389. Is it good to be superstitious?
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This is an excerpt from our long-form video in The Mental Skills Mechanics Membership. You can find the full video here. The full video is titled, “3 Common Mistakes Amateurs Make and Proven Corrections for Success.”
Routines are NOT Superstitions
Here’s the second point I would like to make when it comes to routines. Routines are not superstitions. I call superstitions stupid-stitions. If you look up synonyms for superstitions you’ll find words like: delusional, illusion, sorcery, witchcraft, magic. If you look up antonyms you’ll actually find the word science. A superstition takes away all of your trust in yourself. A superstition says, “If I don’t put my left sock on first, then I’m going to have a bad race,” or, “If I don’t wear my lucky underwear, then I’m going to lose.” Stupid-stitions take away your true super power. All that preparation you put in, all the training sessions you pushed yourself in, all of the weight training sessions, the times you chose to eat something healthy instead of veering off the path and eating junk, all of the mental training you did to harden your mind, all of that is for naught if you don’t have your shirt on that “makes you fast.” I had one athlete I was working with that had a sub-par performance, so he shaved his beard and gave himself a mustache. Then in his next outing, he didn’t perform again so he shaved his mustache. Then, he had another bad outing so he went out and partied with his buddies, thinking he just needed to relax. None of this worked out in his favor. It destroyed his confidence in himself because he was putting his faith in unfounded beliefs, in stupid-stitions. “If I shave my beard, then I’ll have a solid performance.” Stupid-stitions, I can’t stress this enough how detrimental they can be.
How Superstitions and Routines Differ
Now, there is a difference between superstitions and routines. A routine is a habit done with intention. So, let’s take a look at your lucky underwear or putting on your socks left foot first and right foot second. Here’s the difference between this between a superstition and a routine. Remember that consistent behaviors lead to consistent thoughts. One psychological principle to pay attention to is priming. Are you priming your brain intentionally? This, coupled with the principal of recency, which states that what we have thought about most recently is remembered most readily, will result in you seeing the world through that lens.
So, your lucky underwear. If you’re into putting your faith in something outside of your control like luck, then go for it. Or as you put your underwear on you can think, “This is my mental toughness uniform.” The behavior of putting this article of clothing on is a mental checkpoint for yourself. Am I thinking about what I want to be thinking about right now? If you put it on and you’re thinking about how you’re mentally tough, then when you get out there on the race course and somebody passes you, you’ll be more likely to think something like, “Okay throw a lasso around them and hang on, let them pull you. Reel them in. One step at a time,” instead of, “Oh man I’m just having a bad day today. It’s just not my day. Wow they’re so lucky. They woke up fast today. I woke up slow.”
I got a text from the head coach at University of Oklahoma that he got from one of the most mentally tough athletes I know, Adam Wainwright, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, 3x all-star, and 2006 world series champion. Here’s what he said about mental toughness:
One time I had the bathroom woes and threw 17 pitches before the game started. Plenty. One time I thought the game time was at 7:08 and it was actually 6:40. The pitching coach walked in and said, "Are you coming out?" I calmly looked at him when he told me the game was starting in 10 mins and said, "Yes sir. I don't need much today." Like it was planned. A fast jog out to the bullpen (I was in Milwaukee at the time). Not a sprint. A sprint said that I was late. A jog said I was planning on this. I threw 7, maybe 8 pitches.... let's get it. All I needed. 6 ⅓ innings... no runs. Sometimes we over think things. It's all about execution. Am I better than you today? Routine helps me know I'm prepared, but if a wildcard flips, I'm mentally tough enough to make that work too.
When a wildcard flips, are you mentally tough to still find it in yourself to still compete with what you have that day? If you’re superstitious, the answer would be no, because you didn’t have time to shave your face or because your dad wasn’t there to help you zip up your wetsuit.
Stupidstitions take away your inner-knowing that you have what it takes and that you put in the work to go out there and compete.
So that’s Mistake #2. Amateurs don’t have a set routine. They don’t have anything to go to when adversity hits and they use superstitions to create a false sense of belief instead of knowing what behaviors lead to their consistent competitive thinking and solution-focused mindset.
Find the full video in The Mental Skills Mechanics Membership. Click here to go directly to it.
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