More on the mental aspect of goaltending.
From Absoulte Mental training
http://www.absolutementaltraining.com/
Low Confidence and Self-Doubt: The Performance Killers
By Shaun Smith – Absolute Mental Training
What would you say if I was to tell you that confidence is the most important aspect, physical, technical or mental, for a goalie attempting to develop a consistent, championship mindset? Don’t believe me? Look at every goalie that is successful at the NHL level both past and present and you will soon develop a long list of goalies who believed in themselves almost to the point of being cocky.
From Patrick Roy’s “I can’t hear you I have too many rings in my ears” to the calm and collective demeanour of the likes of Martin Brodeur, goalies at the NHL level are confident and believe that on any given night they can stop anybody. Finally, who can forget the image of Carey Price from last season where he could not even look at the cameras as he tried to explain his declining performance?
Price was visibly frustrated and a goalie who was one year removed from winning the Calder Cup and being compared to Patrick Roy was struggling to just complete an entire game without being pulled. There are examples of how much of an impact confidence can have on an athlete every day, all over the media.
So why is it that confidence has such a huge impact on athletes at all levels? One reason is that every movement we make as a goaltender must first be processed by our brain before the signal is sent to our muscles. With pucks coming at goalies at over a 100 mph goalies must make quick reactions with little or no thought. The chain of reaction starts with the goalie reading the puck off of the stick heading to their glove side. The eyes send a signal to the brain which quickly tells the muscles of the goaltender to extend the glove to make the save. This is what happens when a goalie is full of confidence but unfortunately this is not the case when a goalie is lacking in confidence. Goalies with low confidence often are overcome with self-doubt which leads to what I call a noisy mind. By ‘noisy mind’ I mean a mind where there is so much mental chatter going on in the athletes head that they are not able to play at their peak performance. That glove save that used to just happen is often delayed because the mind now has to interrupt the self-talk which is going on in the goalies head to tell them to move their glove out.
One of the keys to playing with confidence is the ability to defend yourself from self-doubt. Self-doubt is what often deteriorates confidence and often athletes who are low in confidence have replaced their minds with self-doubt in the absence of confidence. Pessimistic, perfectionist and over-motivated athletes tend to hold too tightly to doubts, which if unchecked, can ruin an athlete’s mindset and derail performance.
The problem for many athletes is that in the moment they are unable to identify the self-doubt that they are currently experiencing. Their self-doubt has slowly crept into their performance and is now a silent killer. Many athletes will even start doubting themselves before they even start the competition or make an error. Others will feel confident and ready to play, again Price made mention that he felt ready to play before every game last year, but after making a mistake or performing poorly in competition he would become overwhelmed with self-doubt about his ability to play.
An example of this is a shot that the goalie misses ringing off of the post. Normally goalies would blow this off or think ‘I had the angle and made them hit the post.’ A goalie that is experiencing self-doubt will worry about whether they can stop the next puck because that one almost beat them! After one bad goal or one close encounter early in the game, many goaltenders, especially young goaltenders (Price, etc) begin to doubt their ability to stop the puck at their current level. This feeling of self-doubt will then remain with the goaltender for the rest of the day and makes it virtually impossible to regain control of the game and perform well.
The first step in overcoming self-doubt is to become aware of the thoughts or feelings that deteriorate confidence. Be aware that self-doubt is often very subtle and disguises itself in the form of questions, such as “Can I perform as well as I have been performing in practice?” Learn what questions or self-talk statements your mind will use as each athlete’s self-doubt is unique to the individual. Your first task is to identify your self-doubts, both direct and subtle, so that you can defend against the negative effects of self-doubt.
Once you recognize the triggers that are causing self-doubt, the next step is to counter the self-doubts by encouraging thoughts that will lead to better outcomes. To begin select one or two self-doubts that you are experiencing when your performance is not going well or after you’ve made a mistake. Now that you have identified a self-doubt such as “I’m really fighting the puck today” the next step is to counter-act or refute the self-doubt statement with something such as “Missing an early save does not mean I will continue to miss. My changes are only getting better; I will stop the next one.” You must learn to identify and cut off your self-doubts and think in a way that leads to confidence.
Although confidence and self-doubt may be a bad mix you too can learn how to think like a champion!
Shaun Smith has been an athlete and a coach for many years and competed in many sports growing up, including hockey, baseball, basketball, golf, lacrosse, soccer and curling. It was while playing sports at a competitive level that Smith first experienced the dramatic effects of the mental game on overall performance.
Throughout high school and college, Smith experienced both the joys of winning and the lessons from failure when you are expected to win. Shaun went on to study and research exactly how the brain affects physical performance and how a personalized program could have positive effects on athletes. With the knowledge needed to build champions, Smith dedicated his mental foresight to helping coaches, trainers, parents and every athlete, whether junior, amateur or beginner, to excel in his or her sport.
Shaun has done this by creating a evaluation program that tailors each aspect to the individual athlete. Today, Shaun is the president and founder of Absolute Mental Training and has consulted with many high profile teams and athletes.
Shaun is pleased to join forces with The Goalie Guild in order to share a unique and fresh perspective of the mental aspect of goaltending. We hope this blog will expand your understanding of the game as we provide you with a fresh and unique perspective of mental training. Feel free to leave any comments or questions for Shaun so that he may better help YOU become a master of the mental game!
The best goalies in the business enjoy every minute on the ice. - S. St Laurent