One of the characteristics of great champions is to simulate in advance, mentally and visually, the course of their performances. This is possible through visualization. An important step to improve the technical aspect is to create our own imaginary map, in which we will visualise all the components of the shot in advance: we will live it in our mind…
we will see it go back and forth as in a slow motion film. But not only that… an essential component of successful athletes is to be able to see themselves in the very moment of being successful! They have a very strong imagination and have the ability to project themselves towards their dreams, not only visually, but also on a tactile, auditory and olfactory level.
These people are able to “live their life in reverse”, that’s to say they mentally create the future for themselves and begin to take the necessary actions to live it. The important thing for visualisation to be useful, it is not enough to see a vague scene in the head, but you have to literally project yourself onto the situation by painting every single sensory detail, in order to make the scene as real as possible.
Where we are? What noises are there around? Who’s there with us? How do we feel? Everything responds to the great concept that we are our thoughts… what we imagine’s what we actually create. Our becoming is consistent with the vision we have of ourselves!
If we fail to visualise ourselves as we are successful, or if we do not think we are worth enough to succeed, we risk sabotaging everything, because the mind will take us exactly where we think we can go.
To be able to get there…
we must first give ourselves permission to win!
AVOID WORRYING ABOUT THE REST AND WORK HARD Many tennis players, despite their great potential, do not perform at their best because of their fears, their doubts and their mental conditioning.
We all have thoughts, fears and behaviours that hinder our performance: ALL OF US!
In order not to self-sabotage, we need to identify and list them! In this way, once identified, it will be easier to try to manage and counter these negative behavioural patterns.
We cannot control the circumstances, manage the behavior of others or influence external factors such as the weather… so why do we have to place such a heavy weight on these things? Let’s take for example (away from tennis) a basketball player who is about to shoot…
if he begins to think about how his teammates will move after the shot and what will happen and if they can catch the ball… here, at this point, his concentration on the shot will drop and therefore he will most likely miss the shot!
Another example, this time from F1: a driver will not be able to check that it is not raining, but he will be able to prepare in advance for the possibility that it may rain! Successful tennis players understand that what matters is not the event itself, but their reaction to the event!
And we always have a choice how to react.
We must accept responsibility for what is within our sphere of influence and learn to let go of what is outside of it.
We must not try to control the circumstances, but the reactions to such circumstances.
This news is republished from another source. You can check the original article here