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Your thoughts impact your performance. Positive thoughts alone (e.g., “I am competent; I am capable”) tend to be necessary but insufficient to achieve the desired outcome (e.g., hitting the bull’s-eye) because other skills (e.g., tactical weapons training) are also necessary. However, negative thoughts (e.g., “I am rusty” or “I am going to miss the mark”) tend to produce negative results (e.g., not hitting the bull’s-eye) even when officers have the necessary other tactical skills. Your thoughts matter.
You have the power to change your thoughts. Like weapon tactics, thought tactics can be learned. This is good news. If you think more effectively, you will get more of what you want at work and in life.
Changing your thoughts can facilitate the desired performance change. Utilizing effective thought tactics at times that really matter (e.g., PFQ, long suspect chases, taking the promotion exam) gives you a bona fide shot at achieving your goal.
What did you say to yourself today that directs your attention to the work task at hand?
Self-talk
Consider the statements that you make about yourself. These are your thoughts about you and, whether you say them silently inside your head or out loud, they all count toward your self-concept, your performance, your mood and your life experience.
What did you say to yourself today that directs your attention to the work task at hand? Did you tell yourself, “focus,” or did you sabotage your work efforts by saying to yourself “they don’t appreciate anything I do?”
You can’t control whether your peers, the chain of command or the community appreciates what you do. You can control whether you more effectively direct your attention to the task at hand. Even if, in reality, there is someone who does not appreciate your good work (and there will always be at least someone), thought tactics might include: “I know what I do,” “Heaven sees what I do,” “I am learning greater humility.”
What did you say to yourself today that describes or labels how you see yourself? Did you say something helpful like “I am fast,” or did you take yourself out of the chase by thinking, “I am too slow”? You can’t control whether the suspect or your competition is faster than you. You can control whether you more effectively conceptualize yourself in the moment — even when you are in the middle of the chase — to give yourself the greatest chance for success (e.g., eventual capture of the suspect, PR time in competition race, selection for specialized assignment based on them “seeing something” in you).
Even if, in reality, it appears you are losing ground to your opponent, you never, never, never give up. Thought tactics might include: “I persevere,” “I am determined,” “I am staying with him,” “I am catching him.”
What did you say to yourself today that reveals how you judge your performances? Did you say something helpful like, “great shot” at your quarterly quals, or did you help undermine your performance by saying something like “another missed bull’s-eye?” You can’t control whether you outscore someone at the shooting range, the archery range or the local bowling alley. You can only control yourself — how and when you train, what you eat and drink, how you think. Your performance is on you. No one else.
Positive self-talk and self-confidence are associated with better performances. This is true even in the face of overwhelming odds against you. The preponderance of research confirms this. This is why you need to focus on what you need to do today, now. This is why the nobility of your police work matters. This is why you keep fighting the good fight and running the good race. This is why you never, never, never give up.
Thought tactics for endurance performance
Policing has endurance performance demands. Consider …
- The world’s longest police chase: When a 20-year-old male suspect led cops on a roughly 450-mile, high-speed pursuit from one end of New Zealand to the other (and then fled on foot) before being caught after 16 hours.
- The longest manhunt in Pennsylvania history: When police captured Eric Frein (who ambushed two Pennsylvania State Police troopers, killing one, outside state police barracks) in 2014 after 48 days and a cost of $12 million.
- Mandatory duty hours in California: When you are required to work 16 hours, then come back the next day and do it all over again.
- Police snipers: When you are required to stay focused on your objective through a scope for three hours.
- Air support personnel: When you are required to be in the air every two hours through the night, every night, for aerial surveillance.
- SWAT teams and police psychologists: When you are required to respond effectively 24/7/365 even when you are in sleep debt.
- Baker to Vegas: When you and your co-workers must run 120 miles through desert and mountains.
Attentional focus strategies for endurance performance. Where do you direct your attention when engaged in endurance performance activities? Consider which strategy is better for your performance.
You use associative strategies when you direct your attention towards task-relevant needs (e.g., pursuit or race strategy, pace) and/or physical sensations in the heat of the performance (e.g., breath control, leg muscle fatigue). You use dissociative strategies when you direct your attention to things that have nothing to do with the performance
needs at the time (e.g., your law enforcement marriage, solving the homelessness crisis, calculating math problems).
Optimal thought tactics depend on officer experience. The most effective strategy for officers who are experienced and well trained in endurance is associative. These officers should mindfully direct their attention to cues related to the endurance task. Consider directing your attention, for example, to running the tangent, driving the legs, and pacing the breath. Continue to interpret the physiological cues (e.g., rate of pounding heart, extent of muscle fatigue) in an objective, non-judgmental, non-emotional manner, and adjust pace and other performance needs accordingly in real time.
The most effective strategy for officers who are inexperienced is dissociative. When officers or other athletes are less experienced, they tend to interpret physiological cues in judgmental, emotional and distressing ways, and this impairs performance. Therefore, they benefit from dissociative strategies, which, by their definition, are distracting to the mind. This is why people might watch TV at the gym when they work out or listen to an audiobook on a long drive. So, if you are an inexperienced officer on a long foot pursuit when you seem to be losing ground, do not panic. Consider, for example, visualizing a rope tied to the back of the suspect in front of you or casting a fishing line to the back of his shirt and slowly reeling him in.
Thought tactics recap
Your thoughts impact your performance. You have the power to change your thoughts. Changing your thoughts can facilitate the desired performance change.
Consider the statements that you make about yourself. You can control your thoughts. Positive self-talk and self-confidence are associated with better performances.
Policing has endurance performance demands. Consider whether you use associative or dissociative strategies to cope with the effort needed to do the job effectively. Optimal thought tactics tend to depend on officer experience.
Set your mind on positive things, and never, never, never give up.
Dr. Stephanie Barone McKenny and Trinity McKenny
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