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CHAPTER 7:

STATE OF MIND GETTING IN THE ZONE

"My creative mind is my greatest weapon. It is a kind of inner vision that enables me to see things that others might not, like a certain way to play a shot. The psychology of golf can be complicated as it does entail mental toughness, self-confidence,conquering inner demons, instant recall of past successes and being able to purge failures. It is the game within the game, I developed my mental strength early and I cannot emphasise the importance of you developing yours now! "Tiger Woods

The mental aspects prior to performance should involve focusing on what you are going to doduring the event

Competition can bring out the best or the worst in athletes, and the psychological demandsare especially high when individuals or teams are striving to achieve the same goals. Whenphysical skills are evenly matched, it is often the competitor with the stronger mentalapproach, who can control his or her mind before and during events, who wins. However,many athletes wrongly assume that mental aspects of performance are innate andunchangeable when, in reality, systematic mental training can have a similar impact onperformance as physical workouts. Getting into the correct mind-set prior to competition is

one of the most crucial aspects of top performance.

There are many other potential distractions for the sports person, including the actions offriends or family, coaches or team mates, the environmental conditions, memories, delaysand irrelevant thoughts. All of these can detract from your preparations, so be ready toclear your mind and refocus as necessary.

Because sports people have varying requirements, it is impossible to standardize the pre-

competition preparation. However, you may wish to adopt the anchoring strategy in creating your own pre-performance strategy to achieve the desired emotional state

Golfers have routines that allow them to prepare in the same way for each shot, as do somerugby place kickers, and tennis players before serving. The key to any routine is that itprovides the athlete with control and directs attention to the important cues. Coaches andathletes should work together in deciding the key attention cues and the sequence in whichthese should occur.

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A classic example of how emotions can affect sport performers came in a famous boxingmatch between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran. Leonard was considered the betterboxer who was expected to outclass Duran with slick movements and long-range punching.However, before the fight Duran insulted Leonard in front of his family and this, to the

dismay of Leonard’s Trainer Angelo Dundee, sent Leonard into a rage, which completelyaltered the course of subsequent events. Instead of fighting to the pre-planned strategydevised with his trainer, Leonard let his emotions take over and decided he was going to‘beat-up’ his opponent. Duran’s actions amounted to a psychological masterstroke as Leonardditched his boxing skills and opted for a brawl. It was exactly what Duran had hoped for,and he won a points decision

The best performers in the world have the ability to get into the right state of mind inspecific situations

particularly in certain situations were two competitors are equal physically, technically, andtactical understanding of the game, the ability that certain performers have to achieveconsistent results over long periods of time has allot to do with them being able to get inthe right mental state in a specific situation

What goes through the mind of a performer that is just about to take a penalty kick to wina world cup final in a penalty shoot outA tennis player who is about to serve for a match of a major tournament

In most sports there is a break of play in between

In a game of football which lasts 90 minutes the average amount of ball contact per playeris 3 minutes, when we take time out for the ball being out of play

I.e. a golfer who is out on the course all day playing up to 18 holes actual ball contact isaround 14 minutesEach stroke taking seconds

In a game of cricket a batter has a split second to make a decision on shot selection in

between

A formula car driver

Marathon runner

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When Nomar Garciaparra refastens his batting gloves between every pitch, is it apreperformance routine or a superstition? What about when Dirk Nowitzki sings DavidHasselhoff tunes before he shoots free throws

An NLP strategy which can be used to get performers into the right state of mind isAnchoring

What is Anchoring?

An anchor is a stimulus that creates a response in either you or in another person.When an individual is at the peak of an experience during an intense emotionalstate, an applied specific stimulus can establish a neurological link between theemotional state and the stimulus. Anchoring can occur naturally or be set upintentionally and can assist in gaining access to past states and linking the paststate to the present and future. Anchors can be used by both coaches and playersto produce a state of mind or mood needed for a given situation

NLP examples of Anchoring in every day life

Here are a few examples:

flicking through an old family photo album stirs pleasant memories and someof the feelings associated with them.

An old song which can take you back to a specific event. The smell of freshly baked apple pies brings back memories of a happy care-freechildhood

How we Anchor and are anchoredWhen we are with another person who experiences some strong emotion, whateverwe are doing or saying becomes associated with that emotion. Usually this processoccurs at the unconscious level. Subsequently, whenever we do or say the samething in the same way in his presence we will tend to re-stimulate for him/her someportion of the previous feeling.

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Being aware of this phenomenon through knowledge of neurolinguistic programmingenables us to be aware of the kinds of responses we are anchoring in others, howwe are doing it and conversely, what kinds of responses are being anchored inourselves and how. This awareness enables us to anchor for mutually productiveoutcomes.

Anchoring in SportCan be used to create a resourceful state of mind for a specific situation toachieve a desired resultFor example prior to a rugby player taking a kick for goalA golf player teeing offA cricket player getting ready to face the next ballA football player taking a penaltyThe list is exhaustive

The anchor can be used to create different state of mindConfidenceMotivationFocusRelaxation

Examples

I was working with a leading striker from a leading premiership club who had been injuredfor 3 seasons; I had used the anchoring strategy by using idea technology. What we did wasget as much video footage of the player performing to the best of his ability, as the playersposition in the team was to score goals, and this was one of the outcomes he was aiming toachieve as a player, we transferred on to the DVD as many goals as possible, and there werequite a few. We then attached same of the players favourite music to the DVD, initially Ihad asked the player to take the DVD and watch it as and when he wanted to, just enjoywatching himself playing well, I said the fact he had performed like this before it waspossible to perform like this again it was a question of getting him in the same state ofmind.I then asked the player that in order to transfer this resource in a game situation weneeded to develop an anchor, so just like a light switch we could, switch that state of mindon when necessary, the player decided what he wanted to use as his anchor, whilst watchingthe DVD we went through the anchoring process 100s of times until the player knew forcertain that the anchor produced the emotional stimulus required for him to perform inspecific situations we had outlined

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The result was in the player’s first game he had scored 2 goals after being out with injuryfor over 3 seasons

Another example o the anchoring process was some work I did with a football player at alower division club, in this situation I did not have access to video footage of he player, so

we did the process by getting the player to reflect of some of his past performances. inthis situation the player was going through a situation were he was lacking in confidence,when ever he walked on to the football pitch he didn’t believe in himself, this player alsobeing a striker whose job it is to score goals was doing well in training, he had no problemscoring goals in training, though when he walked on to the football pitch he couldn’t seem toscore goals. The reasons behind this could have been countless, and I thought that isn’twasn’t necessary to find out why, rather than analyse the problem lets look for a solution.In this situation the player was going through a problem were he was lacking confidencewhilst he was playing a competitive game, which was affecting his performances. We wentthrough the anchoring processI had asked him to set down and write down some of his best performances

then having done that reflect and think about it, having done this you could see animmediate physiological change, the player sat up straight his breathing changed and almostin an instant was in a different mind setWe decided on an anchor which was a flick of his wrist bandAnd asked him to visualise again his best performancesWhen he reached peak intensity I had asked him to flick his wrist band as this would buildan association to the confidence he wanted to resource whilst playing, every time he wantedto tap I to that resource he would flick his wrist bandThe player performed the technique and practiced whilst on his ownAnd the first thing he does when he walks on to the pitch now is flick the wrist band

Installing an Anchor

1 Decide on the state you want to anchor - e.g. being calm and relaxed,confident, motivated etc;

2 Choose an anchor (or anchors) that you wish to trigger that state - e.g. pressthumb and middle finger together;

3 Recall a memory or imagine a situation where you can experience that state -e.g. recall a situation where you were totally calm, relaxed, confident etc;

4 When the experience is vivid and you are in the desired state at the peak ofits intensity, squeeze your thumb and middle finger together;

5 Release the anchors when the experience begins to fade;6 Now do something else - open your eyes, count down from 10 to break the

state and distract yourself7 Repeat the steps above several times, each time trying to make the memory

more vivid (not required when the anchor is established at the high point ofa real experience, but you can strengthen the anchor by establishing it atthe high point of several such experiences);

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8 Apply the anchor and check that the required state occurs;Apply the required anchor during the halftime interval to generate the appropriateemotional state

'Although you can train your body physically by sheer persistence, it's much harder to train your mind….all this visualisation did not come to me in a flash, I had to work at it, and learn how to use it.' Sally Gunnell