Overcoming Fear and Thriving Under Pressure 04/20/20
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Happy Monday!
"We learn the best when we operate at the edge of our abilities and a little outside our comfort zone"
Why do we hate getting out of our comfort zone?
Fear isn't in itself a bad thing, what can be good about fear?
The problem with fear is that it can't tell the difference between fear of falling off a cliff and fear of public speaking or getting a bad grade.  But what's the glitch in the fear system?
What are the four triggers of fear?  Which ones will you need to overcome in order to step into learning and getting better?
What does it mean "the Lizard won the battle"?
How is procrastination letting the Lizard win?
The Lizard is primitive and only sees 2 options, struggle or not struggle.  What does the Lizard choose for you and how might that limit what you can accomplish in your life?
What's downgrading the struggle and how do you do this?
The Lizard wants immediate gratification, what are the dangers of playing the long game with the Lizard as the team captain?
Fear is mostly made up of the stories we tell ourselves.  Speaker Trevor got to Duke University and proceeded to tell himself all sorts of made up stories about how he didn't belong there.    When has the fear lizard robbed you of the opportunity to grow by telling you made up stories?
Fear robs of both outcomes and experiences.  Outcomes are the results we get do something, but experiences are even more important, regardless of the outcome.  Why are just having these experiences we were afraid of valuable even if the results aren't what we wanted?
Why don't we want to kill or attack the Lizard because that will make it stronger.   Instead we need to "Dance with the Lizard."  What does that mean?
Fear is the biggest barrier to learning, but overcoming fear is a skill, which means we can learn to do it.  The best at anything have gotten good at "Dancing with the Lizard."  How did Natalie Coughlin "Dance with the Lizard" before her last event at Olympic Trials?
We can lessen or get rid of fear by not doing the thing that's scaring us, not caring about it, or by holding back.  I have heard many of you say before and after races that you used (or wanted to use) one of these strategies.  You are simply revealing your fear.  Tell me about a time when you used one of these strategies to lessen your fear in a race and what you wish you would have done instead.
Feeling fear before attempting to do anything that will challenge us doesn't mean we're not ready or that something is wrong with us, it just means we're human.  How can telling yourself you're not supposed to be afraid when you are actually feeling afraid be unhelpful?
What does "keeping fear in the backseat of the car," mean about who is driving and who still gets to come along for the ride?
How can just being aware of your Lizard help you, even if you let the Lizard drive your car sometimes?
Everyone feels fear, or if they don't they aren't growing or they don't care.  But we all have different capacities for fear.  Tate created more fear than he could handle, and once he lessened his fear he was able to perform.  How can a little bit of fear help us and how can we dial in how much we feel for peak performance?
Why athletes thrive or dive under pressure:
Once people basically know the skills of a sport and are strong enough and conditioned enough to do it well, the difference maker comes down to how well you perform under pressure.   Tell me about a person who rises in pressure situations and a person who doesn't.
Your mental state is something you can control, but you may not always feel like that.  Tell me about when your mental state, or Lizard, controlled you and a time when you controlled it.
We KNOW we will be challenged beforehand, we can EXPECT there to be a situation where you and your Lizard will have to ride in the car together and Lizard is having a tantrum.   It's like parenthood, you know the meltdown is coming, have your goldfish crackers, an extra blanket and their favorite stuffy ready to go.  What is in your bag of tricks to calm the Lizard when it starts to have trouble?
What's pressure? (It's a story)  Who puts pressure on you? (Only you, you can tell a story about how it's someone else but it's up to you to buy into their story or not)  So then how can you "handle pressure"?
How does it help to focus on things that will help you overcome your challenge instead of things that are uncertain?  Who chooses what you decide to focus on?
In the cricket test, they gave the players a story hoping they would decide to think they were under pressure.  The 4 triggers for fear are uncertainty, attention,  change, and struggle.  They told the players there would be uncertainty as to whether they would make the team, there would be attention on them as the results would be made public, and struggle because the task was going to be difficult.  But was that story true?  What amount of pressure is just in your imagination?  
What's a "Challenge" state and what's a "Threat" state and what part of your body determines which state you can go into?
How can you go from a "Threat" sate to a "Challenge" state by balancing demands and resources?
How important is the decision to focus on things you can control and who makes that decision?
Oh and one last thing.   This is a sporting contest between Oxford and Cambridge, arguably two of the greatest academic institutions in the world.  So is it possible to be successful in school while being a successful athlete?  (Yes, I'm baiting you here, but let me hear you say it.)
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