Two Sides of the Same Coin

By: Katie Follett

Have you ever heard the expression two sides of the same coin? Meaning, two things may seem opposite but cannot exist without each other. 

I first heard this expression used in the context of championship racing season during a conversation with coach and mentor Dan Pfaff the week of the USATF Championships. I was dealing with the usual pre-competition nerves that I learned to refer to as, “anticipatory excitement”. It was not my favorite feeling. I actually dreaded the “glurp” in my stomach upon waking up the morning of finals and being hit with “this is the day I’ve been training for all year!” But, once I learned to reframe that feeling, I started to live for it. Part of that shift for me was this explanation from coach Pfaff: positives come with negatives. Which will you focus on and use?

The week of a big competition, I would often get stuck looking at only “one side” of the coin. I’ve also noticed this is common with the athletes I work with now as a counselor and mental skills coach. When the brain is on auto-pilot, it’s easy to get stuck looking at things from only one perspective and focusing primarily on what we don't like. But, pre-competition anxiety and performance go together. You can't have one without the other, because you've invested a lot of time and energy into getting there. Bottom line: YOU CARE. If you didn't care, or hadn't put time and energy into your goals, you wouldn't feel any “anticipatory excitement” or nerves.

I really like this illustration that I learned in counseling school to take this a step further. One side of the coin can represent getting stuck more in an "emotional mind”, where feelings are controlling thoughts and behavior. This isn’t ideal because we might be impulsive or ignore important facts. The other side of the coin could represent relying solely on a "rational mind”, where we suppress and ignore uncomfortable emotions, and which often leads to them coming back stronger. 

Both of these approaches waste precious energy. 

As an athlete, I would get stuck in one of these a lot, getting overwhelmed by the “emotional mind” or just trying to stuff that down and replace those emotions with positive affirmations, logic, or what I will refer to as the “rational mind”. But, why do we still feel anxious even though we can tell ourselves we’re prepared? We need to do more than replace, we need to zoom out and get a different perspective, and not get stuck in only one way of looking at things! 

So, how do we get a fuller view of the whole coin? Use your “wise mind” to get a more balanced perspective. Emotions are valuable data. Like the check-engine-light coming on in a car, they reveal what is important to us and what we value. Ignoring them erodes performance over time by wasting valuable energy suppressing them! The goal is integration. Not letting either take over, but using BOTH to inform how you will approach the weeks and days leading up to a championship race. This is like flipping the coin and seeing the whole 3D shape, not just looking at heads or tails.

When in an emotional mind, we want to acknowledge what the emotion is telling us so we can accept it and re-direct that valuable energy. When in a rational mind, we want to calm any fears or anxieties that our emotions reveal to us by reminding ourselves of all that we have done to prepare. 

Because, a prepared athlete is a confident athlete.

Finally, what helps an athlete maintain this “wise” mindset under stress? GRATITUDE! Athletes tend to focus on the parts of competition that aren't their favorite (pressure, anxiety) and in doing that, focus on only one side of the coin. But, these feelings exist because of the other side of the coin- for example: that they care about their performance. 

So, which side will you focus on?