Self-Observation Richard I Jontry, Ph.D.,
MAC, CAC Diplomate |
There are as many ways to approach the sport of riding as there are ways to approach how we go about living our lives. Many people have opinions. Many people have what they consider to be “the way.” And, in actuality, there are at least as many ways of doing anything as there are roads leading into Philadelphia. What is the most direct route for some may not be direct for others. There are certain common principles, however, that apply to all the different ways we have of travelling through life—whether on horseback, in a car, or interacting with other people—that will get us to our destination a winner.
These principles are useful because applying them we are more assured of getting where we want to go without falling into ditches or running into walls. Staying awake and keeping our eyes open implies that we are seeing not only where we are going, but also that we are looking at ourselves, taking stock of our abilities and the areas in which we need to learn and improve our skills. Most athletes have a coach. The coach can be the coach of a team, a personal trainer, or for equestrians, their riding instructor. Coaches perform many useful functions in order to help us improve our athletic performance. That is why we use them. One of the most important functions the coach performs is seeing those parts of our behavior and/or attitude that interfere with our progress in becoming a better athlete. When we look in the mirror we cannot see our backs. Similarly, there is a backside to how we go about everything in our lives, and that backside is not visible to us directly. We may know it is there, however; because it isn't always there in front of us, we usually pretty much ignore it, or try to pretend it doesn't exist. Other people are extremely useful in showing us what our backside is. Other people can see what we cannot, or do not want to see about ourselves. Additionally, we all have thoughts and feelings that we don't want others to know about. We commonly believe we can hide these from other people and most of us develop all kinds of behaviors to accomplish this feat. The deep beliefs we have about ourselves also influence both our automatic thoughts and our behaviors. We have these underlying beliefs about ourselves (“I'm smart,” “I'm weak,” “I'm not really good enough”), about other people (“People can't be trusted,” “ The judges have favorites,” “The judges are out to get me”), and about life in general (“Bad things follow good,” “What I have to learn is overwhelming”). Our thoughts and feelings are primarily responsible for how we behave. We are continually repeating well-rehearsed behaviors over and over again. Maybe we always give in when someone disagrees with us, or maybe we always argue. Maybe we are rude to people when we are stressed, or maybe we are overly solicitous. Either way, most of us are fairly consistent. Usually we are not aware of how our thoughts guide our behaviors because our behaviors have become habitual. If we wish to grow as a person as well as an athlete we must face our backside. We must face our automatic responses and patterns of thinking and behaving. When we are honest and open enough to observe these parts of ourselves, to acknowledge them, to allow feedback in from others, and to continue to observe how we react and respond, we have begun to really grow. This is hard work. I have worked with all kinds of athletes and “tough” people. I remember a Hell's Angel motorcycle rider I worked with who was also a drug addict saying, “This work takes more courage than anything I've ever done before.” It is also very rewarding work and the results will benefit all areas of your life. Below is a way to begin the process of self-observation by starting to identify your cognitive (or thought) distortions. These are the kinds of thinking process we all engage in at different times, especially when under stress or feeling anxious. These distortions lead to all kinds of inappropriate behaviors and unhappy feelings. Begin by studying the list and identifying which one's you use. Then begin to look for the situations in which you are using them; what you are feeling when you start you engage in one of them, and how you wind up feeling. Cognitive Distortions* 1. All or Nothing Thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect you see yourself as a total failure. 2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water. 4. Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don't count” for one reason or another. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experience. 5. Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a) Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check it out. b) Fortune Telling: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact. 6. Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (i.e., your mistake, someone else's achievement) or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities, or the other's imperfections). 7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with should have and should not's as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts,” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. Labeling and Mislabeling an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. “I'm a loser.” When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to them. Language is usually highly colored and emotional. 10. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. One final note about those rude people you wrote about. People who act rudely many times think they have been hurt or wronged. They may think they are not getting “the treatment they deserve or believe they are entitled to.” They then feel angry and act as if what they were thinking is the reality. Their thinking has created, in effect, a distorted reality, which they then accept as the real reality. They may also not feel very self-confident about achieving their goals. For some people, putting other people down, or being rude, is a way they build up their self-confidence. Weird isn't it? The two most effective ways I know of to deal with these situations are:
They might not love you for it,
but if they are interested in growing, they will eventually,
if not immediately, appreciate your doing so. |
