You don't have to be an athlete to make use of sports psychology
By Rich Whincup

When I first joined the McGuire Programme six years ago, I heard the terms 'sports mentality' and 'the sport of speaking' being used in the instruction of the techniques. Until recently, the definitions of those terms have been 'play to win, don't play not to lose... think like an athlete... train... practice... make sacrifices'. Having studied sports science at university, I felt that there was a lot more to adopting a successful sports mentality and a great deal of locked potential within the subject.

There are elements of a sports mentality such as appropriate goal setting and visualising successful situations that can be widely adopted.

Motivation

As a stammerer, to gain eloquent speech is one of the biggest motivations. Some of us though, occasionally need an extra push to do those additional contacts, to make those phone calls, or in a more general sense, to continue expanding our comfort zones. One technique widely used within sport is goal setting

We can set goals for ourselves, make 100 contacts per day, or phone three stronger graduates of the programme each week. The list is endless, but there are a few principles that we must be aware of. Goal setting can be counter-productive if not used correctly. If the goals set are too difficult, for the graduate at a specific stage in their recovery, the goals in question will not be achieved. This failure may result in negative thoughts and therefore negative feelings towards the programme and the coach themselves. The key word in goal setting is challenge.

Visualisation

If I had written about this 20 years ago, it would have made no sense, because I would have only been five years old - but seriously, no one had really ever used visualisation in sport.

Today, visualisation is widely used by amateur and elite level performers alike. The visualisation possibilities for the McGuire technique are endless. It is already used by many, but what some people do not realise is that we have all used it at one point or another, when practicing kinaesthetics - the hand and arm motion that we all use is to mimic the movement of our costal diaphragm when speaking and/or breathing. How can we enhance our use of visualisation?

When in a stressful situation, such as a meeting room introduction or presentation at school, college, or work, we can try and visualise ourselves in a support group, or on a course, helping us to concentrate on our speech, rather than the stresses that we put ourselves under in these situations.

Self Confidence

Confidence to an athlete and recovering stammerer is everything. 'You're only as good as your last game', or in our case, your only as eloquent as your last speaking situation. If someone has a bad block on a word or situation, you can bet that next time something similar comes along, the feelings or fear will come back and we may start to use avoidance techniques.

So how does an athlete get their confidence back after a poor performance? They get back onto that training ground and get practicing, working on their techniques, practice not only makes perfect, it also makes permanent.

Competition

What does an athlete train for? What do we drill, exaggerate and follow directions for? To compete with the opposition and to beat the opposition. I look at every single speaking situation as a game with my stammer, I simply do not play to lose. I look at regular contacts as league games, public speeches, disclosures and interviews as cup finals. We should never play to lose, when it's you and your stammer, you can only play to win, if you don't want to win, you shouldn't have started the training in the first place.

Rich Whincup is a trainer and sports psychology consultant for the McGuire Programme.
Email: whinks01@yahoo.co.uk
Links from: www.mcguireprogramme.com

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Email: ah@stammering.org [Ed.]

From the Winter 2005 edition of Speaking Out