You're in the best shape of your life for your sport. You know winning techniques, strategies and tactics. You even know your opponents well. But you're not winning as often as you should. Sometimes you're even losing to opponents who clearly don’t have a physical edge on you. So you think you’ve got to train harder, longer, or more intensely?
Think about it some more. Athletic competition is about far more than physical techniques and training. Mental and emotional training is just as important, especially for sports that are the most physically demanding.Olympic swimmer Susie O’Neill should know. Every year from 1990 to 2000 she won a medal at every international swimming competition she entered. (Counting? She holds 35 Australian titles and eight Olympic medals.) "If you train hard physically for your sport, you should also train hard mentally," she writes in a plug for the book Mental Training for Peak Peformance by Steven Ungerleider. That’s not a piece of advice that just sounds good. What happens in your mind makes a difference in what happens on the scoreboard.
Understanding the importance of visualization can help you prevent losing to competitors you know you should beat. More than that, it can help you to win against competitors in your league who are bigger, stronger or faster than you. "When two athletes of equal -- and often unequal -- ability compete, the athlete with the mental edge most often emerges as the winner," according Kay Porter, author of The Mental Athlete.Right. Visualization is a necessary part of athletic training. But how exactly?You understand the importance of mental training and visualization. But how exactly do you go about it?As with physical training, mental training requires:-Time Just as you set aside time for physical training, you should schedule time to visualize. A few minutes daily is enough.
-Goal-setting You should set goals. But don’t obsess on them. Goals should be realistic. For example, if you’re 20% accurate from three point range in basketball, your goal might be to achieve 25-30% within a month. (Goals should be realistic. Visualizations don’t have to be -- more on that below)
-Planning You should plan your visualizations. Start a session by visualizing your strengths -- suppose you’ve got a reliable jump shot from five feet. See yourself hitting five, six, seven in a row. Then move to areas you want to improve. For example that top-of-the-key three-pointer. See yourself hitting ten in a row. -Motivation Just like physical training, visualization training requires motivation. Some days you might not feel like doing it. Mental pictures often need help from actual images on a vision board (a collage of goal-related images on a poster board) or, better yet, a multi-media, online vision board site such as visionboardsite.com.
-Action Yes, this means mental action: actually doing your positive self-talk, affirmations and visualizations daily. Expert Tips on Visualization Kay Porter: ""Mental training requires you to make a commitment to be as dedicated to training your mind as you are to training your body." Among the tips she offers for successful mental training are:1. Effective goal-setting2. Positive self-talk and affirmation3. Relaxation techniques4. VisualizationMistakes to avoid"It’s important not to set goals that are too overwhelming," according to Miguel Humara, at Athletic Insight, the Online Journal of Sport Psychology. Why? It can increase anxiety and cause a decrease in performance. Humara advises against speeding up or slowing the skill down in mental practice.
Visualization should take place in "real time" in your mind. Don’t visualize yourself as from a camera lens. Practice your visualizations from your perspective, from your own eyes. Finally, Humara cautions against unfocused visualization. Don’t just see yourself playing a perfect game. Instead, he says, you should select a specific skill to focus on in any visualization. Don’t overdo it.Obsessing on an athletic goal can make it harder to achieve, according to Craig Townsend, a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Director of It's Mind over Matter in Sydney, Australia. He specializes in mental coaching and visualization for elite swimmers. Townsend: "Often when we obsess or focus too much on what we want, it actually drives our goal further away from us. The key is to relax, allow your body to do what it has been trained to do, and trust that this will be enough to succeed."How to organize your mental trainingAs with anything, you should use the organizational tools that work for you.
Some choices include:Journaling -- writing down goals, visualization plans, and keeping a log or journal about them can can be just as valuable as a physical training log. Poster-board-and-glue vision boards -- Images are often more powerful than words for motivation. Cut out images from magazines that motivate you. Paste them on a piece of poster board. Hang this collage where you’ll see it daily.
Click to return to Law OF Action
Online vision board sites such as http://www.visionboardsite.com/. You’ll have the advantage of multi-media, multi-sensory presentations. Best of all, you can create your own, using images and music from an online library. You can even upload material yourself. Sites such visionboardsite offer one-stop shopping for motivational and organizational tools. Motivational images, music, planning tools and record-keeping are all at your fingertips. A final advantage of an online vision board site is that, wherever you travel, it’s there: just log on, right after checking your email.
Think about it some more. Athletic competition is about far more than physical techniques and training. Mental and emotional training is just as important, especially for sports that are the most physically demanding.Olympic swimmer Susie O’Neill should know. Every year from 1990 to 2000 she won a medal at every international swimming competition she entered. (Counting? She holds 35 Australian titles and eight Olympic medals.) "If you train hard physically for your sport, you should also train hard mentally," she writes in a plug for the book Mental Training for Peak Peformance by Steven Ungerleider. That’s not a piece of advice that just sounds good. What happens in your mind makes a difference in what happens on the scoreboard.
Understanding the importance of visualization can help you prevent losing to competitors you know you should beat. More than that, it can help you to win against competitors in your league who are bigger, stronger or faster than you. "When two athletes of equal -- and often unequal -- ability compete, the athlete with the mental edge most often emerges as the winner," according Kay Porter, author of The Mental Athlete.Right. Visualization is a necessary part of athletic training. But how exactly?You understand the importance of mental training and visualization. But how exactly do you go about it?As with physical training, mental training requires:-Time Just as you set aside time for physical training, you should schedule time to visualize. A few minutes daily is enough.
-Goal-setting You should set goals. But don’t obsess on them. Goals should be realistic. For example, if you’re 20% accurate from three point range in basketball, your goal might be to achieve 25-30% within a month. (Goals should be realistic. Visualizations don’t have to be -- more on that below)
-Planning You should plan your visualizations. Start a session by visualizing your strengths -- suppose you’ve got a reliable jump shot from five feet. See yourself hitting five, six, seven in a row. Then move to areas you want to improve. For example that top-of-the-key three-pointer. See yourself hitting ten in a row. -Motivation Just like physical training, visualization training requires motivation. Some days you might not feel like doing it. Mental pictures often need help from actual images on a vision board (a collage of goal-related images on a poster board) or, better yet, a multi-media, online vision board site such as visionboardsite.com.
-Action Yes, this means mental action: actually doing your positive self-talk, affirmations and visualizations daily. Expert Tips on Visualization Kay Porter: ""Mental training requires you to make a commitment to be as dedicated to training your mind as you are to training your body." Among the tips she offers for successful mental training are:1. Effective goal-setting2. Positive self-talk and affirmation3. Relaxation techniques4. VisualizationMistakes to avoid"It’s important not to set goals that are too overwhelming," according to Miguel Humara, at Athletic Insight, the Online Journal of Sport Psychology. Why? It can increase anxiety and cause a decrease in performance. Humara advises against speeding up or slowing the skill down in mental practice.
Visualization should take place in "real time" in your mind. Don’t visualize yourself as from a camera lens. Practice your visualizations from your perspective, from your own eyes. Finally, Humara cautions against unfocused visualization. Don’t just see yourself playing a perfect game. Instead, he says, you should select a specific skill to focus on in any visualization. Don’t overdo it.Obsessing on an athletic goal can make it harder to achieve, according to Craig Townsend, a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Director of It's Mind over Matter in Sydney, Australia. He specializes in mental coaching and visualization for elite swimmers. Townsend: "Often when we obsess or focus too much on what we want, it actually drives our goal further away from us. The key is to relax, allow your body to do what it has been trained to do, and trust that this will be enough to succeed."How to organize your mental trainingAs with anything, you should use the organizational tools that work for you.
Some choices include:Journaling -- writing down goals, visualization plans, and keeping a log or journal about them can can be just as valuable as a physical training log. Poster-board-and-glue vision boards -- Images are often more powerful than words for motivation. Cut out images from magazines that motivate you. Paste them on a piece of poster board. Hang this collage where you’ll see it daily.
Click to return to Law OF Action
Online vision board sites such as http://www.visionboardsite.com/. You’ll have the advantage of multi-media, multi-sensory presentations. Best of all, you can create your own, using images and music from an online library. You can even upload material yourself. Sites such visionboardsite offer one-stop shopping for motivational and organizational tools. Motivational images, music, planning tools and record-keeping are all at your fingertips. A final advantage of an online vision board site is that, wherever you travel, it’s there: just log on, right after checking your email.
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2 comments:
What a wonderful site. I hope you can convince the universe of the power of the vision board. What an incredibly empowering tool. As I look at mine right now, I see that two things can come down--attracted and achieved. I'll be checking in.
Working harder isn't necessarily working 'smarter.' How often you work is less important than how. Humans create mentally through visualisation, and this is just the tip of the iceberg for what comes next.
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