Sports-Minded: How to focus on life like a pro athlete

By Deborah DiSesa Hirsch

Sheryl Young knew she couldn't call it "baby weight" anymore when her youngest turned 3. That's when this Stamford mom of three knew things had to change. "I could be fat, or I could do something," she says.

So she joined Weight Watchers, went on to lose over 50 pounds, learned to swim a mile and a half at a time when previously two laps had left her gasping for breath, and ran two triathlons in two months. And that's just for starters.

"I set my mind to it," she says. "You have to make the decision that you're going to do this. You put it on your calendar, you prepare and you just do it."

And that lesson can just as easily be applied to life, says David Yukelson, Ph.D., a nationally known sports psychologist at Penn State in State College, Pa. "The beauty of sports psychology is that champion athletes have a variety of mental characteristics that can be applied to real life, like goals and motivation, focus, drive and passion, and the belief that you can achieve these goals to get the job done."

That job can be anything from presenting a report to the board of directors to talking to your child's teacher about a bad grade to scoring the winning touchdown, he says. "When you're facing a stressful event, there are four things you must always have: preparation, focus, composure and resilience."

Yukelson has four questions he has every athlete answer that could just as easily be asked by anyone facing a stressful event:

How do I get myself ready for the task ahead?

What do I need physically and emotionally?

What can I do to prepare?

How do I set up my mind to focus?

Tom Holland, a sports performance coach, owner of Team Holland in Darien and author of many books on the subject, takes it one step further. "You have to see yourself doing it, from either the first-person or third-person perspective - seeing it through your own eyes or as if you're being filmed. If you're giving a lecture in a hall, imagine yourself opening the door, walking into the room, standing at the dais, looking at the crowd, taking a drink of water, flipping through your notes."

Holland says you can also repeat these kinds of phrases:

I'm relaxed.

I'm confident.

I can do this.

"I call it my mental iPod," he says. "What the mind hears, the body believes. Think about biting into a lemon. You will salivate. The thoughts we have can cause physiological responses. If you think, `I'm freaked out,' you'll sweat and lose your focus. But if you replace `I'm nervous' with `I'm ready,' you'll have a much better outcome."

Andy Moss, a coach of young athletes in Westport and founder of ESMZONE.com, a sports social networking site for kids, says that while a football team needs to work together, it's still made up of 11 athletes "and you have to know each one's hot button" for it all to work. "It's the same at work," says the former Microsoft "techie," as he describes himself. "Sports is a great metaphor for life. Life is often about teamwork and collaboration, just like sports. If you work for a company, you have to work together to help that company achieve its goals. You have to know other people's weak spots and plan around them. But you also have to help each other. It's the same on the field. I teach the kids to rely on others and for the team to rally around a common goal."

You also have to believe in yourself. Says Moss, "Joe Namath likes to say, `If you say you can't, you won't.' We all have bad days. But there's always tomorrow."

"Focus on what's attainable," adds Jon Stellwagen a USA-certified triathlon coach, president of the Greenwich Triathlon Club and the managing director of fitness, recreation, aquatics and wellness at the Jewish Community Center in Stamford. "Focus on the smallest goal. Push to your limits. If it's my mind telling me to stop, I can keep going. But if it's my body, if my leg hurts, then stop. You have to mentally stay in the game."

Stellwagen finds it's always good to find what pushes people to perform, and at the same time, anticipate their excuses. "`It's raining out,'" he says as an example. "Maybe you're tired and you don't want to do the report. Know up front that you're going to pull that and find a way to not let it stop you."

For Shane Murphy, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, sports can teach ways to overcome adversity. "It's so easy to get all tied up in winning and losing, your friends saying, `You lost again.' Losing a job. Getting divorced. It's not easy to see the positive," he says. "But often, you're getting better at a particular thing. A basketball player defends better, a tennis player rushes the net better. You've gained new skills and can get a new kind of job. Your marriage is over but you're both moving on to better things. You're improving, you're doing the right things, the wins will come."

Brian Kriftcher has used sports to help inner-city youth learn life lessons. Founder of Stamford Peace, a basketball club for inner-city youth in Stamford, and head coach at St. Luke's in New Canaan, Kriftcher teaches his young charges that "winning and losing is not the point. Excellence is the ultimate success, whether it's basketball or life."

To that end, Kriftcher teaches the boys that work ethic and discipline are the true determinants of future success in life. "This can be applied to anything you do," he says. "Do it right. Do it well."

Young found probably the best life skill to keep going with her triathlons. "I kept telling people I was going to do this," she says. "The way my personality is, I'd be too embarrassed to make it public and then not do it!"HL

Tips to play -- or live or work -- like a pro

Want to focus like a professional athlete -- no matter the task? Here are some tips from area experts:

• Prepare. Get together everything you're going to need for the project. If it's a report, research it. If it's a triathlon, follow a training schedule. If you're going to talk to your kids about drugs, talk to other parents to see how they did it. Get ready, get ready, get ready. Focus. Don't let anything distract you. Concentrate only on the task at hand.

• Learn what pushes you. Maybe it's the look on your boss' face (or your teammates') when you come up with that brilliant idea. Or that itty-bitty bikini you want to wear on your vacation next month. Figure out what drives you. Then use it to reach your goal.

• Use self-talk. "I can do this." "I'm going to win." "I believe in me."

• Visualize yourself doing it. See yourself opening the door, walking into the room, looking out at the audience, taking a sip of water, then starting your speech.

• Replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Don't let the "no's" in.

• Anticipate excuses. "I don't like running in the rain." "It's too late to work on my marriage." "I'll never be able to draw like that."

• See incremental progress. You don't have to hit the ball out of the park every time. See the progress you've made, from turning in a project on time, to getting your child to do his homework four nights out of five without a fight, to hitting the ball a little bit farther in golf.

• Relax. There's almost always a next time.