a guess.
Take a look at this video.
Your brain is processing the information at a slower rate that the video is moving, so is what you are seeing reality?
When you believe your story is the truth, the danger is that your perception will urge you to fight reality. But what happens with the revelation that you got it wrong?!?
In a similar way, this can be seen in how people interpret feedback. You can watch a game and a player can think they have played fantastically well. A child might say, I was great, I had 10 shots, and in reality they may not have had 1, but if they received positive feedback, this is what they will refer to. Is your glass half full? Hopefully our children’s mindset can always be half full, but we are natural wired to think in the negative side. This negative bias comes from our ancestors who had to pay attention to bad experiences to stay alive!
Most of us want our child to be happy, yet a lot of people spend their time in football focusing on negative feedback. Ignoring the ‘…. is excellent with his passing and is a valued member of the group’ and focusing on the ‘….. needs to work on his decision making out of possession’. Just yesterdays, one man on the sideline of the grassroots game I was watching said ‘Great tackle, get stuck in ….., don’t listen to the ref’. That is some screwed perception of how children learn.
I see a lot of negative self talk from players – ‘please don’t pick me’ – when a coach is asking for a player to do a demo of a skill. A classic ‘The opponent is too big’ which often comes from the parent – ‘he ain’t the right age’ – my response is ‘SO!’. Lets play and learn.
Mohammed Alli was the ultimate in positive self talk ‘I am the greatest’. The perception he had, seemingly came true, and 40 years on since Alli’s last win in the ring, we often still see his face in our minds when some utters the phrase ‘I am the greatest’. Our perception, Alli’s strong positive statements, is our reality.
Our brains also believe the imaginary is real. When you jump in a dream, the imaginary is tricking your brain to see this as real. This can also be the power of visualisation. We encourage players to take time to think about their training and matches, visualise winning, scoring, making the perfect pass. To use visualisation to trick the brain to think these successes are real, so that when we find ourselves on the pitch, we are confident to score a penalty or play the perfect pass.
Those things that already exist in your head are much easier to believe in.
ProFormance issued a form this season, and still some people have not filled it in, or filled the form in but not completed it. Their perception must be that this has no relevance to their development? But we sit and look at the forms and wonder why people who join the ProFormance programme don’t fill in that form?
We often see players in the pre academy ages travelling around from club to club and say ‘this is so tiring’. So why do it? When you are at a top cat 1 club, thats club fits your child in terms of their training philosophy, your child is happy, training 2-3 times a week, why are you rushing on the other days to be seen at other clubs? Social acceptance? Because everyone else is doing it? Even when advice from experience people is that this doesn’t need to be done, your perception is tricking you to do all this extra, unnecessary work.
I also had a conversation with a parent about which club to choose. The parent has the two top clubs offering their child. The parent was telling me how one club takes 5 hours per training day (travel time both ways and training). The distance for the other club wasn’t mentioned. When I replay the conversation I think it’s clear that the club who’s distance is not mentioned has spent so long talking about the negative of the other club, that the parents perception has been altered.
The truth, is that one club is 5 hours per training day (in general on the worst days) and the other is 4 hours (on the best days, with no traffic). Both clubs by Premier League rules must train three times a week and so this equals 3 hours per week. This is less than 1.8% of a persons week. When everything else is perfect at the club who is perceived to be further away, would this 1.8% be the decided factor?
You would hope not considering the benefits of developing in the happiest, safest, more productive environment.
What I have grown to understand is that everyone has their own perspective. That is too obvious a statement to make. But do you practice by that statement? Because I think it’s important for me to understand that the way, you and I see things are different. Ultimately in many cases we will both be right!
To help challenge your perceptions, listen to science (they are facts) and where possible use technology to help overcome the limitations of your body.
In the pursuit of set of skills set short term and long term goals. For example become faster over 5m (measurable), this will make you happier over the time you are trying to achieve your long term goal, for example, to be a signed player.
Understand that we are all different and move forward in a positive way. If something doesn’t make sense, doesn’t match your beliefs, challenge your perception.
Extreme cases, such as the way we see ourselves, can lead us down a bad road, it’s important we understand perception and how we can change the way we see things. To change or challenge your perception, take a different view;
Set goals (start small)
Visualise yourself achieving your goals
Focus on all the god things, and almost ignore the bad
Be empathetic and use experience to guide your reality
Remember ‘Your perception is your reality’
The most important moment in reaching your goals is the next one.