B10. If you make a mistake, you get a sandwich

TOC

Even in practice, where you get told off if you make a mistake, you will feel depressed if you make a mistake. If you make a mistake in an important game, you will feel even more depressed. And if the manager or coach gets angry at you for that mistake, you will feel like you can't recover. In either case, you will end up blaming yourself, denying yourself, and losing motivation for practice and games .

　Naomi Mashiko , a former member of the Japanese women's national volleyball team, has been holding the " Elementary School Volleyball Tournament Where Coaches Must Not Get Angry " since 2015, based on her own experiences.

　On the other hand, former Japanese national soccer team player Masashi Nakayama said, " I don't like compliments because they make me feel bad." Indeed, if you only receive praise, you will become complacent and miss out on the chance to improve your performance by correcting your mistakes.

　What should I do?

　In such cases, we use the sandwich method (Rick Wolf (translated) Masaomi Iyo et al. 2021) (Positive-Negative-Positive method). After you have calmed down a bit after failing, check what went well (positive feedback), then look at what went wrong, think about how to correct it, and respond positively, thinking that it will go well next time. "I was able to do this much, and if I fix this, I can do even better!" I think this can help motivate you.

I think athletes themselves should be aware of this method, and use it when they find themselves blaming themselves or when they are actually scolded. Of course, the people around them should be aware of it too .

　Nakamura Shunsuke, a former soccer player who played overseas, apparently wrote a soccer notebook every day, writing down points to reflect on after a match and ways to improve, and then repeated the cycle of practicing, playing a match, and writing down points to reflect on again . He said that "writing down what I regret," planning ways to improve, and feeling happy when I succeeded led me to the next step: small successes. It starts with points to reflect on, but the key is knowing that the experience of "doing it" and "being happy when I succeeded" gives you a positive feeling, so I think it can be called the sandwich method . Incidentally, this way of thinking is similar to the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) method often used in business management.

It's similar to gradually raising your level through a cycle of [check: check, act: improve] .