What Netflix’s "Cheer" shows us about mood and performance.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I am going to refer to the final episode in Season 2 of Cheer, so if you don’t want to know how it ends please don’t read any further (but come back once you’ve seen it! ??)

So I was watching Cheer last night with my 16 year old daughter. Truth be told, she is not my alibi for watching the show. I love it. It’s got everything: heart, teamwork, underdog stories, personal redemption, highs & lows of life, and perseverance towards a goal.

The two teams head towards the final at Daytona. One is the reigning Champion and superstars (especially after having gotten Netflix famous) and the others are composed of a bunch of great talents who, for one reason or another, have never been able to get their hands on that championship ring. The underdogs.

There are two performances they have to give: the preliminaries and the finals. Prelims count for 25% and Finals for 75%.

At the prelims, the incumbents do their routine and they absolutely NAIL it. It is F.L.A.W.L.E.S.S.?They’re ecstatic.?Confidence through the roof.

I say to my daughter “Oooh. That’s not good. Their brains are now so convinced that they won, that they’re going to relax. They might have performance anxiety but they won’t have that pinch of motivated tension they need to win, because their brains believe they’ve already have. They’re now poised to lose.”

The underdogs do their routine, and confirming why they’re underdogs…the end up making 2 relatively important mistakes. They walk off the stage convinced the competition is over. And it would have been…if their coach didn’t get his hands on their scores and reveal to them that, yes - their mistakes cost them points. BUT, turns out, their mistakes cost them less points than they thought and…does quick calculations….they just need to nail these two things and they’re still very much in it. You can feel the hope through the screen.

This technique is called cognitive reframing. Providing new information to the brain to change the way you feel. By knowing that they could still win, if they gave it their all, put them in an emotionally more competitive space than the other team whose brains had already archived the (not yet achieved) win.

At the sime time, the incumbents hear that the underdog messed up and they are now 100% sure they have the victory in the bag. Over-confidence is NEVER a good idea.

On finals day what happened was a surprise to both teams and it ended up exactly as I’d expected. Armed with hope and a desire to prove themselves, the underdogs perform a flawless routine. The incumbents, too sure of the outcome, end up making a very costly mistake. The underdogs claim the title and the incumbents are wrought with despair.

Their despair was greater because their expectations were so high. The gap in between the truth in their minds and the reality provided an enormous fall and hard landing to the truth. This is also why it's fundamental to learn how to appropriately manage our expectations. Not only to avoid moments of tragic despair - that they were genuinely feeling - but also to avoid the inevitable shift in moods that failed expectations bring.

Just take a look at this diagram to understand that expectations play a pivotal role in our moods and how we face the world.

So at the end of the day, it turns out that the only difference between the two teams was their emotional states. Whether we're aware of it or not, the mood we’re in 100% affects our thinking, our body, and how they both perform.

Despite months of training, preparation and hard work, our emotional state can end up being the deciding factor. And in some cases, if we're not trained in key mood management skills, like some of the ones I mentioned above, it can end up being the one thing that keeps us from that championship ring.