United States Eventing Association

Walk into a dark room without any light, and you’ll probably trip over any number of things that can hurt you, simply because you can’t see them. Turn the lights on, however, and you’ll be able to easily avoid all those things that previously tripped you up.

Mental coaching works in much the same way, but instead of using awareness to avoid tripping over things like tables and chairs, we use it to avoid tripping over things like fears and feelings of failures. When we turn on the lights mentally, we shine a light on all those emotional challenges, and when that light illuminates them, we’re able avoid tripping over them by simply steering around them.

As you’ve probably already guessed, the key to this concept is mental-awareness, or more specifically something called meta-awareness (being aware of being aware). It’s not just becoming aware of the many things that can trip us up, but becoming aware of why they’re there in the first place and how we can better interpret them. Obviously our risk of getting hurt would be much lower if we only walked into dark rooms that were completely empty, but that won’t always be the case. In fact, tables and chairs and fears and failures will be part of most every room we ever walk into, but if we can expand our awareness to understanding why they’re there in the first place, and no longer take it personally when we trip over them, then we can remove much of the pain they previously cause us.

One way I like to create this kind of kind of meta-awareness is to use science based facts to help us understand why fears and failures impact us so much. One of the best examples of this is something called the spectator effect: We ride comfortably and confidently when alone, but as soon as someone begins watching us, tiny alarms begin sounding in our heads and hearts causing us to feel anxious or afraid. We all know what I'm talking about because we’ve all felt it before. In fact it’s a universal human condition, meaning every human on the planet has felt it at one time or another (nope, it’s not just you!). It can happen to a youngster preparing to give a presentation in front of her school or an oldster preparing to school in front of a class, and here’s the science based facts behind why it’s happening:

Back in the caveman and cavewoman days, being watched often felt like a matter of life and death because those eyes we’re often preparing to attack and/or eat us! As a result, the human nervous system became exceptionally sensitive to situations in which others were watching, evaluating, and judging us. Fast forward to today when even though our modern lives are safe and non-threatening (no sabertooth tigers here) our nervous systems still haven’t evolved the way we expected them too, meaning that the fear we feel while schooling or showing in front of spectators is actually caused by the 200,000 year-old threat response to being watched, evaluated, and judged!

Enter the spectator effect. It triggers the same 200,000 year-old alarm in our nerves system and the resulting fight, flight, or freeze response makes us tense and tight (to fight the imaginary sabertooth tigers that’s not even there!). Even though our modern situation is psychologically safe, our ancient circuitry still interprets it as a threatening. Our heart-rate speeds up, breathing changes, palms sweat, muscles tense, and attention narrows. Our brains become super focused, and not just on the ride, but on how we’re being perceived while performing that ride.

Unfortunately this kind of self-monitoring consumes many of the mental resources we need for the ride itself, so our performance suffers. It’s almost as if our ancient survival system hijacks our focus as a rider and competitor and turns the spectators into judges and juries. The irony is that the more desperately we try not to look nervous, the more attention we devote to monitoring our nervousness.

But here’s the good news. If we can remind ourselves that sabertooth tigers no long exist, and that what we’re actually feeling is just a miss firing/wiring problem between the past and present, we can escape much of the pain that fears can cause us. We can take that fear less personally and learn to step-by-step disconnect ourselves from it. After all, it’s not really our fault—it’s our caveman or cavewoman fault!

Reminding ourselves of this kind of fact-based science is exactly what I spoke about earlier when I talked about tuning the lights on. The science becomes the light that helps us to steer around all those things that previously hurt us!

So the next time you feel a little show-jitters starting, just repeat to yourself, “I know you’re trying to protect me but there aren’t any tigers here. This is just a ride. I’m ready and capable and excited!”

I hope you enjoyed this month's Pressure Proof tip. If you’re a trainer and enjoy the concept of mental coaching please consider taking my instructor certificate course this fall. It'll be taking place during the Thanksgiving break and in the norther Virginia area. Stay tuned for more details or email me at [email protected]!