Just the facts.

In my coaching calls, we talk a LOT about "evidence." Collecting it, looking for it, reviewing it. Evidence is our way of looking at just the facts - sometimes even statistics - of what's really happening in our performances without the weight of emotion.

When you think about it, emotions are what "get" us. Emotions make us care so much about the outcome that we make ourselves nervous. Emotions define how we feel about a mistake we just made in the ring. Emotions drive the stories we tell about our performances. And usually, emotions exaggerate, which is not helpful when working on our mindset.

Evidence strips away the emotions to get to the objective truth of what's happening, and can help diffuse triggers. For instance, an agility dog who misses the contact in a class can cause emotional panic! (IYKYK!) Handlers have been known to catastrophize this simple error and begin spinning out. "Oh, what if he starts missing all his contacts?! ... I spent so much time fixing his contacts - are they broken again? Do I have to stop trialing? We're never going to finish this title!!" And so on.

Instead, we focus on the evidence. How many contacts has this dog missed in the last six months? Was there something different about the approach? Or the handling? Did the criteria change? By looking at only the facts, we might find that missing the contact has only happened five times in the last 20 classes. Perhaps not the disaster we feared.

The same can be true of other errors in other venues. Missed recalls, distracted heeling, misidentifying odor, etc. We all have something that when it happens, we jump off the deep end - emotionally. I've even known some handlers to jump off the deep end in anticipation of an error. Our desire to perform at our best consistently can really mess with our emotions and therefore our ability to see what's actually happening.

Naturally, journaling is helpful (even if you only jot down a few words), but it's not required to paint a more accurate picture.

1. Give yourself a moment (or two) to acknowledge your feelings about what happened.
2. Review your run objectively - perhaps imagine how your instructor might view your run - to get the facts.
3. Imagine you're putting the run into a spreadsheet of sorts - what went right, and what went wrong. Then objectively review to see if this is a trend and/or what it tells you.
4. Take action only if necessary. (This is crucial since not every mistake requires a new training plan - errors happen.)

Evaluating your runs - and training progress - without emotions will give you a clearer picture of what's actionable, and what needs to be addressed. Then you can deal with the emotions separately ;)