Commitment
Your ability to use positive concise thoughts and images is an important element of a performance. The failure to commit to a decision, or the second guessing of an original decision is often given as a reason for a mental performance error. Especially in sports such as golf where the player has time to consider a number of different options (e.g. club, shot shape, etc.), before playing a shot.
When you are unsure of a decision, the tendency is to ruminate over it. Thoughts wander towards your decision, as opposed to keeping your focus firmly on the task at hand (e.g. hitting a golf shot). Your attention is in the wrong place, which makes it more likely your performance will be under par, whether the actual decision was correct or not. Arguably, it's better to commit to a wrong decision than to continue with indecision, as the performance element is likely to be better, which is likely to produce a better outcome.
Commit with your body language
Ultimately, we want to be making the correct decisions, but it's important that we commit to whatever decision we make.
Strategies that help us commit to our decisions will be helpful, and body language has shown to be such a strategy. A study conducted by Brinol, Petty, and Wagner (2009) found that people are more likely to have confidence and commitment to their decision-making process when exhibiting positive body language.
Participants were asked to sit up straight and push their chest out, or sit in a slumped position, and then write down either 3 positive or 3 negative traits that related to their career performance. Participants were then allowed to relax, and asked about their expectations (on a scale of 1-9) in regards to their future job satisfaction, performance, prospects and whether they would make a good job interviewee.
The results showed that when participants sat in an upright position, they had a greater degree of confidence and commitment to their thoughts. I.e. participants who had written positive traits, rated their future more positively in the upright position compared to the slouched position.
Similarly, participants who had written negative traits in the upright position, rated their future more negatively compared to the slouched position. So posture had an influence on the confidence and commitment to one's thoughts, regardless of whether those thoughts were positive or negative.
The moral of the story
Displaying positive body language during the decision making process will help you commit to thoughts, and reduce mistakes from indecision. This may be especially important to administer during the times of performance when you are typically thinking and reflecting, e.g., pre-performance routine, time in-between performances, etc.
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