How to stop negative thinking…

“How do I control my mind?” is one of the most common questions that I get asked by shooters. “My mind just gets in the way, it makes me shoot badly”.

Variations of this question continue and I continue to give the same answer.

“Well, really, you can’t.” Is my go-to reply.

Ok, so you can choose to not think about what to have for dinner later or what time you want to meet a friend in a week or so. These sorts of fleeting thoughts aren’t really much of a problem.

We have around 60-80,000 thoughts per day and most of these just thankfully pass through our mind without awareness.

Imagine having to be aware of, consciously process and respond to that many thoughts? It would be impossible to get anything else done!

When shooters talk to me about their brain getting in the way what they are really concerned with are those thoughts that ‘hook’ their attention.

The ones that cause an emotional distraction and take attention away from the task at hand and redirect it to the unwanted thoughts and feeling they are experiencing.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

These thoughts often fall into 3 groups. Thoughts about the potential reward. Thoughts about what might be lost. Thoughts about social judgement, perceived or otherwise.

So many thoughts.

So many thoughts that pop into your head when you least want them.

The wording of the thoughts might differ but if you spend some time thinking about those things that take your attention away from the task you will find that some patterns appear.

The thinking that distracts us is based upon our personal narrative and the way that we see the world based upon our experience within it.

It’s normal to have difficult thoughts when we are doing things that are important to us.

From the perspective I work from I don’t believe you can stop unwanted thinking from rearing it’s head. Specifically I am referencing trying to stop any of the ‘big’ thoughts that might come your way.

The goal of ‘thought-stopping’, for the big thoughts and not the 60-80,000 other ones, in a time-bound scenario therefore becomes a futile battle.

One that you are less and less likely to win.

So what can you do instead?

I work from a perspective called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

One thing I ask people to do is to write down the things that come into their mind, that aren’t helpful, and identify what their patterns are.

Try this exercise, let me know what patterns you start to see. It’s useful data and something you can prepare for.

When you can expect something, it makes it significantly easier to accept it.

And when you accept that discomfort is a part of performance it makes it much easier to redirect your attention to the most important things in that moment.