High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 140: What the Best Athletes Do with Dr. Cristina Fink, Sport Psychologist

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

Cristina is a highly experienced sport psychologist with over 20 years of experience in teaching, counseling and sport administration. Her clients include Olympic Medalists and World Champions as well as professional and national soccer teams. One professional team she works with is the soccer team Philadelphia Union where she works directly with first team athletes. She was the Sport Psychologist for several teams in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games including Synchronized Swimming, Track and Field, Modern Pentathlon, Swimming, Diving, Archery, Taekwondo and Soccer. Cristina competed in two Olympic Games (Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992) and held the Mexican High Jump Record with a 6’4” jump for 22 years. Find a full description at cindrakamphoff.com/cristina.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here today to listen to episode 140 with Christina Fink. Now, I just came back from a week in Orlando at the Association for Applied Sports Psychology Conference. That's sort of like my conference, the one I've been going to for about 20 years. And I love that conference because we just learn and exchange ideas.

And I got to see Christina again at the conference, even though I had interviewed her a few weeks ago. And to start off, I'd like to tell you a little bit about how I first met Christina. So Christina and I were both invited to the Pro Summit. It was sponsored by the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. We were both invited to the summit where it was all professionals in sports psychology who work with pro teams. And we were invited to this summit in August in Florida. And there we exchanged ideas. We got to know each other with, you know, the other

people who work in pro sport in the room. and we got to really talk about the field and the direction of the field and I was so impressed with Christina Christina's ideas her application and also her energy and that's why I thought it would be really helpful for me to ask her on this podcast so you could learn more about the work she does but also how to apply it to your life and to your sport if you play sport or coach sport and now let me tell you a little bit about Christina's background it's very impressive she is a highly experienced sports psychologist with over 20 years of experience in teaching counseling and sport administration her clients include olympic medalists and world champions as well as professional and national soccer teams so one professional team she works with is the soccer team Philadelphia Union,

where she works directly with the first team athletes. Now she was a sports psychologist for several teams in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Olympics, including the sports like synchronized swimming, track and field, pentathlon, swimming and diving, archery, taekwondo, and soccer. Now what's also cool about Christina, she is also an Olympian. She competed in two Olympic games, Seoul in 1998 and Barcelona in 1992, and held the Mexican high jump record with a jump of six feet four inches. She held that record for 22 years. Isn't that amazing? So in this interview, we talk a lot of things related to her bio. We talk about

her experiences competing at the Olympics, the importance of what she calls psychological flexibility. She also describes an exercise that you can use outside of sport and inside of sport called the possible stressful situation exercise, why we should all take responsibility for our behavior, and three questions to ask ourselves to get better. My two favorite quotes from this interview include, quote, you can't control how you think and feel, but you can manage it. And she also says, thoughts are just thoughts. You decide if you're going to pay attention to them or not before we head over to the interview i'd like to read a comment and rating on itunes this comment is from mitzi and she says your positive grit is contagious she says thanks for sharing the deep insights with practical strategies to go for the challenges we pursue and handle the obstacles that come along

our way to help us keep excited and passionate and agile in our life. Keep them coming. You bet, Mitzi, I'll keep them coming. Now today, if you enjoyed this interview, what I'd encourage you to do, what would be amazing if you could do, is if you could share this podcast with one other person. Tell them about the podcast. Help us continue to grow the podcast. You could tweet about the podcast or share it on social media. Or you could head over like Mitzi did to iTunes and provide a comment or rating. That would be incredibly helpful. All right. So without further ado, let's bring on Christina. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset. Christina Fink, I'm excited to have you here. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have a chat

with you. Yeah, me too. I'm looking forward to talking to you more about mental training and sports psychology. I know we met first at the ASP Pro Summit sometime in August and we are talking more about pro sport. So I'm just looking forward to talking to you more about how you do your work and how you can help us even learn more about how to do good work in our fields. Very exciting. Yeah, I was very happy to meet you back in August and looking forward to contributing. Awesome. So let's start off, Christina, and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do now. I am a performance psychologist. So my biggest passion

is actually getting people to perform at their best, no matter what it is that they're doing. So I make it very clear that even though I have a psychology background, I am more about performance psychology than anything else. So I really like and enjoy working with people who want to get better at whatever it is that they're doing. So it's really about awareness and getting you to understand what works for you and what are things that hinder your performance. And do you work mostly just with athletes at this point? So I work with athletes

and I also do some business coaching. So I do both and it's nice to keep those balanced. I work mostly with athletes and I like to have a combination of youth development where I work a lot with coaches. And then I do work with the Philadelphia Union with their first and second team. Yeah, awesome. So we'll have a lot to talk about. Maybe to start us off, Christina, tell us a little bit about how you got interested in the field and just in terms of, you know, I know you got your master's and your PhD in Spain. So tell us a little bit about how you briefly got to where you are now. So I am originally from Mexico and I started with, I really wanted to do psychology. I wanted to do clinical psychology or that's what I thought at first. And started working, studying, you know, clinical psych,

and then realized very quickly, being an athlete, I'm a two-time Olympian, I competed in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, I realized that I actually wanted to get into sports psychology and performance psychology and see what that was all about. I had a really, really good experience in the 1988 Olympics and not a great one in the 92 Olympics. So didn't perform as well as I wanted to in 1992. And at first kind of thought like, I can't really do this because I'm I didn't have a good experience in one Olympic game so I didn't think that I would have much credibility decided to get a master's and a PhD in performance psychology and discovered working with athletes while I was doing

it that most athletes decided that I had more credibility because I had gone through the good and the bad. Absolutely. At the highest level, the Olympics. So tell us a little about, Christina, just like your experience during those Olympic Games, what made the 88 games in Seoul, you know, great versus the Barcelona Games in 92, so great and you were you're a high jumper right I was a high jumper yes um and so in 88 I was actually training uh with Bob Myers at the University of Arizona um I did my my undergrad there and uh actually worked with Jean Williams she I was in a class with her and a peak performance class and actually started getting into what are things, you know, how do you define goals and what are things that you can do? How do

you prepare and all of these things, right? And so I was able to see a little bit, you know, get a little bit more into routines and what I needed to do. By the 92 Olympic Games, I was back in Mexico and the coach that I had had for several years after the 88 Olympics actually had to go back to Poland. And I ended up changing coaches about eight months before the Olympic Games. And there were a lot of things that didn't go well that I felt like, obviously in hindsight, I feel like, oh, I should have done this or that. I ended up peaking before the Olympics, having to jump to qualify and do all these things way before the Olympics. And then by the time I got to the Olympics, I was really burned out. Instead of backing off and understanding that what I needed was rest to be better prepared at the Olympics, I decided that I needed to train more.

Okay. It's a mistake that a lot of athletes make. So I was able to really see firsthand how sometimes you really do need to listen to your body and give yourself some time to recover. So looking back, what would you have done differently than in the 92 Olympics? Because I think one thing that you mentioned, which I think is a really incredible stressor, is the coaching change. And I'm sure that wasn't easy to deal with. So when you look back at just being overtrained and burnt out, what would you have done differently? I don't know that there were a lot of things that I could have done differently.

I think that I would have really, really tried to listen to my own experience more than what everybody else was telling me. Even the new coach, you know, telling me, I really liked the coach, but you know, he was like, Oh no, we need to do more of this and more of that. And I kind of felt like I didn't need to do that. I felt like I was really tired. And instead of listening to myself, I kind of put, you know, kind of went like, yeah, you tell me what to do. So it was almost like not taking the responsibility of saying, no, I'm going to go with what I'm feeling. So I really stress the fact that you need to be, you know, ultimately you're responsible for your performance. So you

need to be, to make sure that you're where you need to be. Absolutely. And how do you think athletes do that? You know, when you think about your own experiences or how you teach athletes to do that, what do you think? I think that part of it has to do with, so one of the things that I actually learned in my, you know, in my career. So I went to two Olympic games as an athlete, but I've been to three Olympic games as a performance psychologist. And one of the things that I make sure that I, because athletes will say to me,

well, you know how it feels. And I say, I know how it felt for me. I don't know how it feels for you. So you need to tell me. So it's actually getting athletes to you verbalize and you need to understand how it feels for you instead of letting other people tell you how you should feel or what you should be feeling. It's about you taking the responsibility of how does it feel for me right now. Absolutely. That's a really good point. So being self-aware and paying attention to how it feels. I think sometimes we just like keep pushing, keep pushing, and we don't sit back and think about, you know, what am I experiencing right now? How does my body feel? You know, what's going through my mind? And we just keep pushing. Exactly. Exactly. And so many times, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I hear whenever I,

whenever I ask, what could you, what would you do? Like, what are some of the things that you need to do? Almost everybody says work hard or work harder. Right. And sometimes it's, you know, I mean, we've heard it time and time again, sometimes it's work smarter or sometimes it's, you know, I mean, we've heard it time and time again, sometimes it's work smarter, sometimes it's rest. So it's not just about working hard. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Christina, one of the things I really want to talk to you about is when you look at your own experience being successful at the Olympics, but also, you know, like you've gone to the Olympics, you know, three times with national teams. So what do you think allows people to be successful at that level? Like what are the mental skills or the mental tools they need to use to be successful in the moment that can be really a lot of pressure? I actually think that one of the hardest things to learn and one of the biggest advantages that you can have at that level

is in order to get to that level you really really need to be quite perfectionistic and I mean if you gave a personality test to any of these athletes and just like if you are working with CEOs at the highest level all of them have a little bit of this, you know, perfectionism and a little bit almost of obsessive compulsive, you know, like where these things need to happen and this is how it needs to be. Yet they also need to be flexible. And those are things that sometimes don't combine very well. The most successful athletes that I have seen are athletes that are psychologically flexible, where, you know, yes, you're prepared for all these different things, but if this doesn't go exactly the way you want to, you can actually be flexible and change, you know, have some little tweaks so that you are prepared for when things are not exactly the way you want them to be. Awesome. So that the best athletes are psychologically flexible. I like that terminology, but it's also very clear that they have really high expectations for themselves, which I agree, Christina, when I think about the best athletes I've had the privilege of working with, they have

very high standards. Yeah. Yeah. Let's dive into like psychologically flexible. How do you think when you, when you describe that, just like tell us a bit more about, you know, how, how that appears an athlete when you see them being psychologically flexible. So one of the things that I do is I work with in, in specific cases, you know, when you're working with, for example, an Olympic athlete and it's an individual sport, we work through different scenarios, right? And so this is like, this is your ideal scenario. This is your realistic scenario. And this is like a pessimistic scenario, right? And then we go through a list of possible stressful situations and we go through how do you feel and think in these moments and then what do you do with that um so after and there's a third step to it so what should you do with it and sometimes what they do is already what they should be doing but sometimes they realize oh i'm not reacting in a in a flexible way i'm just kind of getting

stuck and if it's not this way, it won't work. And so once they realize that, they can actually say, okay, this is what I think and feel, but this is what I can do about it. Actually kind of coming up with different strategies to, you don't control what you think and feel, but you can definitely manage it. When I can describe, oh my God, this makes me so angry. But in this moment, that doesn't help. So yes, it makes me angry, but I can refocus and I can focus on what I can control. Absolutely. Absolutely. Can you give us an example of maybe, and you don't have to tell us names, but you know, an athlete that you've worked with where, you know, perhaps maybe getting ready for

the Olympics or a major competition, they might've, you know, maybe maybe getting ready for the Olympics or a major competition they might have, you know, maybe expected to get first or second, but then they get into the event and maybe they're placing 10th, right? Yeah, I think that's kind of what you're describing as being psychologically flexible and like being able to do anything. Can you give us an example of, you know, how this actually plays out in real life? Yeah, so I had, so I can give you a couple of examples. I had an athlete who was so stressed about qualifying for the Olympics that they kept saying that they didn't want to talk about it, that it couldn't happen that they didn't qualify. And this is three months before the qualifier, right? And I just said, well, you actually could not qualify you know it's it's actually possible that you could not qualify and this athlete kept saying I'm not even going to talk about that because

that's not possible I have to qualify and I just said well it is possible and I'm just putting it out there and you can do with it whatever you want I just think it's better if we talk about it now than if you than if it, if you come to this realization the day of the event, because then we really don't have time to deal with it. And he got very upset with me and said that he didn't want to talk about it and left my office. Okay. He came back two days later and said, fine, we'll talk about it. So, so we started talking about different scenarios of what would that possibility look like and what would happen if you are not doing as well after, you know, this is an event that has several steps to it. And so what happens if you don't do well in the first event and what

happens if you don't do well in the second event? How are you going to manage, you know, your expectation going into the third or fourth event? And so how are you going to deal with that, right? And so we dealt with all of that. And in the first event, he didn't have the result that he wanted, but he was able to focus on what he could do for the second, third, fourth event, and actually was able to manage what he needed to do because he was ready for, and the fact that you're ready for it doesn't mean that you're looking for it. It just means that you have different strategies to deal with when things don't go your way. That's one of the things that coaches sometimes say like, oh, don't put things in their head. I'm like, I'm not putting

it in their head. It's already there. And if we actually deal with it, instead of trying to hide it or try to push it away we can actually do something about it yeah that was really good so you said it doesn't mean that it's gonna happen but this is that you're ready for it is that what you said yes yes exactly and so when he didn't have and you know the first event didn't go a hundred percent his way it went like 85 percent his way but it wasn't like, so, but he was ready for it. Like, okay, it wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to get me okay into the second phase. Where I think if we hadn't talked about it and he commented about this afterwards, he said,

if we hadn't talked about it the way we did, I would have been so stressed not getting, you know, a better result than the first event that I would have been so upset not getting, you know, a better result than the first event that I would have been so upset that I don't know that my mindset would have been right for the second event. Absolutely. So by talking about it beforehand and being ready for any scenario, he was more confident they could handle anything and had already like thought about how he wanted to think and feel, you know, what he should do is what was used exactly exactly um i had another athlete who would be who would get much more stressed in the qualifying and semi-final than in the final because he knew that he belonged in the final you know this is a very very competitive very uh who

an athlete who had really really really good results at the Olympics. And so he was used to, you know, like when I'm in the final, I'm completely relaxed and I know that I can do what I know how to do. But the qualifying and the semifinals were super stressful for him. So it was like a little bit of, okay, so how do we deal with that? You know, so how are you going to deal with that stress? And it's about being real with yourself, you know, about admitting that you do get stressed and that there is a lot of anxiety and that you are more afraid of losing than being afraid of losing was stronger than wanting to win.

Losing was unbearable. Yeah, losing was unbearable. Yeah, that's really important. You know, Christina, you said something earlier that I want to touch on a little bit more. And you said, you can't control how you think and feel, but you can manage it. Tell us about your philosophy. Well, so many times, so many times I hear people talking about, you know, people in our, in our field saying, you know, when you get a negative thought, for me to start off with, thoughts are just thoughts. They're not negative or positive. We put, you know, we give them the connotation that we want. So thoughts keep popping into your head,

no matter what. And then you decide if you pay attention to them or not. And then, and feelings are the same way. You know, I use the example with, especially with team sports where, you know, a ref makes a bad call. And I usually play some videos for, you know, players that I'm working with. And I say, how many bad calls do you get, you know, in a game? And they mentioned, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a World Cup, the Olympics, you know, whatever it is that they're playing you know or or or a league game you know you get several bad calls and so does it make you does it upset you well yeah it could make you angry you know with but you don't control that you know the feeling that you get you don't control but what you do with it you can control so you can go and yell at the ref and get a card for that or you can actually take a deep breath refocus

and keep playing so that's you know the feeling the the anger that you feel in the pit of your stomach or whatever it's going to be there no matter what but what you do with it you can actually manage you can control what you do with it so you can't control the feeling or the thought but you can control the behavior absolutely you can You can control what you do with it and if you pay attention to it and if you need to manage it. So tell us, okay, so you said, you know, being psychologically flexible is one of the traits of, you know, of people who do really well at the Olympics. What would you say are other characteristics of those who do well and how do they differ? I think it's people who are really, really responsible for their own behavior.

You know, I mean, it's usually athletes who are not looking for, you know, well, yeah, I didn't get the lane that I wanted or I didn't get the, it's like, okay, these are the circumstances and they really focus on what they, what's under their control. And so what do I control? What, what do I manage? And how do I, how do I do that? It's people who have learned to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. I had an athlete who's, who had really, really good results at the Olympics saying that he would get upset every time that somebody said, oh, have fun at the Olympics, right? He said, the Olympics are not fun.

It's a roller coaster of emotions and feelings and high pressure. And so you don't have fun, but you learn to enjoy it. You learn to enjoy that almost like that uncomfortable feeling where I do feel like I'm stretched and I have to push myself and I have to get myself in there. And am I, am I afraid at times a little bit, but I can manage it. And so having kind of like that enjoyment of, of being able to perform, even when things are not going exactly your way is, is something that I think distinguishes these athletes. And again, it comes back to how do you prepare for it? How much responsibility do you take for it?

So athletes that are responsible and accountable and that are not looking for excuses, I find are usually a lot more productive and usually perform better. Yeah, absolutely. You said something about, you know, that it can be a roller coaster of emotions. How do you think that the best handle those emotions? I think that actually being mindful of what is it that I'm feeling. If you can name what it is that you're feeling and kind of going back into the why,

you get a little bit of a better sense of it. The other thing that I've worked with athletes is, what do we need to do with that feeling right now? Is that something that we really need to address? Or can that go to the back burner? So if you have a situation, you know, athletes are human. And so they have lives, right? So sometimes they're not getting along with a partner or a parent or a coach or something like that. And for me, it's, can we find peace in this moment for this performance? Can we actually focus on the performance so that you can get through this event?

And so at times it has been about being mindful about being in the moment. And yes, I can name this emotion, but I'm going to almost like put it on hold because it's not helping me right now. Yeah. Right. So, um, and, and that's not to say that, you know, that you need to be a machine and that you just compartmentalize and this is what you do and that's how you perform. It's more about what I have worked for, you know, just seeing some of the athletes that, you know, the Olympics are every four years. And so you've worked so hard for all of these things. You need to make sure that you're doing this for you. Because in the end, you know, you want to perform really well for you, then you want to perform really well for your coach, for your family, for your country. But the first person is, you know, and I don't think

athletes need to think about themselves. You know, I want to do this well for me. And when you think about yourself, Christina, and competing at the 88 and then the 92 Olympics, what do you think, you know, were your mental characteristics, traits, like what allowed you to do really well? I think that some of the things that I did well was I was pretty responsible for what I needed to do and how I wanted to address the Olympics. I had really clear routines. I had, I was able to manage, I thought about, you know, if I wanted to go to the opening ceremony or not and how that was going to affect me because it's an emotional, there's an emotional component to that. So do I have enough time to recover from one thing to the next, right? Because there's

all of these different things that the Olympic village can be pretty distracting. So I was really prepared for all of that. And so I think all of that really helped in my performance in the 88 Olympics. In the 92 Olympics, even though I wasn't physically able to perform well, I still think that I was strong mentally to say, I mean, I wish I had rested a little bit more for sure. But I actually was proud of how I handled it because I was still able to get out there and really do everything that I could do with what I had that day. For sure. And that's all you can do, right? I mean, absolutely. You can with what you have. So yeah, and you couldn't have changed if you rested or

not. At the time you got there, you know, you had to do what you could and do the best that you could. Yeah. When you think about, you know, your own roller coaster emotions, How was that for you during those two Olympic games? I think that it was one of those where in, and that's one of the things that I, when I'm working with different, with different coaches and different, I really try to focus on what's the environment that you're creating for your athlete and as a federation or as an NGB, you know, like, what are you focusing on? I remember in the 88 Olympics, we had a really positive atmosphere. It was really good. In the 92 Olympics, Mexico started off really poorly with, as far as medals, you know, people that were supposed to medal weren't medaling. And instead of managing that, you know, the head of the delegation,

they were putting all of these newspapers all over that said how poorly we were all doing, right? And so there was almost like a sense of gloom around us. And so that's something that I talk about how you can avoid. Now, fast forward to 2017, they don't even have to do that. Now with social media, one of the things that I work with athletes is what do you really want to be putting out there and how much do you really want to get into it? Because it's one more thing that we need to deal with. Because social media can be, you know, it can be really good and it can be beneficial. At the same time, it can be really, really, you know, it can be really good and it can be beneficial. At the same time, it can be really, really, I mean, it can consume a lot of your time.

People tend to be really, really, I mean, when people don't, when it's anonymous, people tend to be a lot nastier and they will write things like you should, I mean, you should really be ashamed of yourself or even worse things that they write on social media, right? I mean, after somebody doesn't perform well, even athletes that have heard things like, oh, you should die or, you know, things like that. And it's horrible, but it's a reality of what we deal with today, with athletes today. So I think we really need to prepare them for that because it can be very, very, it can be uplifting, but it could, in most cases, it can be very devastating. It can. You know, Christine, I do a lot of work in the NFL and that's one of the things that I

notice a lot, like so much hate coming at these guys and, you know, they don't try to make a mistake on the field, right? I mean, I'm thinking about some people who've gotten death threats. And a lot of the guys that I work with, like, they just decide to close their social media accounts. You know, what are ways that you help your people, you know, the athletes that you're working with or the coaches you're working with, manage that? Like, do they stay on social media or do they just, you know,

decide how they're going to use it before they get to the game? So they've thought about that and they're prepared. So we talk a lot about that. And I mean, my suggestion is the same as yours, like just close it. I mean, it's really not worth it. But in some cases, I don't know if this has happened to you, in some cases, the athlete has closed it, but their partner hasn't. And so a lot of times, I mean, I've had wives who get super upset and who get into it and who really, really like it and it's an important

part for them. So how do you manage it again? Because it's a really big thing that you don't control. So how do you manage it? And how many hours are you going to spend on it? And what do you really want to post? What image do you want to have out there? And so we talk a lot about that. Yeah, that's really important. I think nowadays when it's like, you're right, people get so mean when they can put something anonymous and they don't realize that these are real people. You know, I had one person I worked with who was really just consumed by social media and it drastically impacted his performance. So, you know, it's something we definitely need to help athletes with. Christina, when you think about the Philadelphia Union soccer team that you work with,

tell us a little bit about that and what type of work you do. So I work with both their academy and their first team. And really, it's just a very open environment where people understand that it is about performance psychology. So it's very open to, I speak with most, with almost all of the players because they understand that I'm here to help them perform better. It's not about, you know, clinical psychology or something going wrong. And I think that it helps a lot that I have a very good relationship with the coaches and the coaches understand what I do really well. So that makes my job a lot easier. Yeah, that's great. You know, when you think about not everybody listening might understand soccer. So tell us the difference between like the first team and the academy and just tell us a little more about that, how that's structured. So the academy, we have an academy that starts with an under 12 team,

and it goes all the way to under 19. So it's really, it's seven different teams that we have at those, you know, different ages and working mostly through the coaches with all of those groups. But I also go into their video sessions and watch some of the training, and I'm, and I'm able to address some of the things, you know, that the boys will have certain goals or certain things that they want to do, and I'm at times, you know, just talking to them and, and making sure that they are holding themselves accountable for, you know, is what you say and what you do in line. Or are you saying that you would like to do this, but then you don't really, you know,

then you're kind of just joking around and training and stuff like that. So that's more at the academy level. Then we have a second team, which is kind of in between the academy and the first team. So in that team, we have certain players that are part of the Bethlehem field, but then our academy players are able to play up and some of our first team players, when they're coming back from injury or they are not getting a lot of playing time in the first team, can play in that second team. So we have a really good transition team for, you know, some of our academy players moving up and getting to play with first team players and stuff like that.

So it's actually, that's where, you know, we're working with the players and the coaches into what are the expectations in that when you're in that team, right? And then obviously with the first team, you know, it's about results and, and how do you, how do you manage, you know, playing time and, and, and when players are not getting all the playing time that they want, how do they handle that? Because a lot of times it's about, yes, you need to understand your role and you need to play at the best, you know, the best that you can. And, and the fact that you understand your role doesn't mean that you like it. It means that you understand it role doesn't mean that you like it. It means that you understand it and you perform at your best at that role because that's going to help you move up. So when you think about the individual work you do with athletes on the Philadelphia

Union soccer team, the first team or the academy, can you describe like a mental training topic that you always cover, you know, with the soccer team or, you know, with some of the other Olympic athletes that you work with? Is there a topic that you always talk about and tell us, you know, with the soccer team or, you know, with some of the other Olympic athletes that you work with? Is there a topic that you always talk about and tell us, you know, why that topic is important to you? So we talk a lot about process because it doesn't matter who I'm working with, whether it's with the Philadelphia Union or when I was working with U.S. track and field or, you know, any team that I'm working with. When we talk about what's your goal and what do you value, right? So we can talk about the goal and what they value.

And then we go into like, okay, so in order to achieve that goal, what does the performance look like? What do you need to be doing specifically? And then we go into the process. So what is it specifically that you do every day that contributes to that goal, to that vision that you have to how are you going to get better so that you can perform well?

And when you bring it down to the process, it really brings it down to things that you can actually control and things that you can do every day and that you can actually check to see if you're holding yourself responsible and accountable for. I talk quite a bit with athletes that are having, when they say I had a bad day, I said, what did you do to make it better? You know, because you can get stuck in, I'm having a bad day. When you start with the warm-up, you could say, oh, I'm not where I need to be. And I say, what happens if at the Olympics or at a game, that's how you feel? how are you going to get

yourself out of that well in training when you're training you actually need to say I'm not having the best day okay what what can I focus on and can I focus on doing these one or two things better and if I can do these one or two things better you usually can turn it around and then you have maybe not an awesome day, but a good day. Absolutely. Instead of throwing in the towel, because you wouldn't do that during competition anyway. It's like you're training yourself to keep going and despite not feeling good. Exactly. And that's something that, you know, that we do constantly. You know, I mean, I had an athlete come into my office once and say, this is the first time that he was in my office. And he said, I'm tired of having to prove myself every day. And I started

laughing. And I said, and I started laughing. I mean, I don't mean to make fun of, but I said, okay, so if I don't say something that's helpful to you today will you come back and he said probably not and I said I probably have to prove myself to you today so he had a good laugh about that and we we just kind of established yes you know when you're in this high level and when you're competing at this level you do need to prove you and it's not a question of proving yourself every day it's just yes you do have to perform you know and so when you have to perform what are the things that again what are the things that you can control what are the things that you can manage and how do you do that right and then

when you focus on the process that decreases the anxiety and increases confidence because you're focusing on things to control and you can measure absolutely and then and as you're focusing on things in control and you can measure absolutely and then and then you're actually and then and then you start seeing things that don't go as well you know you start seeing mistakes as things that you can actually improve upon rather than something that's going to make you so much worse you know so when you start having a little bit of you know of that mindset that, yes, I can learn and I can grow, rather than feeling like, oh my God, I'm limited and I can't do this. It definitely helps to have that mindset of that openness to learning and growing every day.

Yeah, that's really important. And it helps just continue to improve if you're always looking for what did you learn instead of beating yourself up after the mistake or failure. Exactly. and that's one of the things that I use all the time we use a you know just a super simple and I know that a lot of people use this you know what went what went well what could be better and how do we do that and it's just like a simple very very easy they actually you know the players that I work with actually fill out, you know, it's like this little form that has, you know, these three boxes of what went well. And it's just one or two things that went well.

What could be better? Again, one or two things. And how am I going to do that? And so again, one or two things that you can do. And if you keep doing that every day, then at times I've had players who have said, you know, these things that went well, I want to make sure in the, how do I do it? I'm going to keep doing that. I'm going to keep focusing on those two things because they went really well. And if I keep doing those, I'm going to put myself in a position where I can perform better. And do they complete that after every practice or how often?

Yeah. So it's after every training session, you know, it's just a, it's jotting down one or two things and then, and then, then, then they come up with a plan and we go back to what's the process. You know, if you're noticing one of the things that I noticed with one of the players in what, what could be better, a player kept writing down that, you know, the pain that he had in his knee could, you know, was interfering. And I was like, okay, time to talk to the trainer. Absolutely, yeah. After three days of complaining of knee pain

that you're not actually reporting, well, maybe we need to look into this, you know? Right, and sometimes we just feel like we got to keep on pushing without, you know, sitting back and realizing what is bothering us today. And maybe this is an injury I shouldn't keep on pushing through. Exactly. Yeah. Christina, can you describe a signature technique that you use when you think about, you know, something that's maybe your go-to that helps you connect with your athletes to help them train their mind? There's no one, you know, I mean, it's just such a combination of all of these. And I've talked about some of them already.

But the one that, you know, one of the ones that I like the best is a possible stressful situation. That's one. That's a, you know, it's a possible stressful situation. What do you think and feel? What do you do and what you should do? You know, it's kind of the way it goes. Then thinking about, the other one is like thinking about the best possible scenario and the worst possible. And then somewhere in the middle of that as well, you know, that we talked about a little bit.

The idea of being psychologically flexible goes back to being mindful and doing what matters, right? And so that goes in with a mindful process. And so it's about being aware. And so another one is, you know, are you aware of how you're feeling? Because sometimes they don't know that they're angry. They can't name the feeling that they have. And so it's actually about becoming aware of, yes, when I get upset or even when I get too excited, I'm so excited because I just scored or something and then I completely lose myself in that excitement. And then I get scored on really quickly again. And so it's about recognizing emotions. So it's really about being aware of where you are in the moment and actually taking advantage of the moment that you

have. That's so good. So being aware of where you are in the moment and then taking advantage of that moment that you have. Yeah. Christina, I got a question for you. So you mentioned, you know, how the best approach failure as a way to learn and grow. And they're even thinking about, you know, after every training session, they're thinking about what, well, what could be better? And then how am I going to, how am I going to do that? So when you think about your career, people might be listening and thinking, gosh, you know, two Olympic games, you've gone to the Olympics, you know, many times as a sports psychologist, and it's

gone perfectly for you. But can you describe a time that didn't go so well for you? And maybe we could maybe even label it as a failure. Can you tell us about that story and then like what you learned from it? I just think it's so funny that you say that because it's like, nope, it's not that perfect. it's not that perfect. It's not that perfect. And I want to ask you that question because, just because, you know, well, we are, I was just reading this article about resilience and you can't be resilient without, you can't be resilient without adversity, right? Like it's just not something that can happen, but we forget that sometimes people that we admire, you know, not that not everything has gone perfectly for them.

So they maybe made mistakes or had times that didn't go so well. So can you think about a time that didn't go so well for you and what you learned from it? Well, yeah. I mean, the 1992 Olympics didn't go well for me at all, you know. And it was a question of, oh, my God, I really don't want to do this. And then and actually thinking I need to go to a different career because when I got back from the Olympics in 92, I actually said I don't want to have anything to do with sports ever again. And I ended up working for Adidas.

So that wasn't really too far away from sports. I ran into working into, into, um, uh, working, working with their public relations, you know? And so it was like, okay, well, and then actually getting into going into my master's and actually talking about it and working with a sports psychologist that actually helped me see, you know, okay, these are things that I could have done differently. These are things that I could do better. And then actually saying, I really, I love what sports has given me and the things that I've learned from sports. So I actually want to give back and want to get back into it. The 2000 Olympic Games, I had an athlete who was doing really, really well and then ended up getting injured and not being able to finish. And I was

absolutely devastated. And I thought, oh my God, I, you know, these Olympics, I really don't like them. So it's so painful. It's just so hard. And part of what makes it, I think that part of what has made me, because I remember being with another psychologist there and saying, you know, with me saying, oh, my God, I can't, you know, it's like, I can't do this. I'm too involved. And somebody saying, well, that's why you're good at this, because it matters to you. And it really does matter to me. And I really, really want the athletes that I'm working with to perform at their best, and I've never been a fan, if that makes sense, like, I'm not one of those people that I'm not, like, cheering

for the team, or, you know, but I'm not a fan of the team, I'm a fan of the individual, and I'm a fan of the player that I'm working with, and I just want them to perform at their best and I need to keep checking myself to see how am I providing the information that they need so that they can perform at their best. Absolutely. Because it's not about me, it's about them. Yeah. You know, Christina, I've kind of struggled with something that you just said where, you know, like a player maybe that you're working with or an athlete you're working with, you know, has a difficult experience. So the example you gave was an athlete who got injured at the Olympics. It is hard for us not to get kind of like invested in the people that we're working with.

I guess what advice would you give to people who are listening, maybe working in this field? The psychologist you're working with said that it was actually a good thing that you were involved, right? Tell us about that balance and how you perceive that. So I think that you, as long as the one thing that I can say is you need to make sure that you don't want that, that you don't want it more than they do, because then then you're pushing, right? And so it's just being aware of you know this is this is I'm I'm invested because you're invested and so I care about this person and I want them to do well but I can't be more invested than they are so that's like a balance that I'm always checking

you know to make sure that when I get a lot of ifs and buts, then I understand that I need to back off a little bit and I need to let them have their path. No, I just think that, so one of the things is if I'm asking you to be aware, I need to be aware of where I am and what I'm feeling and what I'm doing. That's really important. So as a practitioner, we need to be aware. This is we're teaching our clients and the athletes that we work with to be aware. Yeah.

So what advice would you give to somebody who is interested in working in the field of performance psychology? I think that one of the first things, especially if you're coming into the field, that you understand that you are not going to be working at the highest level right away and that you actually need to prepare yourself quite a bit before you can work at that level because one of the things that I keep hearing especially students you know they come in and want to do an internship the first thing they want to know is if they can work with the first team and I'm like uh nope sure because you just don't have the experience and you don't have the you know so so actually you actually need to go through

the process of learning and you need to volunteer with with some clubs if you can you coach for a little bit because you'll understand the the the things that the coaches go through and actually if you're at that level make sure that you that you ask before you come in and tell what people need to do because that's one of the things that I see as mistakes that people in our field make. They go in and they want to lecture coaches and what they need. And coaches are pretty knowledgeable. So I think that we need to go in and we need to listen to what their needs are before we prescribe what they need. Absolutely. Listen first, right? And then when asked, you might give your thoughts yeah for sure and and even then you need to make sure that you're giving you know the appropriate amount of information

because you could go into a specific area and say anything but there's 10 things that you need to change um number one they're not yours to change number two if you come in with 10, they'll come back with one and that will be getting rid of you. So you need to make sure that you're, you know, listening and being conscious of the environment that you're in. Absolutely. Well, Christina, what kind of final advice would you give to coaches, athletes, business leaders, you know, parents, those people who are listening, who are just interested in mindset and mental training and sports ecology? I think that you need to make sure that you're looking in your area to see if there's a professional that can help you, because I think that the more you get informed on this, the more that we can help you for sure. And not to, not to think about sports psychology as,

you know, you need to, there needs to be something wrong with you for you to like, it's only when you get anxious that you need a sports psychologist. I think that we are there to help people perform better and to perform at their best. And I, and I think that everybody can use that.

Yeah, that's really important. Well, Christina, I just so appreciate your time and your energy and I want to share with you a few things that really stood out to me about our conversation. I loved what you talked about related to being psychologically flexible and having high standards and how the best probably are perfectionists, but they're also flexible at the same time.

And then you shared with us a situation or a way to help people be more psychologically flexible with your positive, stressful situation. And then you shared with us, you know, the importance of taking responsibility for our behavior and how you see the best athletes do that, why we should focus on the process. And, you know, because that gives us attention to what we can control, helps us stay checked on into what we're responsible for. And then you also shared just your final advice for those working in the field

and that they got to continue to improve themselves and continue to just get better every single day before they expect to work at the highest level. So I just appreciate your time and your energy sharing your wisdom with us, Christina. Thank you so much for the invitation. I really appreciate it. Awesome.

And tell us how we can connect with you. So there's people who would like to hire you or who are interested in connecting with you to learn more about what you do. Tell us how we might do that, Christina. So you can email me at cfink, F-I-N-K, at hpsports.com. Okay. And are you on social media? Not very much.

I follow the advice that I get. That's awesome. That's awesome. So if you'd like to reach out to christine you can do cfink at hpsports.com thank you so much christina thank you thank you for listening to high performance mindset if you like today's podcast make a comment share it with a friend and join the conversation on twitter at mentally underscore strong for more inspiration and to receive