The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter One for free at DrKenner.com and at Amazon.com.

"It's all because of me and my old man.
Hate him. He's like this. It's like this mindless machine that I can't even relate to anymore.
Andrew, you've got to be number one. I won't tolerate any losers in this family. Win, win, win. You know, sometimes I wish my knee would give and I wouldn't be able to wrestle anymore. He could forget all about me."

And that's from The Breakfast Club. And all of us have had those experiences in our lives when we feel the pressure from outside?a parent telling us win at sports, you have to do well. You know, when my son was young, I saw him on the soccer field, and I saw other parents saying?not ?good job? or ?good try??but they would say, ?You've got to win. You've got to win.? And it would just turn inside of me. I couldn't stand the parents, and I would be encouraging their kids. So there was a battle going on within me.

Today, we are going to be talking about sports psychology and how to have much better motivation. Because sometimes that win, win, win is not a parent pushing you, but it's you pushing yourself. It's my pleasure to have as my guest Dr. Judy Van Raalte. She's a psychology professor at Springfield College in Massachusetts. She's worked with athletes from youth sports athletes to professional athletes in the United States and around the world. She's written four books and presented at conferences in 11 countries. Judy is a certified consultant and is listed on the United States Olympic Committee sports psychology registry.

Welcome, Judy.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Judy, how do you help a child go from feeling pushed to really engaging in a sport?

That's a tricky question, because a child who's involved in a sport who absolutely doesn't want to be in the sport doesn't want to be in the sport. So perhaps a better question is: How do we help people to be motivated to do something that can be really good for them and a lot of fun, and in many cases something they can enjoy for an entire lifetime?

So your goal is to help people get a positive motivation and be able to do well. And I think of?I can use my own example?my husband and I have been dancing for between 15 and 20 years, after my husband didn't dance for about 19 years, but that's another story for another day. And we've gotten a lot of pleasure from it. We have fabulous, fabulous, top-notch instructors, and they have been so patient with us, and they seem to enjoy being with us. But I noticed that one of the problems I have?if you were?can you be my sports psychologist?

I would be delighted.

One of the problems I have is that I know I've made progress. However, I feel guilty when they have to teach me the same thing over and over again. I don't have the time to practice, and I don't know how to manage that guilt in my own mind.

As a sports psychologist, I guess I want to give kind of two answers. And one is, I would guess for a lot of athletes and families, what happens when a problem arises is the athletes?in this case you and your husband?you think among yourselves, is it worth it to continue with these lessons or not? Are we getting enough out of it? Are we letting down these wonderful instructors? You think about it. You come up with a plan. Maybe you consult with other people who also dance, other instructors, talk to friends, think about a solution. You come up with, ?I wish I had more time in my life,? or ?We'll try harder next time.? And then you don't really have enough time.

And that's exactly right.

And oftentimes, when nothing really gets better after working at it for a while?if the problem persists?that's when people finally come to me as the sports psychology consultant. So I do want to say that the sports psychology consultant might not have a quick, easy answer, because usually by the time athletes come to us, the problem's been around for a while, right?

Right. Yeah, that's true.

So back to your situation. And hey, I've got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds?that's it?a very quick ad, and then we'll be back.

Romance.

?Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship.?
?Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want.?
?Where's that ad I saw? Ah, here it is?The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download Chapter One for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com.?
Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance?that is interesting.

So back to your situation. As a sports psychology consultant, with your partner and husband probably in the room, we might do some thinking about what it is that you want to get out of dance. And if more practice were something you really wanted to do, maybe we would talk about planning how to fit that into your life. And if you want to do it but it's not realistic to do it now, we might think about it differently.

One of the things that people spend a lot of time on is working on their weaknesses, which is an excellent strategy, because improving your weaknesses will help you get better. But one of the things we often neglect is failing to work on our strengths.

Oh, help me out. I'd love to do that.

So what are some of your strengths as a dance team?

As a dance team, I think that we're very playful with one another. We competed this year, and I think we messed up during the competition, and both of us had the warmest smiles. It didn't matter. We didn't care about what anyone else thought. We were having a blast on the floor, and we were truly dancing with each other and for ourselves. And I know I had that emotional feeling inside. And for me to be able to accomplish that I felt was terrific. So that's one of our strengths.

And that strength may be related to why you're not the team that practices as much as some other teams. Because grinding it out and putting in lots of hours doesn't match what makes you really good, especially given the amount of time that you have to commit to dancing. You're really good at what you do because you have a lot of fun doing it. So one of the things you might think about is that maybe putting in all the time that you could might make it less fun, might not fit with your lifestyle. So in that case, the question might be more: How do you deal with your guilt, because you're not really planning to change what you do? Is that possible?

You know, it's funny, because you saying that is liberating me to say, well, maybe we don't have to practice. And then I'm actually accessing that motivation of, ?But I want to practice.? And that's good, because I want to. It's not that I should, or I have to, or I've got to?it's I want to. So I think that's a piece of it. I don't think I can set that aside and not practice. I think I just need to weave it into the schedule in a way that works for both of us. And I think our dance teachers are really comfortable with us. I think the guilt is more mine because I don't practice. And I don't think there's any way around it, Judy. I think I need to practice. But anyway.

Part of sports psychology consulting is not that the sports psychology consultant will have a magic pill that you'll take and all sports problems will be solved. But it will help you perhaps understand the problem better, come up with solutions that really work for you, and hopefully make the whole situation more enjoyable.

Right. And that's all about?you used something that I think I remembered you saying was the Columbo method. You actually had me talk about it, and it's like I solved my own problem. And by listening to myself and you giving me permission to do exactly what I have been doing, I solved the problem. Because I need to be able to practice, and I want to now, and I have a different mindset about it.

So listen, I want to thank you so much for joining us today.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com. And please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance: The Serious Romance Guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who is world-famous for his theories in goal setting:

Constant, fresh, and interesting communication makes you lovable, but this takes work to keep your relationship and the conversation interesting over a period of years. Stay mentally active and alert together. Learn and discover new things. Acquire new tastes. Study new ideas and choose new values. If you shut your mind off, you'll become a bore, and no one will enjoy talking with you?not even your mother. Vegetables are good to eat, but they aren't any fun to converse with. If you want to be loved, work to make yourself lovable.

You can download Chapter One for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.