Transcript
Speaker: How's it going, everybody. Welcome to the content hubs research rundown. If you are watching this video, you are obviously a primal baseball subscriber, primal baseball member. So this video is just going over some research from books that we have read from research that we have done.
Speaker: um based off of the focus of the month, this focus of the month in February being mental game mentality. So I'm just gonna go over some books and some research that we have found and done on mentality and how it can affect your performance, how it can improve your performance and why it's gonna be beneficial to have that as our focus of the month.
Speaker: So first, if you have read any of Carol Dweck's books, um you will know that there is such thing as a growth and a fixed mindset. The growth mindset is someone who believes in the abilities and believes that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort learning and persistence and that their mindset will lead them to greater things. So their mindset itself will transform them, they'll be able to have greater resilience, higher motivation, willingness to tackle tackle challenges and ah not avoid failure. And then that fixed mindset is a mindset where you believe that the abilities you have are static, they can't be changed.
Speaker: um And this belief will lead to to people avoiding failure, avoiding challenges, because they don't want to see failure, they don't want to feel failure, and then you give up a little bit easier. So the research on this, that Carol Dweck did herself,
Speaker: um They did a study involving students and those who were taught to adopt a growth mindset showed improved academic performance over those who had a fixed mindset. So this can be translated into game of baseball, if you're willing to learn and willing to adapt and adjust, maybe this means your pitch arsenal, um how you throw your slot, then you're able to succeed rather than having that fixed mindset of this is how my mechanics should look, this is how I need to throw the ball. So the next one is self -talk and performance. Artie did a
Speaker: study in sports psychology, found finding that positive self -talk helped athletes perform better, especially in high stress situations, right? So positive self -talk is, you know, improving your performance. It's helping you focus and anyone who's using this positive affirmations or instructional self talk will generally be better under pressure. um And then on the other side, if it's negative, right, the negative self talk can impair your focus, it can reduce your confidence and just get you even more stressed, right. So an example is you come in in the eighth inning, something goes wrong. And instead of saying, Oh, this is, this is my fault. This is my coach's fault. This is the player that just made nearest fault, having an affirmation of, okay, hey,
Speaker: Let's go breathe twice in twice out, right? So like these affirmations or mottos that we're going to or hey on it on it on it. what it I'm saying on it, on it, on it. Cause sometimes I would use that when I was pitching and it can mean different things for different people, but stay on it, stay focused on the next pitch, right? So just little things like that can help us improve our performance. Moving on to kind of that mindfulness meditation stuff. Um, mindfulness practices can help you focus on that present moment, can help you kind of block out other things and focus on what you need.
Speaker: to be focused on in that moment, not you know just accepting the thoughts, the feelings, the pressure, the feeling of pressure. Sometimes I would get it and I know people get it in their stomach or their chest, but being able to adapt and be okay with that is how we are going to um excel in those positions where we are under pressure, which is generally when the game is on the line, which is where you want to be. So the findings from this research, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but in 2010 Zaydan did a study and it demonstrated that with just a few weeks of mindfulness training, improved attention and cognitive performance with athletes. And that can be linked obviously directly to performance. If you're able to improve your attention and your cognitive performance, your athletic ability may rise as well. so
Speaker: We got to be working on our journaling, got to be working on our meditation and visualizations throughout this month and every month. ah Psychological flexibility and performance. Lundquist and Sandin in 2014 did a study um showing that people that could adapt to changing circumstances and cope with adversity were better at facing difficulty and ah and succeeding in their long -term goals. right So the athletes who are demonstrating this flexibility and this adaptability with the mindfulness and the mindset side of things tend to perform better because they're able to just adjust and move wherever they need to. If
Speaker: something goes wrong in the game, you're able to move, you're able to move over it, overcome it quicker than staying locked in, staying in that fixed mindset. So again, all these things kind of relate back to each other, the fixed mindset relating back to Carol Dweck and that first research findings. ah The fifth one that we were going to talk about is the role of confidence in performance. So the confidence in performance is shown to be closely linked to mindset. So playing a pivoted role in performance is this confidence. The people who are confident in their abilities are more likely to take risks, are better at overcoming obstacles, they can persist longer, and when they face a challenge they're able to get through it and over it a little bit quicker than other people. um So this was done by Felton Lurg in 2001 and one and
Speaker: again, finding that confidence is one of the most significant psychological predictors of performance in sports. How do you build confidence? Right? That's a question is you have to actually go do some work. So you can't just have fake confidence and say I'm the best, you have to go for that sprint, you got to go for that run, you got to do the work. And once you know you have that work, that's building confidence. And then once you have that confidence, it becomes a mindset. And now it's affecting your performance.
Speaker: the power of visualization. I'm sorry that we're doing a few of these, but we found a lot of research on the mental game and wanted to share. So the power of visual ah visualization, right? Visualization involves ah like this mentally rehearsing or an action of performance before you're actually physically doing it. So in your head, closing your eyes, visualizing what's going to happen before it actually does. ah So you can do that with a game, with an inning, with ah with a certain at bat, whatever you want to do. We have prompts in our
Speaker: um PM tab or performance mindset tab, and we also have additional prompts in our um database that you can access. So the studies show that visualizing successful performance can actually help athletes improve their motor skills, reduce that anxiety, and enhance that focus. And the study by Griskel, Copper, and Moran found that athletes who practice this visualization technique was actually um they showed a performance improvement in comparison to those who only engaged in just the physical practice. So again, bringing the mind and the body together into one. Now, what we all love to talk about is the choking phenomenon. I'll recommend a book um called Clutch. It's here in my bookshelf. I'm gonna have to get the name for you later, but if you type in Clutch choking phenomenon, the book will be there. Do it do not through Amazon. um
Speaker: But choking under pressure, ah generally occurring when you're trying to perform um and sorry when you're trying to perform in high -pressure situation, high -pressure situation. and um you're overthinking or anxiety is taking over and then you actually are underperforming. So one of the findings from the Baumeister study in 2007 was that the athletes who are focused on um certain cues, like a task relevant cue instead of the outcome, so a process
Speaker: a process -driven mindset rather than an outcome -driven mindset, they perform better during high pressure situation because you are doing the same thing in the process that you were doing in practice, right? So if you're focused on throwing a strike, I wouldn't recommend that. If you're focused on committing your all to one pitch and going through the catcher's chest over and over, a little bit less stress inducing then, I need to strike this guy out. So process over results.
Speaker: Last couple here, ah influence of mental resilience. So this is referring to your ability to bounce back from setbacks and and be able to overcome adversity. So a study by Guillen in Montero in 2016 was just showing that athletes with higher mental resilience, they'd be able to bounce back.
Speaker: outperformed those with the lower resilience in competitive and practice settings, um showing that the athletes with the higher ability to bounce back from failure um succeeded because they were able to maintain focus and motivation despite those failures. And over time, they may not have been as talented, but were able to come back from the setbacks and in the long term stay consistent and more motivated again,
Speaker: The longer you are on something, the longer you're consistent with something, the greater chance you are to succeed. So I actually don't have any more. That was it. um I will stop there. And if you have any questions, if you want to talk through any of this stuff, feel free to contact us. We can set up a free Zoom.
Speaker: just talk about it. If there's any books or any prompts that you want from us, please feel free to reach out. We'd love to talk to you at primalbaseball at gmail dot .com. P R I M A L B S B L at gmail .com. Look forward to hearing from you guys and have a great month.
