The Power of Words

When I was in eleventh grade I played football for Butler High School.  We would have practice every day except for Fridays and weekends.  The position I play on the field is cornerback for the defense.  One day we were practicing a design defense that would be able to stop our opponent for this Friday’s game.  At first, I kept making mistakes on what I was assign to do.  My coach came to me asks me “what is the matter” and I reply saying “Nothing is wrong” and he told me to “Get it together and do it right.”   So we line it up again and do the play again.  Once again I messed up and got frustrated.  The coach pulls me aside and we started talking about things that would calm me down.  After the talk, he said “line it up again and do it right.” Once again I messed up and the coach started to yell and scream at me.   So after the coach was down yelling at me I started to calm down and pull it together. The very next play I intercepted the pass and return it for a touchdown.  The coach comes to me and said “That’s the way.” Later that day the coach comes to me and said “all you needed was a little negative reinforcement” and I said to him “Whatever works.” After that I never made a mistake for that whole week.   It shows that everybody is different in a way that they need encourage. In my case, my coach tried and tried again to give me positive motivation by trying to calm me down, but it did not work. So, my coach tried to give me negative reinforcement by yelling and screaming at me that made me feel bad but at the same time it made me relax and in a sense “woke me up.” This time it worked by having the power of words to help me get through my problem.