Positive Affirmations When Walking Through Doorways and Why They Work
The value of positive thinking in sports cannot be emphasized enough. You have to believe that you belong with the best, that you are worthy of success, and that you’ll be able to overcome whatever comes your way. This is what allows athletes to stay focused and relaxed when things go wrong. They continuously envision positive outcomes, even if it seems like they are losing momentum.
Some athletes seem naturally confident. But it’s human nature to get flustered and discouraged when you make a mistake, or when your team is losing. So how to the best of the best always seem to thrive in those envirnoments?
To understand how athletes stay confident, who better to ask than athletes themselves? In 2017, 23-time Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps shared a very interesting but effective strategy he uses to maintain his self-confidence. It might sound silly at first, but the credibility of the greatest Olympian in history cannot be denied.
What are Doorway Affirmations?
Michael Phelps has been very candid about his own mental struggles. During a particularly dark time in his life, he was encouraged to say a positive affirmation every time he walked through a door. Yes, literally every single time. That includes every time you walk through your bathroom door, the door to your school, your classroom, or the front door to your home, etc.
“Every time you go in or out of a door, you have to say something positive about yourself, or something you believe,” Michael explained. “You end up saying like 400 or 500 things a day.”
To be clear, a positive affirmation doesn’t have to directly mention sports. It could be something as simple as “My life is great,” or “I am a hard-worker.”
Why Positive Affirmations Work
In the same interview, Michael admitted that at first, the idea of saying 400 positive affirmations a day “sounds insane.” But it worked for him, and here’s why:
“It’s incredible how fast you see the things you say inside of you,” he said. Essentially, you start believing the things you’re telling yourself.
The purpose of saying positive affirmations is to encourage your mind to get on the positivity train. Well, the doorway strategy is designed to jumpstart this process by maximizing the amount of affirmations you say each day. It’s simply a very quick way to train your mind how to think positively.
How Positive Affirmations Elevate Your Game
Positive affirmations work because you’re not lying to yourself. You’re merely saying what you already know, and feeding this information into your mind. Eventually - just like Michael Phelps said - the positivity of your affirmations will spread to your mental processes. Your affirmations will become your beliefs, and you’ll start feeling better about yourself because you have so many reasons to do so.
When you experience adversity, your positive mindset will carry you through it. Think about it: If you sincerely believe you are worthy of success, why would you suddenly start thinking you’re going to fail just because of a single setback? The more you build up that mindset with affirmations, the stronger and harder to break it will be.
At Beyond Goals Mentoring, we help young athletes build confidence by identifying the mental blocks that may be impeding their growth. If your athlete is struggling with confidence, let’s set up a mentoring session. Together, we’ll train your athlete to focus on the aspects of their sport they truly love so they can feel relaxed on the pitch and perform at their best.
