Decide Who You're Going to Be Before the Season Decides for You
- Julie Jones
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Last week, we talked about the stories we write in our heads about how things are supposed to go.
How much are we going to play. Where we're going to be in the lineup. How successful our team will be. What our senior year will look like. Where we're going to go to college. What job we will have next.
Then reality shows up with absolutely no interest in following our script!
And we talked about asking an important question: Is this actually wrong…or is it simply different from what I expected?
But I ended last week's tip with another thought. We spend a lot of time deciding how we think things are supposed to go. Maybe we'd be better served spending a little more time deciding who we're going to be, however they go.
So…let's talk about that! Because most of us don't intentionally decide who we're going to be before things start happening.
Instead, we make deals with our circumstances.
If I'm scoring, I'll be confident. If I'm starting, I'll be a leader.
If the coach believes in me, I'll believe in myself. If we're winning, I'll bring energy.
If things go my way, I'll stay positive.
Okay…maybe nobody actually says that last one out loud…but that “if…then” becomes reality pretty quickly!
And here's the problem.
The minute I say, “If this happens, THEN I'll be confident, positive, aggressive, engaged or a great teammate,” I've handed something I control over to something I don't.
Great performers do the opposite.
They decide who they're going to be before the season gets the opportunity to decide for them.
They decide who they're going to be before the season asks them to prove it.
Long before the first game...before the first mistake...before the first loss...before the first difficult conversation with a coach...they've already made the decision.
"I will be resilient." "I will be a great teammate." "I will be coachable." "I will compete with energy." "I will be someone my teammates can trust."
None of those statements depend on playing time, stats, positions, outcomes…or ANYTHING they cannot control!
They're choices.
Psychologist Dr. Benjamin Hardy writes, "Your identity shapes your behavior far more than your behavior shapes your identity."
In other words, we don't consistently rise to our goals. We consistently behave in ways that align with who we believe we are, if we want to be who we say we want to be at least!
Research supports this idea.
Self-Determination Theory, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, has consistently shown that people are more motivated, persistent and resilient when their actions align with their personal values rather than external rewards like praise, rankings or playing time.
Think about that.
When your identity becomes, "I'm someone who competes with relentless effort," your motivation no longer depends on whether you're in the starting lineup or whether you won the last point.
You compete because that's who you are.
Last night, my sister sent me Roger Federer’s Dartmouth commencement speech. I watched it before, and I still love it!
Federer explained that he won almost 80% of the 1,526 singles matches he played during his career. But do you know what percentage of the individual points he won?
Only 54%.
That means one of the greatest tennis players of all time lost almost half the points he played.
Had Federer allowed each lost point to determine who he was, how confident he felt or how fully he committed to the next point, we probably would not know him as the champion he became.
His identity could not be, “I am the player who wins every point.” It had to be something closer to, “I am the player who fully commits to the next one.”
That is the difference between allowing outcomes to define us and deciding how we will respond regardless of the outcome.
Psychologist Steven Hayes, founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), takes this one step further.
Rather than asking, "How do I feel today?" he encourages us to ask, "What kind of person do I want to be in this moment?"
That's a powerful question. Because feelings, circumstances, roles and momentum change. Values don't.
Researchers have also found that our intentions become much stronger when we make them specific.
Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer, known for his work on implementation intentions, demonstrated that people are far more likely to follow through when they decide in advance exactly how they'll behave in situations they anticipate encountering.
Instead of saying, "I'll try to be positive," decide, "When I make a mistake, I'll take one breath, stand tall and sprint to the next play."
Instead of, "I want to be a better teammate," decide, "Every practice, I'll encourage at least three teammates."
I am working through this right now with a swimmer who qualified for the state meet as a freshman. She is good!
But too often, the way she feels, the circumstances around her and her expectations about how a race should unfold begin dictating how she performs.
So, we are working on reconnecting her with the swimmer she already proves herself to be almost every day in training: Resilient Maddie.
She trains far more often than she competes, which means we have plenty of evidence.
Resilient Maddie works. She responds. She finishes difficult sets. She keeps going when things do not feel perfect.
She has already trained herself to decide how she will behave during uncomfortable moments in practice. Now the challenge is to carry that same identity into competition rather than allowing one split, one mistake or one unexpected circumstance to decide who she becomes in the race.
That is where identity becomes real…when it shows up in behavior, especially when circumstances tempt us to abandon it.
Last week, we talked about being careful about writing the entire story before it happens…because reality rarely follows our script exactly.
This week, I'm asking us to write something different.
Instead of writing the story of everything that's going to happen, let's write the story of who we're going to be while it's happening.
We can't always hold reality to our expectations. But we CAN hold ourselves to our standards.
As we approach a new season, we will all be better if we finish this sentence: This season, I will be a person who...
We aren’t writing about winning…or stats…or awards. We are writing about something no opponent, coach or circumstance can take from us.
Then, if we can identify three daily behaviors that prove it, we can lock them in…and our brain will start looking for opportunities to do these things!
For example, an athlete might say: This season, I will be a person who competes with relentless effort.
My proof:
I sprint between every drill.
I recover immediately after mistakes.
I encourage one teammate every practice.
A coach may decide: This season, I will be a coach who brings consistency, connection and composure—no matter what is happening around me.
My proof:
I respond to mistakes with instruction before emotion.
I intentionally connect with at least one athlete every day.
I model the body language and energy I expect from my team.
These behaviors become our evidence. And evidence builds confidence.
The season will eventually tell us whether we won, whether we started or reached our goals.
And as we talked about last week, some of it will probably look different than the story we pictured in our heads.
Different doesn't mean wrong. And different doesn't get to decide who we become.
If we want to be our best, we don't need to wait for the season to tell us who we are.
WE DECIDE THAT FIRST!
Manage the moments!
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
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