Don't Chase It...
I originally wrote this piece for The Hockey Think Tank. This is a rewrite that is better.
Mistakes are either fertilizer or fatal. Mental model time.
When the snake bites you, chasing after it or running for help makes your heart pump more blood. This is bad and gets people into trouble. Because it makes the problem worse. Venom travels through your bloodstream to more of the body. More venom in more areas = more problems.
When the snake bites, plan to get the venom out as quickly as you can. And remain calm to keep it local in the body. The worst thing you can do is turn a local problem into a global one.
Here’s the transition to hockey…
When players make a mistake, sometimes it’s all they think about. Be it be from bad programming at school(every mistake is pointed out in red ink), poor parenting or coach’s that create pressure instead of permission… Players ruminate on mistakes. They turn a local(no big deal) problem into a global (my career is over because of that one turnover) problem.
How do we avoid the disaster of catastrophizing? We need a tool. And a mindset shift.
Mistakes are the starting point.
It is the choice you make next that puts you on the path to learning from it or being derailed by it. Stop right now and think about what you say to yourself when you make a mistake.
What is your inner voice telling you? How can you be better because of it? And what is the next best action you can take?
See our goal as a player should be to forget mistakes quickly when they happen in the game. And not let this happen:
When you Choose to Chase the Snake
Let’s paint a picture. It’s the first period, the game has no score. Your teammate makes his check miss in the corner and creates a two-on-one at the net front, you slide into space on your one-time side on the back door, and you’re wide open. He slides you a perfect pass and as you go to connect, the puck hits off the heel of the blade and dribbles off the side of the net.
Missed opportunity. The first mistake is missing the net in the first period of a 0-0 game. It can end there, but most often it carries back to the bench. Your body language drops, there might be some “choice words” to yourself. Is any of this productive? Will it prevent you from playing well for the rest of the period? The rest of the game? Some people will answer yes to these questions, and it hurts their game.
The first mistake is missing the net, the 2nd mistake is letting it bring you out of the present and affect even 1 more shift. The first mistake doesn’t kill you, the 2nd does.
Missing the net happens, missing the rest of the game because you can’t course correct is unacceptable. When the snake bites you, chasing after it makes your heart pump more blood so the venom travels through your bloodstream to more of the body doing more harm. When the snake bites, plan to get the venom out as quickly as you can. This is where our failure recovery system comes in.
Plan to Fail, But Plan to Recover
You should have a failure recovery system. And it should look different in practice than it does in games. You might try this in the game.
When you make a mistake in a game: admit it and forget it. Get the venom out as quickly as you can. It cannot change the course of your game. The mistake can't make you disappear for the rest of the period, game, or the next 5 games.
How you might try this. It’s only 3 steps: Admit it, come back to the present, and generate and elevate a teammate. This is what that looks like:
Sit down on the bench after the shift, and say out loud, “I missed that chance, but it won’t define the rest of my game.”
Then look at the scoreboard and keep talking to yourself to come back to the present, “there’s 2:45 left in the 2nd” This brings you into the right here and now.
Tap your linemate next to you and say, “I’ve got you.” Immediately focused on helping a teammate and not focused on you.
That is what failure recovery looks like and sounds like. You can also develop your own way, but if you’re struggling, try out my script. The worst thing you can do for yourself and the team is let 3 seconds affect the next 40 minutes of the game. Or the next 2 weeks of your season.
Plan to fail, but plan to recover.
Don’t chase the snake.