Good read for everyone. Received this from a Sports Psychologist.
Some interesting findings from new research about using negative feedback from opponents or rivals as motivation to strengthen personal performance. New research within the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology shows that people can recover from poor performance when rivals comment on their failures. While criticism from one’s own team members sends individuals into downward performance spirals, external criticism (from opponents, rivals in business) can be a trigger that boosts performance as people try to prove the outsiders wrong.
See the press release here: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_260628_en.html
Negative outside feedback, then, needn’t be a destructive force. Good for kickers to be reminded that such criticism can be reworked as motivation for future performance. Having conversations with athletes about this is a powerful first step in allowing them to take control over how they interpret external feedback.