The Language of Coaching Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Language of Coaching - Research Paper Example In addition, due to these positive and negative effects of self-talk on athletes performance, a lot of investigation and critical interest has been shown towards the topic of self-talk by various researchers over the last years (Yang, and Mengze 357). Indeed, self-talk may defined simply as an internal dialogue where an individual interprets his or her feelings and perceptions in order to regulate, evaluate and then choose the best strategy to use in motivating and reinforcing himself or herself. Besides, most scholars have argued that self-talk has various physiological and psychological effects on athletes’ performances that usually result into positive performance. Therefore, this paper is going to discuss and analyze the importance and various effects of athletic self-talk, specifically on the rhetorical appeals and patterns of logical argument in which this athletic self-talk mostly relies on (Tovares 273). To begin with, self-talk can be either negative or positive; thus , it is important that athletes should try to mentally train their minds in order to gain self-talk skills that will motivate them to have more improved performance (Newman 4). This can be done through positive thinking that would allow them acknowledge their success and abilities, thereby guiding them on where to put more focus on. On the other hand, unproductive and negative self-talk has been found to be among the dragging and damaging thoughts that mostly distracts athletes’ performances, leading to anxiety and poor results in sports competitions. Due to this anxiety and low performance caused by negative and unproductive self-talk, it is always advisable for athletes to train their minds in such a way that they often reduce negative self-talk messages and replace them with the positive ones (Gi-Yong, Brody and Stephen 148). There are various ways to be used by athletes to develop positive self-talk that will enable them have good performance in both national and internat ional competitions such as in Olympic Games (Newman 4). The first step is to create a self-talk plan that will enable athletes avoid any negative self-talk that can distract their performance. This may involving creating positive words and statements such as â€Å"I am feeling strong† or mantas like â€Å"I am going to win the race†. These positive self- talk statements should be in such a way that they can be repeated over and over so that athletes can use them to replace negative thoughts as they focus on more positive alternatives. Again, research has shown that the more one uses productive and positive self-talk plan, the more positive results will come out (Yang, and Mengze 357). Secondly, it is important that athletes start creating positive mental images in order to create visual pictures of them doing what they have said. Indeed, the combination of the positive statements and visual images can give them positive results (Epting, et al. 311). Thirdly, it is also important that athletes get involved in the process of letting go of unproductive and negative thoughts. For example, in case they are in a situation of unproductive self-talk, it is important that they apply correct strategy to counteract these negative thought