Understanding How to Stop Overgeneralization
Skatergirl cringes every time she thinks of her Regional Qualifying Championship Event last year when she fell on 4 of her jumps. What happened? She really doesn’t know but embarrassment and humiliation are the two things she distinctly remembers feeling. It was the worst she ever skated. Thankfully, this season has been going pretty well. It has been a normal one with the expected ups and downs.
Since then, she’s been working very hard to improve in practice, and she has made great progress. Faithfully, she does her program run-throughs. Her jumps are better; competitions have been great. Her performances are consistent with her practice skates.
This year’s Regionals are coming up. The top 4 skaters advance to the Sectional Championships, then the top 4 to Nationals.
Despite her great season and all the progress she has made, negative thoughts creep into her mind. She is filled with worry about repeating last year’s disaster.
“I’ve practiced so much and made so much progress but I will feel terrible if I don’t skate well. I would’ve wasted all my hard work this year.”
“So many things can go wrong. What if I fall on my triples? That is triple the humiliation. I don’t what to pop either, and what if I mess up on something else?”
“I am going to make everyone mad if I don’t make it through again. Coach will be so disappointed”
She has high hopes for herself but her past mistakes are putting doubts into her head. This negative thinking is making her miserable.
Overgeneralization vs Reality
This is one of the times when the reality of a situation surpasses the negative expectations.
The reality is that this year she is a different skater. She has practiced and improved her technique. She is prepared.
But her thoughts are stuck in the past, revisiting her mistakes from last year.
She is trapped in “Overgeneralization.” This is a specific type of expectation (remember the shoulds) where one dwells on something. The “something” could be either good or bad.
In this case, Skatergirl is dwelling on her poor performance at Regionals last year, and allowing that experience to dictate how she feels going into this year’s competition. She is so caught up in worrying about messing up, that she has forgotten how much she has improved.
Mistakes are a part of life – they are unavoidable. But you have choices. You can either dwell on the mistakes and let that fear ruin your future, or you can learn from them and then let them go. You are in charge of what is going on in your mind.
Breaking Down the Pieces
Let’s make this fun. Think of the skating season as a program – your practice sessions are the transitions and your competitions are the elements.
Each element in your program gets you points. Each transition is important. Each part contributes to the overall performance.
Regionals are one little piece of the program. Every part of your program is relevant and important.
Once you treat everything with equal importance, you will remember the momentum you have built over the whole year.
You will be reminded of the great practices you had, the improvements you made, the competitions you skated and all the learning gained from each experience.
In your program, if you can’t put an early fall behind you, the rest of your program performance could suffer.
In a season, if you focus on one disastrous competition, and disregard all the great practices and other competitions, you could cause yourself to skate poorly.
Why not cast your worries and doubts aside.
Take in the season as a whole, and stop time traveling to the past. Get yourself back in the present.
Skatergirl’s mistakes at last year’s Regionals may have embarrassed her, but it also motivated her to improve for this season.
Her experience already served its purpose and it’s time for her to move on.
Some might debate that you should worry about a qualifying competition.
But ask yourself this: does worrying help you to skate better?
Or does worry create a situation of pressure and self doubt, that makes it hard to be mentally and physically ready to skate your best?
How to overlook your overgeneralization
Before you can address your overgeneralization, you need to recognize that you are dwelling on an unpleasant situation, mistake or bad experience.
Ask yourself if you are you setting up negative expectations based on past experience? If yes, then this is what you do:
- Recall the bad experience and list all the things you learned from it
- Did you start mental skills development?
- Did you change the way you practiced?
- Did you stop doing something that didn’t work or start doing something that did?
- Be thankful for the experience. Appreciate that it helped you become a better skater.
- Let it go…. literally
- Write the experience down on a piece of paper, tear it up or burn it.
- Write the experience in the sand and let the waves wash it away.
- Make a list of all the good things that you have done this year, whether it was improvements in your skills, success in competitions, or more consistent programs.
- If you start to think about the past, catch yourself and take a “time out.”
- It can help to have a catch phrase to help you remember that you have moved on. Make one up for yourself or use one of these:
- Past is past, I’m different now.
- Or as Elsa would say, “Let it go, Let it gooooo…”
Overgeneralizing or dwelling on the past creates negative expectations, doubts and worry. None of these things are helpful if you want to do your best. In fact, obsessing on a mistake can actually be more detrimental to your mental, emotional and physical health.
You need to see mistakes for what they are – opportunities to evolve. It is an opportunity to take charge of your thoughts and turn a mistake into a motivation.
The past is gone and there is nothing we can do to change it. And trust me, when you let it go, you will see that the cold never bothered you anyway…
Do you tend to dwell on past mistakes? Do past mistakes affect your performance or motivate you to do better? Is there any catchphrase you use to help you move on? Share in the comments!
Mental skills training can help to keep your emotions on an even keel so that you can practice and compete your best.
Start here; download “Confidence Myth Busters,” a complimentary eBook and make a change.