Every day all of us engage in an internal monologue commonly referred to as self- talk. It has been established that we carry on a dialog of between 150-300 words a minute and up to 66,000 thoughts a day. Most of these dialogs are neutral in nature such as reminding ourselves of a chore that needs to be done or planning the evening menu. But the words we use in self-talk have a tremendous power over our minds and thereby as athletes over our athletic performance. If your self-talk about a situation is accurate you will probably do quite well. But if your-self talk is exaggerated or irrational your performance will most likely be negatively affected.

In sports, we often use self-talk in the form of positive affirmations. An affirmation is a pre-planned statement of fact or an aspiration that has the potential of being true. Mentally repeated several times to ourselves in challenging conditions or to boost our confidence and performance, they are powerful short phrases that help keep us focused and centered.

If you are saying negative words or thoughts to yourself in training either before or during a race, you may be sabotaging your potential. Whereas saying positive affirmations may bring about a more successful experience.

It has been said that it's not who we are that holds us back, it's who we think we're not. Every time you tell yourself that you cannot do something or you repeat to yourself a limiting statement, you are reinforcing that belief. The words that we say to ourselves become our beliefs and then our beliefs become our reality. If you want to improve any aspect of your athletic performance, it is important that you tell yourself the words that you want to be true. If you are saying words to yourself like, "I can't run in the heat", or "I'm not a good swimmer", you are giving suggestions to your mind and body to practice and rehearse failure in these areas.

If you want to run strong in the heat you must tell your self that you are a strong runner in all weather conditions. Or if your goal is to be a strong swimmer you might tell yourself that you are getting stronger everyday and your technique is getting better and better. Your thoughts are words and messages to your brain. The famous motivational speaker, Earl Nightingale said, "you become what you think about most of the time". So we need to be careful of the thoughts we allow to rummage around in our head.

Dr. JoAnn Dahlkoetter refers to these inner voices as being either our negative critic or our positive coach. These two voices are like the Devil and Angel sitting on our opposite shoulders. Your negative critic is pointing out your weaknesses and making everything look dire. "Oh you know you're a rotten swimmer. You never swim straight…you are going to have a tough time in this race." Your Positive coach is telling you, "You are in great shape. You have trained hard and you are ready to race. You can do it!"

Sometimes when I start thinking I can't do something, I check myself and say, "Oh, yes you can!" My positive coach is arguing with my negative critic and (hopefully) winning. Don't listen to that negative critic that can always find fault and make you feel like a loser. Listen instead to your positive coach who is there to help you succeed. When we talk to ourselves using negative thoughts and words we are reinforcing that negative critic. On the other hand, positive self-talk is your positive coach supporting you and preparing you to have a successful race.

Positive self-talk is a powerful tool that professional and elite athletes use to bring about improvement and good performances. But you don't need to be an elite athlete in order to learn how to use self- talk effectively in controlling your own performance. By using self-talk you can calm a situation that may appear to be stressful. You can use it to encourage yourself during challenging parts of the race such as a steep hill, or to focus on specific elements of your technique such as relaxing your shoulders when you are tired on the run. Various conditions in competition themselves are not stressful; it's how we choose to interpret them that determine whether or not they are stressful. The mind and body are so closely related that we can, through our thoughts, create either negative or positive responses in our body.

In long distance events like the Ironman, the athlete goes through many mood swings. One minute you are flying down the hill from Hawi thinking, "this is great" and the next minute you are battling the hot winds again wondering why you ever entered this stupid race in the first place. Successful athletes have become masters of handling these mood swings by engaging in positive self-talk.

Here are a few rules to follow in creating your own affirmations.

1) It must be stated positively. For example: Rather than saying, "I'm not going to get nervous before the swim this time, say instead, "I am relaxed and ready to race." If you tell yourself, "Oh, I hope I don't swim off course again", that is most likely exactly what you will do. Telling yourself that you have learned the skill of sighting and that swimming a straight line is no problem would be a more positive statement.

2) Make your statement precise. " I run a 7:50 min/mile pace in the 10 K." Saying that you hope to break 8 min, or that you want to do better than last time is too vague.

3) State your affirmation in the present. Instead of saying, " I am going to be the winner of my age group this weekend., say, " I am the winner of the women's 35-39 Age Group. The mind cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a real one so state your affirmation as if it has already happened. Speaking in the future makes your mind believe that it is not yet happening, or that it may happen sometime in the future.

4) Keep the affirmation short so that it is easy to remember.

5) Use mood words such as excited, love: "I always get excited before a race." Or "I love swimming in open water."

6) Speak kindly to yourself. For example: Instead of saying, "you stupid idiot, stop doing these things to yourself", say "just calm down. You are going to be okay".

7) Repeat phrases often. Like any other skill, the more you practice self-talk the better you will become.

No matter how badly you feel during a race or how challenging the circumstances, you can lessen the impact with positive self-talk. Henry Ford said, "whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."

Never underestimate the power of the mind.

Bobbie Williams is a Triathlon Academy Coach and long time Triathlete. For more information about Bobbie, click on the link found below.

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