The Doctor is already thinking about to give the assault at the 10th world title of his extraordinary career. “It’s been a very good season because I was able to greatly improve my speed and results. If we compare them to last year are very important, because I have to decide whether to continue or stop – Rossi said during the press conference of presentation of the Valencia GP -. I enjoyed it a lot, I had very good races and had some good tussle and we got to this final round in Valencia where we will fight with Jorge for the second place in the championship, which it’s not the first, but it is always important. I have to concentrate on the weekend and the race, trying to be competitive even if it’s a track where I met some problems.” The think, however, goes to the next season and Rossi makes no secret of his ambitions: “The title? I think that next year will not be impossible.”
Monthly Archive for November, 2014
Page 3 of 3
Rethinking Positive Thinking
Inside the New Science of Motivation
Gabriele Oettingen
Current – Penguin Group, 2014, p.219
In my job as mental coach, I often find myself in the situation where the athletes said: “My performance was great, all was going very well, than suddenly I did a mistake, I do not know the reason, I did the same things done just at that moment. I was not mentally ready to cope with an error, beacuse I was so well prepared. Since that moment the quality of my performance started to decrease and I lose myself and the competition.” This event is possible and fequent because often the athletes are too optimistics about them. They think: “I’m fit, with a strong and right preparation. I’m mentally tough, What could it happen to me? Nothing!” A tennis player lose a match after she was 3-0 and 40-0 for her, she lose this game and the set for 3-6. It’s possible she started to be too positive “I will win” and she was not prepared to cope with difficulties. The book by Gabriele Oettingen entitled “Rethinking Positive Thinking” talks exactly about this subject and her research on different kind of groups have always showed the same results: you can dream and think positively but at same time you have to take in consideration the obstacles that you will meet to reach your goals and for each of them you need to have a solution.
The key words of this new approach are: to contrast the future and the present, in order to do a better performance to achieve relevant goals. In brief, to reach them, the individuals need to foresee the obstacles that will get in the way of achieving the goals.
Oettingen’s research shows that finding the obstacles for the future is useful in two ways. First, if the number of obstacles that get in the way is too large, then it can actually help people to decide effectively when they should give up on a goal. Second, when the obstacles are potentially manageable, then contrasting the present with the future gives people an opportunity to plan for how to overcome those obstacles that do come up.
Rethinking Positive Thinking is not only an overview of Oettingen’s research, it also gives a simple structure for helping people to get motivated during their journey toward new goals. For this reason she created an acronyme, naming this process WOOP, which means Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.
Rethinking Positive Thinking is a highly readable book, opening a new approach to the use of positive thinking, showing the limit that the optimistic approach and the positive thinking have had in these last 20 years. I personally believe that the extreme use of positive approach as been responsible of the diffusion of the motivators in sport and business. People who try to teach that nothing is impossible if you want. Oettingen showed with research data that this approach is wrong, representing an obstacle to achieve difficult goals. She showed that we need to be optimistic, not in a naive style, but to cope with the difficulties that there will be for sure in any adventure we decide to be involved.
Read also: Stop being so positive by Gabriele Oettingen.
Juventus had expected the test to be who it said it was and not a scary team in Europe. Juventus has due to arrive on the edge of the abyss to know its value. Juventus in this match has been fighting continuously. Now he must learn to think better as a team. After going ahead, it was expected that the Greeks would attack to get the equalizer and, unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened after just two minutes. Be calm would allow him to predict the reaction of the opponent and get ready to fight it. In fact until the second goal Olympiacos Juventus played and it went on and on but in a confused way. Then the incredible happened, Juventus has changed his fate because the fighting has combined the strength and the conviction that it was possible to win. And that has made all the difference compared to the first half. The next time it might find this state of mind before being at one step from the abyss, because the other teams do not always allow this type of recovery. A big step forward, but the European mentality does not exist yet.
Today too often we speak of attorneys for children under 10 years, selection and research in the soccer schools of the perfect … but we are not talk about premiere league. I speak instead of children soccer where is frequent the subdivision into Team A and Team B . What does it mean?
The answer, unfortunately, is universally recognized: the best and the not so good.
The adjective good is already generic and superficial, and if it’s aimed at children aged 6 to 10 years who are at their first steps into the world of football becomes meaningless.
I realized over time that the adjective good for coaches include: the better children “at the moment”: faster, without behavioral problems, easy to manage, and preferably with some attitudes of adult soccer (fall on fouls, cheer pulling up her shirt, and so on). These characteristics lead to the breakdown of the teams? And what is left out of this argument? It stays out of the consideration the learning among peer, it stay out any concept related to the inclusion, it remains out any thought related to the development and change, it lacks any future prospect for the benefit of “all and now”. That “all and now” is the victory.
European research shows that almost 70% of children who started one sport at early school age (5-6 years), leaves it within 12-13 years of age. Investigations carried out to understand the origin of abandonment report that children who leave have the belief “not being good enough.”
Once again, the adult world breaks down barriers in the world of children taking ownership of their language and convincing the small players that they are not good. In this case the error of the coaches is to fall shattered their personal expectations and their management difficulties on the small players, depriving them of the chance to live this opportunity.
The use of the adjective “good” points out the lack of competence of those who use this language by choosing the easy way as a coach and the little benefit for each child. Unfortunately in youth soccer lacks a long-term project and the clubs do not accept the difficulties of today for the benefit of tomorrow. It is often ignored the importance of learning among peers and also the chidren advantages to have heterogeneous groups, in favor of the construction of homogeneous groups based on the skills possessed at the time. The choice of the homogeneity hides a selfish choice and deprives children of enrichment resulting from their differences.
“What children can do together today, tomorrow will do by yourself “(Vygotsky).
(by Daniela Sepio)
In US “Youth sports are becoming increasingly competitive, and most parents believe children are suffering.
According to a new national poll released by the espnW: Women + Sports Summit this weekend, two-thirds of parents think there is “too much emphasis on winning over having fun,” and 87% of parents said they were worried about the risk of injury in sports.
Parents are most concerned about concussions on the high school football field, which increasingly have been in the headlines lately (including on TIME’s cover). Just in the past week, three high school football players in Alabama, North Carolina and New York have died, possibly due to football injuries.
Parental concerns could explain the drop in participation in youth sports in the last several years. In 2008, 44.5% of children ages 6-12 participated in some type of sports organization. Only 40% of children did so in 2013, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Football, basketball, baseball and soccer have all seen double-digit declines in participation (though lacrosse and hockey have not).”
(Source: Time)
Yesterday I wrote that many coaches in Italian soccer premier league canot stress sufficiently the competitiveness of their team and that this fact obviously causes problems. What Massimo Mauro writes on Repubblica.it goes exactly in the same direction, speaking of the difficulties of Juventus and Roma.
“Allegri’s team is charged after the great victory of Empoli, but too many times we have become accustomed to the strong and arrogant team in the league and then appear humble and fearful in Europe … Even more worrying is Roma. From the night with Bayern seems have vanished the beautiful team of the last season and of this first part of the season. It looks faded group: those who play shows no more leg strength, who enters is lazy and does not seem to have the desire to change things, it transpires behind the discontent of the players. The new had to strengthen the group (Iturbe and Cole above all) but they have not done it, and Destro and Ljiaic have no longer the patience to wait.”
Two teams that outside of Italy have not been able to be competitivetill to now. In other words, they do not fight, do not try to retrieve lost balls with determination and do not start the matches with decision. This attitude of the team comes before the way to play and it’s based on a basic idea: before you do, then you do better, but if you do not do you will never improve. It’s better to do one mistake rather than doing nothing. This means being competitive. At the contrary our teams seemed to be paralyzed by having to do the right things without making mistakes. With this attitudes they become slow and insecure and a confident opponent will bring home the result. I am convinced that if the coaches will be more aware of their inability, they may start to reflect on these issues to find appropriate solutions for their teams.
The matches in Italian football premiere league too often demonstrate that concepts such as:
- Go beyond your limits and maintain high standards
- Excel for themselves
- Compete to outdo the other
are not part of the current culture of the teams with some rare exceptions.
The question is why atsuccessful professional football players is not taught to start the match with the determination and concentration required to play a match. The coaches think their team will play in a certain way, then this is not the case. Maybe compared to the big Italian coaches of the past than at present they have become so presumptuous as to convince themselves that their presence is enough to inspire courage? Maybe because they earn too much and are too guaranteed from the economic point of view, then, based on this condition they believe not be criticized for this reason they do not use collaborators who might represent the critical consciousness that is missing in them.
On the contrary, the experiences of high-level leadership in the business teach just that, alongside the great leaders there is always another expert that confront openly and verifies that their ideas are implemented. Perhaps the coaches could learn to use collaborators able to know if their players are willing to play till the end, or are willing to give up an inch at a time. Why this is the difference between winning and being dominated.
