Preparing for Greatness

In my article on beliefs (CLICK HERE TO OPEN IN NEW TAB) I talked about how most sport psychology is directed towards dealing with symptoms of poor beliefs.

For example, two people may get on a plane –

Person A is absolutely fine and is so unperturbed by it that they almost fall asleep on takeoff.
Person B is nervous as hell and has to go through lots of distraction techniques such as breathing exercises, and saying mantras to themselves.

The situation is the same, but their belief systems are different.

Building a Belief

100% credit goes to my colleague Laurence Brotheridge for coming up with this idea.

There are many ways to build high quality belief systems, but I am going to present one example here, using the power of imagination. Take what you want from it, and think of other ways of using this idea.

Creating an environment

Look at the below video. It is one of our scratch players with high ambitions – and Tiger Woods as his idol. As a small but powerful tweak to his practice, Laurence played a video of Tiger and other pros practicing for a tour event, and put it on full-screen.

Not only that, but we turned the volume up loud, so all the noise of the crowds and sounds of the players striking the ball were clearly heard as if for real.

Pranav (our player) was asked to watch the screen for a few moments and visualize himself being there, as if he is warming up to play in a big pro event himself.

Such a subtle addition to the practice, yet you can really feel the difference when you enter the room and see Tiger practicing next to you. The visuals and the sounds really make a difference to the practice environment.

This will begin to create a subconscious belief in the player which will grow and grow. The more they mentally prepare for this situation, the more comfortable they will be when they are there for real.