Travis Thomas, performance coach for Massive TCU, tells parents and coaches at a soccer tournament to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Don't just react to heat, bad calls, or frustration. Control your emotional temperature so your kids can focus on playing.
Hello, Massive TCU. This is Travis Thomas, your performance coach, and Memorial Day weekend is here. In between margaritas and lazy river, a soccer tournament just might actually break out. So this is the Massive Mental Tip for the weekend, for Disney weekend. And you know what, with tournaments with Disney just comes a little bit extra, right? Tournaments in general, there's a little bit more emotional involvement. For the players, for the coaches, and for us parents. So here is an idea or a tip that's going to help us manage the weekend a little bit better and hopefully have an impact positively on the performance of your child and all the teams. So tournaments, right? There's more going on, there's more games, there's more— you can feel the energy on the sidelines, you can feel the energy on the field. So what can we do? What can we do to manage our own emotional level during the weekend? Now, I guess when you leave for the weekend, right, you're setting your thermostat at home. You're probably knocking it up a little bit to save a few dollars on energy. But you're setting the thermostat so that it stays that temperature no matter what is going on outside the house. That's our goal this weekend. We are going to be the thermostat instead of the thermometer. What does a thermometer do? A thermometer is just— it's helpless. It's a victim to all of the outside circumstances. So it only gives you what the temperature is outside of it, right? It's completely helpless. It goes up and down. If it's hot, it goes up. If it's cool, it goes down, right? Up and down like a roller coaster. The thermostat, on the other hand, is in control of what temperature the room stays. Why? Because the thermostat sets the temperature. It doesn't allow itself to react or be affected by the outside circumstances. That's our goal this weekend, is can we set our own emotional thermostat on the sidelines? Obviously, this is what I've been working with, with the kids all year, for them to, to take accountability, for them to be responsible of the trash, of all the distractions that try to take them off of their game. That's what they're gonna try to do on the field. That's what the coaching staff is trying to do, to get them to focus on the most important thing, and that is the game. Will there be officiating we don't agree with? Yes. Will it be hot? Yes. Will there be Circumstances, yes. Being on I-4 at a parking lot, getting to Wide World of Sports and it's taking 35 minutes to walk to your field and then realizing that your field is not over here, it's actually on the other side of the park. Yes, all of that is going to happen. The question is, how are you going to respond to it? We want to set our emotional thermostat at a cool, insert your temperature there. Your goal is, as soon as you notice your own internal emotions starting to get charged up during a game or during something, that's your cue Just to go back to your thermostat instead of becoming the thermometer. Remember, as soon as you get overly emotional in a game, the game is no longer about your child. The game has become about you, and you have just hijacked the situation, right? It's really easy to do, but we're not going to do that. So set your thermostat this weekend. That is your Massive Mental Minute. And when you see me walking around the games in the different parks, let me know how that went for you. I would love your feedback. Let's have a great Disney weekend, everyone. I look forward to seeing everyone up there, and, uh, go Massive TCU!
