It’s time for sportspeople to embrace the power of negative thinking

“Positive thinking, you see, peddles the nonsensical but attractive idea that all your problems are internal and therefore only you can solve them. Everything depends on you, the individual, transforming your mind. We should all be millionaires by now. Why aren’t we? Maybe because positive thinking is as delusional as the Lotto.”

Joe Brolly was on fire this weekend in the Sunday Independent.

The supposed power of positive thinking is something that has bothered me for a long time now. I’m a glass half-empty man and also a realist. Some studies suggest that being pessimistic is a way to be happier as you don’t have impossibly high expectations. Endlessly positive people don’t enjoy my company. Positivity is all around us these days, Facebook is often a no-go area for someone like me. Memes like the below drive me demented but are guaranteed to get the poster likes.

I was always sceptical of sports psychologists during my playing career, as well, probably because I was exposed to a good few bullshitters along the way. I didn’t need them anyway; mentally I was always very strong. I knew I could play myself back into form when I hit a bad spell. If I was playing poorly I wanted to be told I was, I didn’t need to be plamased.

In my favourite memory of sports psychology during my time with Laois we were asked to put our arms out to the side. Then we had to stretch our arms as far backwards as we could and point at the wall. We were told to memorise the point on the wall that our outstretched arms reached. The sports psychologist then began to shout insults at us. Stuff like we were an awful team, we didn’t have any desire, we weren’t fit and things like that. He then invited us to stretch our arms back to the point in the wall again.

“You can’t reach the same point, can you?” he said.

Then he asked us to repeat the process but this time he began to shower us with compliments. He told us we could do anything we wanted, we had the talent and we had brilliant players. When we stretched our arms back the next time players knew what he wanted and I heard gasps around the room. Miraculously, fellas said they could go past the original point on the wall. We were told this was the power of positive thinking and with it our opportunities were endless.

I thought it was a wind up. My arm stretched back to the very same point on all three occasions. I hoped for my team-mates’ sake they were telling this chap exactly what he wanted to hear. Usually I’m not afraid to speak my mind but the atmosphere was so positive I think I might have been immediately thrown off the panel if I’d done anything but go along with the charade.

Some of the most successful coaches are firm believers in the power of positive thinking. Conor McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh once said, “If there is people moaning in the gym, I say I’m going to call the waambulance. I don’t put up with whiners. If guys are complaining about not getting certain opportunities, I will not tolerate that. I will only allow positive talk in my gym.”

MMA is a tough sport but I think I’d fear that type of environment more than getting grounded and pounded. What’s wrong with a good moan? Some of the funniest people to be around are the ones that moan and complain about everything. It’s a common trait in Irish people.

Strangely, some of the good things have happened in my life came about when I’ve at my most negative. I left a job in finance that I hated and went to DCU to study a masters in journalism. On the first day of college one of our lecturers painted a very bleak picture of our job prospects after we finished the course. I was shocked, but I appreciated his honesty. If we were lucky we would get freelance work but the opportunity of getting full time employment in the industry was very limited.

I told myself everyday of that course I wouldn’t get a job and that it had been a silly move at my age to go back to college. Around Christmas time when money was tight I thought about dropping out and going back to my job in finance. Despite all my negativity I got a job on Off The Ball, the leading sports radio show in the country.

I don’t believe thinking negatively had any influence over that. In fact it may be that my thinking had no power at all over what happens in the world. That might be the most positive message of all.

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