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| 17 www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE awful state of anxiety, we find (often unique and ingenious ways) of getting away from that big stressor (see graph 1). When we escape from a stressful task this results in a massive decline in our stress levels, quickly returning back to baseline. Think back to your example: you probably felt a significant wave of relief when you got out of that situation. But ask yourself this, was that relief short lived? Often times people report a lingering feeling of guilt or perhaps negative thoughts like "you should have done that". Avoidance also has the side effect of tricking our brain into thinking "I wouldn't have been able to do that anyway so it's good that I didn't even attempt it". The result? We can get caught in a vicious cycle of fear & avoidance where (as depicted in graph 1) our fear continually spikes, and we try and escape the awful feelings: over time we are not able to "prove" to our brains and ourselves that we can indeed overcome this challenge! Feeling the fear but doing it anyway: building resilience On the flip side, think how we react to facing stressful situations, feeling the fear but doing them anyway? Think back to a time where you felt anxious about a command appointment during recruit training or as a cadet completing your test appointment during platoon field? From a sports perspective: going to county trials, returning to football as an adult or even the social awkwardness of meeting new people at a five-a-side game for the first time. How did it feel afterwards? What did you notice? Perhaps it went well, or perhaps it didn't? Did it feel different the next time you were snagged for Orderly Sergeant? Was it quite so scary the second or third times? Look now to graph two, which depicts how our brains and bodies adapt to challenges in a process known as habituation. As we face stressful situations, we learn how to manage the feelings of anxiety associated with them. Simply put, we prove to our brains that we can tolerate the uncomfortable feelings and have the resources to overcome the challenge. It is important to note that when we face our fears that we have to sit with feelings of discomfort for longer than if we avoid. But, what do you notice from the graph? The second time we face the challenge, our stress levels may not peak as sharply, and likewise the third time we face the stressful situation our discomfort maxes out to an even lower level. Our brains and bodies are getting used to discomfort, anxiety and proving to ourselves that we can adapt and overcome this challenge. Repeatedly engaging with your fears allows you to try new strategies (see previous article on resilience building techniques) and see what methods work, or don't work for you. A final important point here is that challenging our fears builds our confidence and helps to build our baseline resilience skills, the more fears we overcome the more resilient we can become overall! Mindset: Challenging the inner critic Often times the harshest voice we hear in our day to day lives, is our own voice inside our heads. Why are we often our harshest critics? Think back to a Camogie match or a road race where you didn't perform at the level you would have liked. How did your inner voice sound, was it gentle or was it critical, was it supportive and kind or did it make you feel even worse? From an evolutionary perspective, us humans are wired to focus on negatives and dangers, it kept us alive as cavemen, but this negativity bias is not as useful in the modern world. To put this in a sporting perspective, which is more motivating? To be praised or to be criticised? Do we perform at our best when we feel confident and believe in ourselves or when we feel demoralised and are questioning our worth? Here are some simple tips for reframing negative thoughts and events to more balanced, realistic, and likely much more positive perspectives.   • Ask yourself, would I speak to my best friend, husband, loved one etc., the same way I speak to myself – why? Why not?   • Put your thoughts "on trial". Our brain will often focus on the negatives, but are these negative thought objectively true? Weigh up the evidence which supports, but also challenges this negative thinking. Then take the facts into consideration and see if you can produce a new, more balanced thought: does this new thought make you feel any different? Tying it all together Bringing together the ideas of SMART goals, managing fear while using it to actually build resilience and creating more positive mindset I'll leave you with some final tips to apply to your sporting, professional and personal lives. 1. A good way to use SMART goals is in tiers i.e Tier 1 is your highest, long term and probably most difficult goal, Tier 2 are medium term goals and Tier 3 are very small goals which can be set and achieved on a day-to-day basis. Having subordinate goals is absolutely vital (as referencing the ACE idea in my previous resilience article), achieving small goals provides an neuropsychological boost to both our mood and helps us stay motivated towards our bigger long term goals. 2. Sleep and diet are the cornerstones of success. Unless you are correctly fuelled and adequately rested you won't be able to perform. In sports there's a saying that if you're struggling with mental clarity, it's your sleep (a whole article in and of itself), if it's your lungs burning its your fitness and if its your legs seizing it's your nutrition. 3. Building a positive mindset can take time. A useful way to help is to start journalling your negative, and positive thoughts you notice crop up around matches or stressful periods in work. This can help you identify recurring patterns. It is also much easier to use the "putting thoughts on trial" tip when it's written out on a sheet of paper initially. This was a very brief introduction to some core performance psychology tools which can help you achieve your best both on and off the pitch. If you have any questions on the above, please feel free to reach out to me on the email or twitter handles above! Performance Psychology is used by many athletes in all types of sports Graph 1. The Avoidance/Fear cycle Graph 2. Facing your fear, Habituation cycle

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