Tom Brady’s Secret to Success: Self-Talk
Tom Brady has a famous interview where he describes his thought process going into games. He describes how he used anger as his motivator to perform at his best. He would imagine metaphorically killing his opponents. He would talk himself into this anger saying: What are they saying about me? How did they disrespect me?
Tom Brady was using that voice in his head to his advantage. He was using that voice to make him angry, to motivate him.
This is a perfect representation of self-talk, a mental tool involving an athlete’s verbalizations to themself (Sackett & Durand-Bush, 2022). Athletes can use self-talk to influence motivation, self-confidence, emotional regulation, arousal regulation, and cognitive functioning (Sackett & Durand-Bush, 2022).
But how does self-talk work?
Hatzigeorgiadis et al. (2013) published a study testing the effectiveness of a self-talk intervention on competitive performance in young swimmers. The author came to the following conclusions:
Practicing self-talk leads to systematic use in practice and competition settings.
Self-talk can be motivational or instructional. It was found that the type of self-talk was most beneficial when matched with the individual’s environmental context.
Considerable performance benefits were seen in the intervention group.
Autonomy, competence, and relatedness are all required to maximize the performance outcomes of self-talk interventions.
These findings support the value of self-talk strategies in the complex and unpredictable sporting environments.
For Tom Brady, his self-talk was motivational, used to stimulate anger to prepare him for competition. What does your self-talk sound like?
TLDR, what does this mean for you? That voice in the back of your head has a name: self-talk. Self-talk interventions have been linked to performance benefits in multiple settings. Through either motivational or instructional adaptations, you can make that voice work for you.
Not sure how to approach your self-talk? Contact Now for professionally developed self-talk strategies proven to boost your performance.
Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Galanis, E., Zourbanos, N., & Theodorakis, Y. (2013). Self-talk and Competitive Sport Performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26(1), 82–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2013.790095
Sackett, S. C., & Durand-Bush, N. (Eds.). (2022). The Essential Guide for Mental Performance Consultants. Routledge.