Preparation
Chapter One: Begin again
Welcome to Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing for 2004. As we begin our second year of providing this column, we enthusiastically ask for your comments, ideas and suggestions. The responses we have received to date have been encouraging, though this column, like your competitive fishing, is most likely to improve if we have clear and specific feedback about our performance. We will start a new year of performance-psychology analysis with a focus on the three Rs: review, renew and revise.
Review
With a new tournament season already upon us, it is time to step back and review what happened last year. Here is where your Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing notebook will be a good friend. If you don’t have a notebook from last year, perhaps you wrote some casual notes. Collect whatever you have written, set aside some time and look through what you recorded. How did your 2003 performance compare to your goals and plans? What went well last year, and where did you struggle? Were you able to put as much time into tournament practice or skill development as you would have liked? What specific lessons did you learn? What questions linger from 2003? What was your most frustrating moment? What was the high point?
Learning theory in psychology puts great emphasis on gathering baseline information. Being able to accurately measure where you currently stand allows you to most effectively gauge improvement. So, if you only do one thing for yourself this month, do this: Spend an hour or two reviewing your performance from last year and rate each performance as “good,” “adequate” or “poor.” Look at your adequate and poor performances to find the keys for what to improve in 2004.
Renew
Our first chapter last year talked about setting priorities and making commitments. Now is a good time to revisit and renew those commitments. Is competitive fishing still a top priority? Has your lifestyle changed to move tournament fishing higher or lower on your list of commitments? Do you have more or less time for competition this year? Perhaps some dimensions have changed with family, finances, sponsors and/or career obligations. If so, you may need to adjust how much time and effort you can dedicate to your tournament angling as a result.
Competitive anglers with new families have an especially challenging balancing act in front of them as they seek to align several important priorities. Remember, you are not alone as you blend your angling commitments with family obligations. Ask your colleagues how they keep multiple, competing demands in focus, and you may be surprised by the ideas and creative suggestions they offer. Using friends and fellow anglers as sounding boards when renewing your personal commitment to competition can also help keep your decisions and promises realistic.
Revise
A new tournament season presents a perfect opportunity to revise the particular goals and plans you created last year. Reread chapters Three and Four from the 2003 column, and use that information to set new long-term as well as short-term goals. In addition to performance goals such as winning or placing high in tournaments, it is a good idea to set specific skill-improvement goals for yourself as well. Top competitors consistently challenge themselves to learn new techniques or significantly improve present skills, and you should too.
Many who read this column last year discovered for the first time how psychological principles could be applied to competitive fishing. Not surprisingly, these anglers struggled with the planning, prioritizing and goal-setting exercises we suggested. However, when you review last year’s effort in preparation for revisions, it is likely that it will be easier to create effective goals and plans this time around. Remember, general goals are good; precise, specific goals are better.
We strongly encourage you to get a 2004 Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing notebook and use it at least on a weekly basis. Many of you have used computers or notebooks to keep track of specific tournament variables. An inexpensive, three-subject notebook is already divided into sections you can use for Commitments, Goals and Plans; for Tournament Performance; and for Miscellaneous Information.
We know in psychology that multimodal learning is more effective than unimodal learning. Put another way, if you read about an idea here, write it down in your notebook, talk it over with friends, and then revise what you have written so that you are best prepared to learn and benefit from that idea.
We stressed last year the importance of setting aside an hour or two a week to work on performance-psychology techniques, and we encourage you to again make that one of your angling commitments for 2004. No matter how well or poorly you did last year, we all start over in a new season with a blank slate. Psychological preparation techniques can help make this your best year ever.
Jay T. McNamara, Ph.D., L.P., is a psychologist, who is also an avid bass and walleye angler. With more than 25 years of professional experience complemented by participation in competitive fishing at local and national levels, he is uniquely qualified to illustrate how performance psychology principles apply to tournament fishing.