Have you ever heard of the term “Performance Anxiety”?
Of course you have. Ok, a harder question.
Have you ever heard of the term “Ironic Rebound Effect”?
Maybe you have.
I will provide a link below with some research material. And if you want to waste a few hours of your life trawling through those papers, have at it.
Alternatively, I have put together a very rough crash course over the next 3-4 minutes to save you the trouble.
To start with, why should you care?
Well if you have ever missed a lift on Game Day, or missed an “easy”putt on the golf green, or gone blank just as you are about to start an important presentation, Ironic Rebound Effect could be behind it.
Just when you need to your mental clarity to peak, you get the opposite. Pressure does funny things inside our minds. Self-doubt floods in, reasons why it’s not going to go your way, all the bad things that will happen when it doesn’t. Or just as bad, how amazing it will feel when you nail it.
All of these thoughts are known as “task irrelevant stimuli”.
In other words, distractions.
And in the world of performance, distractions are killer.
As an example, during my 10-15 secs of setting up for a lift, I would typically notice 5+ distractions in that short time period.
That’s a lot, right!
My goal is to be as undistracted as possible at just the right moment (right before I pull the bar off the ground).
So where does “Ironic Rebound Effect” come in?
Well, one approach that performance psychologists played around with was avoiding these distractions through thought suppression.
Researchers had golfers focus on “not leaving it short” before a set of putts, which led to them being more likely to miss it short, not less. They ironically got more of what they didn’t want.
So, I feel some performance pressure. What should I do?
Instead of suppressing the unwanted thought, it has proven more successful to mentally cue the action that will get you more of what you want. “strike through the ball”, or “keep the bar close” for example.
(If you are a coach and you are cueing some version of “don’t undercook it”, or “don’t let that bar go forward”, you can see how you might be creating problems)
So, if you put your athlete hat on for second, it’s important to get clear on exactly what you need to do more of so you can make that your pre-lift mantra.
For me, I always aim to have a singular cue for any lift. Even if I notice multiple problems, I try to boil it down to the most impactful one and stick with that.
This is also where my set up sequence really helps me. My set up sequence has 7 distinct steps. There is nothing magical about these steps, but they do allow me to get distracted(there is no avoiding it) and to get refocused at my next step. I notice my nonsense, then move onto the next thing, which the task in front of me, which also allows me to get to the end of the sequence, where my helpful cue is waiting for me. Right when I need it.
Additional Reference:
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.53.1.5: More Of What You Want
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