Professionals register now to create your own content and profile, and gain other potential financial, networking and marketing benefits.
Consumers (athletes, enthusiasts) use our quick registration to enhance your experience of the site
3 powerful mindsets to get in the zone
Develop Your Intuition
Intuition is an ability that involves feeling how events will unfold. In order to enter a zone-like state it is important to trust and act on instinct. However there is a huge gulf between intuitive knowing and intuitive acting. How many times during a performance have you said to yourself ‘I knew that was going to happen’ and not acted on this foresight?
Top athletes who enter zone-like states regularly do so because they are prepared to let go, and act on their impulses without fear.
Intuitive knowing and acting is especially important for fast paced sports that demand the co-operation of the mind and body.
A powerful way to develop and strengthen your intuition is to regularly train as if you are performing in the biggest match of your life. This strengthens what is required to perform well at the highest level of sport. By practicing with such intensity and commitment the brain is trained to work automatically under greater levels of pressure, allowing your intuition and instinct to take control of your game.
Build a Positive State
The biggest predictor of behaviour is state. If you feel good then this positive state will be reflected in the quality of your performance. Spend a few minutes before every performance getting yourself into a resourceful state todramatically increase your chances of performing well. Emotional rehearsal is one way to do this.
Emotional rehearsal uses the power of imagination to create a positive emotional state. By mentally recreating personal experiences, productive states are produced encouraging the deliverance of zone-like performances.
Some athletes create internal pictures of their loved ones; some imagine the end product of feeling good after a strong performance, while others often reminisce about some of their best times in sport.
The subject material that is mentally rehearsed is irrelevant as long as it creates positive feelings.
Be aware, the more intense your internal experience are, the stronger the impact will be on your subsequent behaviour.
Focus Outwards
Focus can take two directions; inwards and outwards.
You should do the bulk of your inward focusing before matches, and your outward focusing during performances.
Applying this principle will improve your chances of entering the zone.
By being outwardly focused during competitive performances you hand control over to your physical motor responses, allowing your body to operate on autopilot. When the mind and body switch to autopilot the chances of entering the zone are increased.
For more information to get in the zone click here
Check out Mindsport's Psychology Training Programmes
4 tips and tricks to create match-winning confidence
Introduction
Confidence is a universal concept in modern sport, and a key factor in determining how well you perform.
Before Mindsport outlines ways to improve confidence, it may be of use to identify whether you are an athlete that has high or low confidence.
If you are an athlete suffering from low confidence:
You will often display lower levels of communication with teammates and coaches.
You may show signs of frustration and aggression after making a mistake.
After a poor performance, you tend to blame external factors such as the coach, teammates, and the opposition, instead of taking personal accountability.
When competing there is a greater likelihood that you will play an overly safe game; taking very few risks.
Negative body language may also be characteristic of a lack of confidence, for example slumped shoulders and a lowered head position are typical of someone with lowered levels of confidence.
Mindsport has compiled a list of applicable techniques and philosophies to help boost and raise confidence in the domain of sport.
The power of optimism
Its important to view mistakes and setbacks in sport as essential stepping stones in your career. Embrace mistakes and disappointments as fundamental components of your career, and they will lose their capacity to damage your confidence. Also regard losses as experiences that hold valuable information about yourself, highlighting areas where you need to improve, as another tool to meet set-backs constructively.
It sounds contradictory but if you can integrate this approach into your sporting regime you may never feel frustrated, angry, or disappointed again. An ability to extract the positives from all sporting events is one of the most important and powerful strategies you can possess.
Write down at least 3 things you learn after every loss, to improve your progression as an athlete. This can be done individually, or if you are part of a team as a group exercise.
Famous individuals from all walks of life have talked about the importance of making every experience work for them in a positive way.
Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb spoke publicly about the importance of making mistakes. After his seven hundredth unsuccessful attempt to invent an electric light he spoke to the media about his efforts:
‘I have not failed seven hundred times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work. When I have eliminated all the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.’
Start Again, Simply
Often in sport, immediately after making a mistake in the field of play you feel the need to compensate for the error, and try an over elaborate action. Doing this you increase the likelihood of making two consecutive errors, and as a consequence you run the risk of damaging your confidence.
Directly after making a mistake start again simply. This increases the probability of a successful completion, helping to erase any negative mental impact the initial mistake may have had. Once the simple, successful completion has been made you are in a positive place to push beyond your comfort zone and try something more elaborate.
‘Simplicity is genius’ Anonymous
Look into my crystal ball
Mental rehearsal is commonly referred to as visualisation, however this is misleading. The power of your imagination does not only apply to visuals, but to sounds, feelings, and tactile sensations. Fortunately the brain does not differentiate between real and imagined events making it a formidable tool if used regularly. Vivid dreams are a prime example of how powerful your imagination can be.
Before training or competitive games mentally rehearse how you want your future performance to unfold. Close your eyes, and take three deep breaths. Once you are relaxed, imagine you are watching yourself on a large TV screen. See yourself playing well, and notice the sounds and feelings that accompany this image. For the greatest impact make the image bold, bright and full of vivid colour, and the sounds loud and clear. When you have created a clear picture drift into it and view everything from your own eyes. The more you practice this, the more vivid your mental experience will become.
By completing this exercise you programme your mind to attract positive and successful outcomes.
It is sometimes good to sit on the fence
Often when you are suffering from bouts of low confidence, there is a tendency to try too hard, in an attempt to force yourself out of the poor run of form. This is inadvisable because the harder you struggle to rediscover your best, the further you push it beyond your grasp.
In order to regain your form pitch your efforts in between being too relaxed and trying too hard. Find the middle ground between these two opposites to rediscover your best form. It is only through relaxed excellence that we can enter what sportsmen like to call ‘the zone.’
‘You can have anything you want, providing you first let go of wanting it’
Lester Levenson
This article was provided by Mindsport Ltd. Please review our sport psychology training services here.
Click here for more tips and tricks to improve confidence
Creating a winning buzz in the dressing room
Creating a winning buzz in the dressing-roomIntroduction
Often in professional sport small clubs out-perform teams that are leagues above them.One explanation for this is that the smaller team has managed to collectively create a unit that is stronger than sum of its parts. This article puts forward some useful techniques to help galvanise and strengthen the team-unit in sport.1. Inspirational Quotes
Many successful teams and sports clubs fill up communal areas with inspirational quotes. These quotes are usually compiled from all walks of life, often being drawn from famous figures of our time. Inspirational quotes are usually displayed with the purpose of evoking positive feelings within the team members that view them. Confidence, drive, passion, commitment, and team unity are some of the more popular feelings that positive quotes are designed to create. In team environments it’s important to display inspirational quotes that are short and straight to the point. It’s very unlikely that during the pressure of heated competitions, athletes and coaches will take the time to read quotes which are too long. Short sharp ones however may catch the eye of the athlete and spark match-winning emotions within them. Here is a list of several quotes that have been used by teams in the past: ‘Simplicity is genius’ Anonymous ‘If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail’ Benjamin Franklin ‘Man becomes what he believes himself to be’ Gandhi ‘Sports do not build character they reveal it’ John Wooden2. Music
Motivational music is regularly used to create a positive team atmosphere. However the process of building a set of music tracks, especially for team sports can become complicated. Music preference is highly subjective, with tastes spanning across a wide range of genres. Consequently it becomes difficult to produce a team compilation that satisfies everyone’s musical tastes. Coaches can get around this by composing a list of 20 tracks that are renowned for their ability to fire up sports teams, and allow each athlete to shortlist their three favourite tracks. The coach or the team captain can then take the highest overall ranking track and select it as the team anthem to play in the dressing roomThe one track approach especially for team sports can have a number of listed benefits: · It can create a sense of community, as everyone has contributed to the selection of the track. · It creates positive internal states within individual athletes when the music is played, increasing the likelihood of delivering a positive performance· It streamlines the athletes focus in the dressing room, reminding them that its time to perform.
·3. The first to rise and the last to sleep
The human brain prioritises information in an unusual way. Think of a string of 7 numbers that you have to recite. In terms of recall and recollection you are more likely to remember the first and the last digits of this string. Therefore when coaches are communicating team tactics, and expressing words of encouragement to their athletes and other coaches, it is a good idea to place the most important information at the beginning and at the end of their talk. By doing so, they dramatically increase the likelihood that the important information is retained and applied in the competitive arena by their athletes.4. Group Visualisation
The brain does not distinguish between real and imagined events, and because of this basic tenet, visualisation is regularly seen to have a profound effect on those that use it. Some argue visualisation is more effective if it can be performed as a group exercise. Perhaps 5 minutes before the team have to go out and perform in training or in a competitive situation, the head coach can use this time to get the team to visualise their individual and group successes. An effective approach to conducting a group visualisation would be to first get the team feeling relaxed and focused by taking some deep breaths. Once the head coach is happy that all the athletes are relaxed and in a resourceful state the coach can proceed with the group mental rehearsal. Two highly effective group mental rehearsals would be to get the team to visualise how they want the up and coming event to unfold as a team performance, and/or to get the individual team members to mentally recreate times when they performed at their best. A typical transcription from a coach introducing a team rehearsal may be: Right guys take a minute to get yourself into a comfortable position. Take a few deep breaths to make sure that you are relaxed and focused, and in your own time close your eyes and allow your mind to take you back to the last time you performed at your best. PAUSE (3 seconds) And when you have located one of your best performances, recreate all the sights, sounds, and feelings that you felt during this match winning performance. Imagine that you are sitting in a cinema viewing yourself on large panoramic screen, viewing a picture that is big, clear, and full of vivid colour, with loud and sharp sounds. As you continue to watch yourself playing at your best, drift into the video screen so you are now viewing everything from your own eyes. Take a few minutes to notice how good it feels when you perform like this, and become aware of the fact that you can perform like this whenever you want to. Now only open your eyes when you know that you are going to deliver your best out there today Notice the constant use or ‘and’ and ‘as’ in the transcript. This typical hypnotic language is used to keep the flow of speech smooth. If the speech delivered by the coach stops and starts, it becomes increasingly difficult for the athlete to effectively follow the coaches instructions, consequently weakening the impact of the visualisation exercise.5. Team affirmations
Affirmations are positive verbal statements used to streamline focus and create a positive inner state. Affirmations are even more powerful if they can be spoken out aloud collectively. Soldiers in the armed forces regularly have to participate in group chants to focus their minds on their job and their duty. The same can be applied in dressing room for all team sports. Much like quotes, team affirmations need to be short, sharp and have impact. Developing effective verbal statements to express out aloud will often work to pull the team together, helping to direct the athletes’ minds and bodies towards their common cause. Team affirmations can also have the added benefit of intimidating the opposition. The New Zealand National Rugby Team are famous for performing the world renowned Haka, which can be likened to an elaborate team affirmation. Whether the team affirmations are used in the privacy of the dressing room, or publicly like the All Blacks do, they are all effective in raising the sense togetherness of a team unit. Remember: The louder, and the more powerful the affirmations are the more effective they are in creating their desired effect.6. Physical Contact
During the build up to an important competition making physical contact with fellow coaches and team-mates can help to unify the team’s sense of presence. A regular sight in team sports is the famous team huddle in the competitive arena. This is a common example of team physical contact that usually has the effect of creating feelings of commitment and togetherness within the team. Shaking hands and hugs are also common acts of physical contact that also help to raise the spirits of the team and its members.7. Sometimes less is more
At the top level of professional sport all athletes will have to mentally manage stressful and pressurised situations.When the human mind experiences pressure, it is liable to lose some of its capacity to retain information. In pressurised situations it is advisable that team talks become condensed to only communicating the most important messages to the athletes. If a team is overwhelmed with a hundred and one things to remember it will only feed their feelings of apprehension and tension, and consequently damage their performance.8. Team goal-setting
One of the biggest predictors of success is direction.
Arguably the most effective way to install a sense of purpose and direction in a team unit is to devise collective goals.
Many sporting legends and teams that have produced remarkable results have always paid testament to the importance of goal-setting.
It is important that when team goals are formed everyone contributes and forms an agreement on the decided target.
It is advisable that teams develop goals for short, medium and long-term time frames. From individual match targets all the way up to seasonal and even life-time targets, goals can be infinitely flexible.
When setting team goals it is important not to set too many of them. If there are too many goals in the team’s regime then the team is likely to lose its focus by trying to accommodate an overwhelming number of targets.
9. Placebos and rituals
The power of belief is prominent in all walks of life. In the field of medicine there have been countless examples where placebo drugs have equaled and sometimes even bettered the performance of real medicine.
There are many anecdotes from the world of sport that highlight the benefits of the placebo effect. Athletes that insist in sitting in particular seats in the dressing room, wearing one of their socks inside out, getting dressed in a particular order, and kissing lucky charms are just a handful of ritualised behaviours have been observed.
All of these rituals have no intrinsic effect of their own on the athlete’s performance, but the belief that they will improve their performance only seems to yield positive results.
It is possible for the coach to integrate the power of placebos within the dressing room.
For example the coach could tell the team that they are in the in a lucky away dressing room, or invite the players to touch a lucky charm before they enter the competitive arena. If the athletes attach positive meaning to such rituals then they become important in their own right, and consequently become an important weapon in helping to produce performances that are full of belief and self confidence.
Being creative with the techniques used to create placebo effects is important however remember the more believable and convincing they are, the more powerful they become.
10. Motivational video compilations
Most professional sports today have access to video analysis facilities. Teams and individuals often build compilations of their best performances as a tool to strengthen team-cohesion.
Positive performance compilations also work to build confidence levels by reminding the athlete and the team of what they are capable of achieving.
Coaches should experiment with the videos they produce. Introducing a musical backdrop to the video, and experimenting by shooting trigger words across the screen while the footage is running is possible. Words such as focus, belief, and passion are some of the trigger words that may be applicable.
11. Laughter is sometimes the best medicine
Internal state is one of the biggest predictor of behaviour. The rule of thumb is that if you feel good, you are more likely to perform well.
By making the dressing room light hearted by introducing humour and banter to the proceedings, athletes and coaches consequently generate positive states which are likely to impact positively on subsequent performances.
If competitions are taken too seriously there is a danger that the athletes will over analyse and ruminate over the approaching performance.
Studies have shown that when an athlete over thinks about their sporting performance they recommit their automatic sporting actions back to the conscious mind.
When this happens their sporting actions become cumbersome, and paralysis by analysis sets in.
12. The consultative approach
Some sporting environments can be too didactic at times with the coach spending too much time instructing their players what to do.
Sporting environments also need to incorporate a consultative approach into coaching, allowing the athlete to put forward their own views and opinions.
If a sporting performance is not going as planned it is sometimes more effective for a coach to ask the athlete what they feel they need to do in order to improve their performance, instead of the coach telling them what he thinks they should do. The same applies to athletes when they consult with their team-mates.
Answers to problems are always more effectively implemented if they come from the individual who has the problem.
Often athletes can provide the solutions to their own performance problems if they are given the chance. The following benefits are observed when the athlete is invited to solve their own sporting problems:
· When the coach invites the athletes to put forward their views it shows them that the coach respects their views and opinions.
· It creates an environment that cultivates responsibility and independence, helping to raise the athlete’s sense of autonomy.
· When independence of thought is promoted studies have shown that athletes consequently make better decisions under pressure.
· It increases the level of communication between the coach and the players.
13. Process-orientation
Professional sport is driven by results. If athletes fail to achieve in the competitive arena they run the risk of jeopardising their careers.
Unfortunately over-emphasising outcomes and results can be highly damaging to the athlete’s performance.
Arguably, in the dressing room, it is important that the instructions from the coach are delivered in terms of processes and not outcomes.
When the coach’s instructions are solely composed of outcome driven information such as winning, playing well, and beating the opposition the athlete is provided with little value.
For example generic instructions like; ‘do your best’, ‘go out and win’, and ‘play well’ hold no useful information to help the athlete obtain their desired outcome.
Therefore it is important the dressing-room language is process driven, making sure the emphasis is on what the athletes and coaches specifically need to do in order to win, instead of on the outcome of winning.
Key processes vary for each sport. In the world of football some of the important processes may include keeping your eye on the ball, making sure you track your opposite number, and keeping your body weight forward when you strike through the ball.’
Whatever the sport make sure that the language between coaches and players is process and not outcome driven:
By focusing on the correct key processes within your sport, the desired outcome of performing is likely to follow.14. More of something not less of something
In the dressing-room it is important to communicate with an emphasis on what you want to achieve instead of what you want to avoid.
For example it is far more effective to focus on increasing the number of successful passes during a competitive match, compared to focusing on making fewer passing mistakes.
If the athlete focuses their mind on not making mistakes, then the athlete must first focus on the mistake in order to know what to avoid. Consequently the athlete is now thinking about making mistakes.
You get more of what you focus on, therefore if you think about avoiding making mistakes you increase you increase your chances of making more of them.
Therefore team talks should always focus on doing more of something and not less of something. Here are some examples of positive and negative statements that are often expressed in dressing room situations:
- "We need to concede fewer points" - is an example of an ineffective statement
- "We need to improve our defence" - is an example of an effective statement
- "You need to overcome fatigue" - is an example of an ineffective statement
- "You need to work harder and play with more energy" - is an example of an effective statement
Conclusion
In the realm of professional sport games are won and lost by the smallest of margins. By employing mental skills strategies and basic psychological techniques in team-environments, performances can be improved dramatically.
Author: Sam Kotadia Managing Director Mindsport LtdGraduating in psychology and completing a Masters degree at the University of Essex, Sam delivers high performance coaching for a wide variety of clients. Among some of Sam’s high profile clients includes Phil Parkinson, the assistant manager of Charlton Athletic Football Club. Sam worked alongside Phil Parkinson for 3 years at Parkinson’s former club Colchester United, in which they saw the club win a historic promotion to the Championship Division.
For information about Mindsport’s sport psychology seminars click here.
