Change The Narrative: Mental Fitness For Athletes

Welcome to Change in Narrative, Mental Fitness for Athletes. I'm Dr. Shari Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner, and mental fitness coach. And we are here to help you focus on moving from good to great, understanding that as an athlete you are still human and how important it is for you to understand the balance and the significance of your mind, muscle, and your mentality. Today I want to focus on a quick hack that can help support you in experiencing success because that is what it is all about.

One of the first things that I want to remind you of is that your brain, to my favorite object that you will continue to see, is wired for success. It loves to experience and feel success. And one of the ways that you can help support your brain in being successful is to watch yourself succeed. Stay with me for a moment. I want you to create a highlight reel of yourself. I want you to think about moments, whether that's pictures, whether that's videos , or even you sitting in front of the camera and speaking into the camera to yourself moments of past success.

Here is why that is so crucial for you. When you watch it daily, so that's the two-part goal. Goal number one is to create the highlight reel. This is not the highlight reel that you need in order to put on social media. It's not about getting likes or having other people validate who you are. It's your way to change the narrative of watching film or watching yourself or speaking to yourself and move it towards watching yourself succeed every single day. In essence, it's like pre-setting your mindset.

It's waking up and you reminding yourself of what you're capable of doing. When you do that, here's what happens in your brain. All of that amazing dopamine, which is a happy neurotransmitter, floods into your brain, activating the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is where you want to be. It's our highest executive center. It's where you're going to experience then increased confidence, increased motivation, increased attention and focus. So it is like soul food for your brain when you institute success.

When we often analyze ourselves, watch film, look at pictures. We're often doing it to pick ourselves apart. We're looking at where we did things wrong and we're wiring that into our brain. Now I'm not saying that that's not a helpful practice. It is important and it is extremely helpful to make sure that we do things in a manner that helps us look at where we can improve. But the counterbalance to that that we don't get enough is watching ourselves succeed. So coming right out the gate, you have some homework and I want you to put together a compilation of things that you've done.

You might need to start to write it first. It might need to take you some time. It might even be something that you find uncomfortable. I also find that a lot of elite individuals that are working to be physically well and mentally well do a really great job getting on themselves and picking apart what they're not doing well but really struggle to actually take in a compliment. But your brain, your health, your mind, muscle needs to experience success. This is something that shouldn't take you a lot of time but is so important.

So I'm going to keep it sweet. I'm going to keep it short. We'll continue to come back on a regular basis. sharice_j or an IG. com and we will go from there. But until we meet again, make sure that you are being intentional about activating your mind muscle. Good morning, good afternoon, good night to those who are watching it later and I will see you soon.