SAMPLE YELLOW CAR LESSON – Hockey

So often we hear of a player falling into a slump. Perhaps a goal-scoring drought, a timing issue for a d-man having difficulties pivoting or closing gaps, or perhaps a goaltender not seeing the puck properly. Whatever the case surrounding the slump, the most common process or fix seems to be that of extra and excessive practice. Years past (and still often today), this was how all slumps were addressed; shoot more pucks, work more on one on one’s, take more shots… all seemed to make perfect sense…if you’re struggling with something, work harder on it to fix it.

Well, turns out that by working harder on trying to fix a problem, what we are actually doing is putting more emphasis on the problem itself. In fact, often during slumps, an athlete will get angry during practice while trying to improve their performance. This is a result of holding the negative emotions of the slump within us while still trying to get past it. It simply doesn’t work this way.

When we put ourselves into a negative, fight or flight state, we increase stress hormones within us like cortisol and adrenaline and in doing so, actually prevent positive emotion to develop. And without positive emotion (or energy) we can’t move to the confident state of mind, which is required to move past a slump.

TIP: instead of fighting against a slump by battling it, focus your attention to past successes, where you’ve experienced that positive emotion that brought you previous success. Re-live the feelings you had when you scored that goal, broke up that 2 on 1 or made that glove stop to win the game… In re aligning your point of attention you will improve your perspective and change the chemical balance within you (adding the positive hormones to the mix instead, like serotonin and endorphins) providing a more confident disposition. Now go shoot some pucks and see where they go. When you shift your point of attraction first, the physical always follows. We’ve just had it backwards for a while. What you focus on you attract!