By Alan Chu, PhD, Certified Mental Performance Consultant®
ITTF Level 1 Coach
NCTTA Coaching Committee

It’s the day of the big competition. This is your chance to show everyone your skills and efforts you have put into the training. No pressure, right?

How would you cope with the pressure to perform and potentially adversity in these highly competitive situations? In the February 2022 Newsletter, I discussed focusing on the team goal, trusting the process, and controlling the controllable to help cope with adversity. What else could you do for some final mental preparation? Self-talk—an internal dialog you have with yourself—is one of the techniques that you can quickly learn and utilize.

Most successful athletes talk to themselves in specific ways to help them deal with the stress and anxiety that often accompanies big competition. Without a self-talk plan, you are more vulnerable to the negative effects of high pressure and mistakes. Specifically, unproductive self-talk before a match (e.g., “I don’t want to upset my teammates,” “I gotta win. If not, my team may lose”) triggers your body’s self-defense, “fight or flight” mechanism (e.g., muscle tension, increased heart rate), and negative changes in your performance. Unproductive self-talk during a match (e.g., “That was a terrible shot that I hit,” “Why is my opponent so lucky with so many net/edge shots?!”) undermines your confidence, concentration, and subsequent performance.

So, what does productive self-talk look like? Based on research and my experience, productive self-talk consists of the 3Ps:

1. Positive Tone: Focus on your strengths, past successes, preparation, and goals rather than weaknesses, past failures, unrealistic expectations, and problems. For example, before a match, you can say to yourself, “I know my opponent is strong, but I have a strong forehand loop that I can execute consistently.”

2. Present/Process Orientation: Focus on the present process (this point/match) rather than the past (last point/match) or the future (results of the match/competition). For example, during a match, you can say to yourself, “one point at a time,” “right here, right now, let’s go!” or a task that you are going to execute (e.g., “loop to his/her middle”)

3. Personal Meaning: Before a match or competition, find the positive meaning or motivation for playing it to set an intention. For example, you can tell yourself, “let’s enjoy the match,” or “I want to challenge myself against strong players.”

Utilizing productive self-talk statements or phrases can help you be more confident and focused. Every player has their own preferences, so you may need to trying out different self-talk to see what works best for you.

While it is true that you do not always have control over what happens during the competition (e.g., making mistakes, opponents getting lucky shots), you can always control how you respond to a situation (e.g., using self-talk with the 3Ps). To do so, you can use the 3Rs routine that includes self-talk:

1. Recognize the negative situation or unproductive self-talk.
2. Reframe the situation or self-talk to be more positive and productive.
3. Refocus on the next point and the task at hand.

I hope the 3Ps and 3Rs are helpful for your final mental preparation for the big competition to be the best that you can be!

Photo Credit to Grant Bergmann

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org