The Growth Mindset
How Alonzo Mourning can help your Athletes Understand Self-Talk
Alonzo Mourning was a 7 time NBA All-star during his 15 year career with the Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat and New Jersey Nets and was selected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014. He was known for being a tough, hard nosed defender and rebounder. He was one of the only players in the league who could hope to contain Shaquille O’Neal. Mourning retired from the NBA in 2009 and has been a part of the Heat front office ever since. Alonzo Mourning has been very active in his community and has helped raise money for at risk kids and families, and even has had a high school named after he and his wife to commemorate their impact on their community
By this point you are probably wondering how an NBA player who retired 12 years ago can help you teach Self-Talk to your athletes? Many of you coach athletes who might not even know Zo for his tough defense or his time leading the Georgetown Hoyas or his basketball career at all. However, I would guess that almost all of your athletes would recognize him from social media.
I love this GIF and so does the internet. As a basketball and mental skills coach I love it for a whole different reason other than its versatility as a meme. I love it because it is the physical manifestation of Alonzo Mourning’s process of Self-Talk. The Heat were getting beaten by the Bulls that night and the camera caught Mourning changing his Self-Talk. At first he is stuck in the negative of his and his teams performance. You can see the exact moment that Mourning finds a way to change the story that he is telling himself. I listened to a podcast recently where Mourning talked about the GIF. He doesn’t remember exactly what was going through his mind that night but he thinks that it was him telling himself that “it was what it was” and that it was “just one game”. This is a great Self-Talk technique, he is broadening his perspective which allowed him to keep this game in perspective moving forward. This is a cognitive behavior technique known as reframing. Anytime athletes are able to step away from what is happening and reframe their Self-Talk they are on the road to improving their performance. It allows their brains to down regulate and improves concentration and can help reduce adrenaline.
The important question is how can coaches utilize this GIF to help their athletes examine their own Self-Talk?
I like to use it as my first lesson when teaching athletes about Self-Talk. I use it in the following ways after putting it up for athletes to see:
1.) With a teammate provide captions for what is happening here. Wrong answers only.
This is a great way to start the session with a fun activity.
2.) Next, what is Alonzo Mourning actually doing during this GIF?
At this point I would provide a brief description of what Self-Talk is and how it impacts performance (Check last weeks Blog if you need some help with this)
3.) Discuss with your teammate what your Self-Talk is like during practices and games. How does it impact your performance?
At this point you should have spurred on enough thought to have a good discussion about Self-Talk. From here you need to see where your athletes are at. Some might be ready to start to learn some techniques to change their Self-Talk while others (especially youth athletes) may not even be aware of what they are telling themselves. This mini lesson should take about 15 minutes but will help you see where your athletes are in their understanding of Self-Talk and will set up further lessons to help your athletes learn how to understand the impact of Self-Talk and how they can use it to improve their performance.
This mini-lesson will be part of our curriculum on how to teach Self-Talk which will be releasing on May 27th and will be available for download at https://evolutionmpc.com/curriculums/ . The curriculum will focus on helping athletes meet five outcomes to allow them to understand Self-Talk and its impact on sport and in everyday life. The curriculum will be organized around three E’s: Education, Experience and Embedding. This will help you teach your athletes about Self-Talk, provide them reps in practice and embed this mental skill across your program.
If you have a meme you love to use in your coaching please share it in the comments section.
