Practise makes perfect, thats what my old Nan always used to say. However, what she failed to mention, is the importance of practising things going the way you want them to go, instead of considering what to do if it does go wrong. How many times do you ask yourself Whats the worst that could happen?!
For athletes though, it is imperative that they focus on achieving, on being the winner, first time, every time. Quite often, they only have one shot at their success. Being a bit off form at the crucial moment is simply not an option.
So the first thing I tell athletes who come to see me in Hertfordshire, for help in improving their performance is to practice success. To actually visualise everything going well: scoring the perfect goal, making the longest jump or moving the fastest. From an attraction point of view, we know that you will attract more of what you are focusing on, so its important to focus in success. This helps to manifest the desired outcome, but more than that, when you focus on something in your mind, you are also accessing all of the same neural networks as if you were actually performing the act. Scientists initially believed that the neural...