I have spent years studying high performance in the attempt to understand how to help people become happier and healthier. It is disappointing to me to come across individuals that only see what they want to see. That are so threaten for some reason they have to pull others down.

I am guessing we all come across individuals like this from time to time in our lives. What I have noticed from these infrequent encounters is that it always seems to only strengthen what I am doing. Although in this most recent situation, I found myself at times feeling emotionally charged. It just makes me more determined to keep my head down and work harder then ever. To control what I have control over.

Misery loves company what else can I say.

Barry then says, “the nature of players is to make mechanical adjustments. But a lot of times success comes when you relax and just have fun.” Focusing attention on the mechanics, is often a great way to re-channel energy out of interference cycles and back on the CAN DO path. However, if the depth of the interference cycle is too deep focusing on mechanics way not be enough, which is why sometimes this works and other times does not. The most significant part of Barry’s statement is relaxing and having fun part.

When we are having fun, we unavoidably focus our energy on what we CAN DO. Hence, we are more likely to performance, or pitch in Barry case with confidence. Barry states, “If you pitch with confidence, your pitches are better. If you pitch with doubt, your pitches aren’t as good. I can’t explain why or how, but sometimes they just break better.” Obsolutely!!!

To close out the article Barry says the turnaround came when he, “learned to trust myself and my instincts and stop worrying about what everyone thinks of me. Ultimately, it’s none of my business; it’s just their projection on to me.

This year has been a lot more fun, but I can’t ever say I’m back. I would never have the audacity to say that. The nature of this game is that the next game will put you right back on your butt.”

The difference between practice and match play for so many is a matter of time management. For example I had a tennis player a while back that was very talented and played extremely well in practice. She was close to the best player on our team in practice. But under pressure during match play—a different player would turn up.

This individual was taking the usual approach to try and control her mind better in pressure situations. She was seeing a counseling psychologist, doing visualization etc, but it wasn’t working. Finally, during a match were she had lost the first set 6-4 after playing very well to get to 4-4 and then choking the last two games because of nerves. I told her to step up one big step into the court to cut down the amount of time between each shot. I was hoping with less time she won’t have the time to worry so much and would be able to get out of her head and just play. I was shocked at the result.

Unbelievably, she started playing just like she did in practice. She was explosive, quick to the ball, and was making efficient good decisions without any hesitation. She was playing her game, dictating the play, and most importantly she was having fun. She won the second set easily which was great, but I wanted to see what would happen if the score was close. Would this approach stand up under pressure? I know, I know, I’m crazy, but understanding how the mind works, especially under pressure I thought would lead to more wins later. In the third set the score got to 4-4 again, her usual choking point. At this point she played several great points, intermixed with some points where her mind was racing and doubts were starting to creep into her mindset.

Though it wasn’t pretty at times, and we me hounding her to stay up in the court (she kept moving back when she got scared). In the end she got through it and had the biggest win of her career to this point. From this time on she played this way until she forgot about the advantages of cutting out time. Once she regressed back to old habits the anxiety came back just as fast as it had left. Unfortunately, I wasn’t coaching her at this point in time.

Confidence is a feeling or a thought process in one’s powers or ability to succeed.  For example, I would exhibit confidence by saying “I am good at what I do.” or feeling a certain way, “I am confident in my ability to succeed.” It is easy to define confidence, but it becomes tricky when we try to define how confidence is developed.

Research shows that the number factor in the development of confidence is previous successful experiences, and the reason for this, is because we have a knowledge that a certain achievement is possible.  Confidence starts with a belief in one’s ability to succeed, then is usually driven by certain motivation to achieve and then a commitment to finish out the objective.  The key to successfully develop confidence is having the right objective, I talked about this in another post, the Performance Journal. (click here to recap) Having the right objective can accelerate the growth of confidence or completely destroy confidence.  For example setting an objective just slightly beyond a persons capability but not out of reach is the right kind of objective. Sometimes we set goals or objectives that are way out of our reach and so when we fall short we begin to doubt our ability and lose our confidence in our selves.  Just to recap, confidence is developed by previous successes, belief leads to motivation which leads to commitment which leads to action to accomplish a certain objective, once we have accomplished that objective it becomes a previous success, therefore building confidence.

Research shows that confidence is the number one aspect in the success of high performing individuals.  And it all starts with believing that I can achieve anything.  Once we have learned how to develop confidence we can repeat the cycle over and over until we have reached our final objective, no matter what it is.

Every athlete needs confidence to be successful, some athletes are really good at faking confidence and other have it, but the most successful know how to develop confidence and keep on developing it while at the same time removing doubt.  I mentioned at the top of this post that this skill is outlined in detail how to develop confidence in the book The Fearless Mind.

Here at visualizeone.com we have outlined 5 essential steps to high performance, these steps are found in a book written by Dr. Craig L Manning called the Fearless Mind.

What the main focus of sport psychology is shifting towards is less on theory and more on application, what makes the greats great. This is something that I have wondered all my life, I was an athlete and I watch sports, I noticed a number of people who were very athletically gifted, but then there were a few who were just a notch about the rest of the competition, and I could tell that it was not because they were more athletically gifted, in fact in some of these sports there were athletes that were more gifted than the greats. I always wondered what is was the made these individuals great. People like, Micheal Jordan, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky, Pete Sampras, Nolan Ryan, more recently, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, Peyton Manning. These athletes are a notch above the rest, turns out it is because of the mental skills that they have developed over time. These mental skills are what allow these players to out perform their competition on a daily basis. I wanted to know what these skills were. Because I was an athlete I actually sought out a sports psychologist, he was good at diagnosing and specifying what skills a high performing athlete exhibited, but he was poor at teaching me how to develop these skills.

Here at Visualizeone.com we focus on mental skills training, research has shown that there are specific skills that people do to perform at a high level. We have actually published what these skills are and how to apply them in a book called The Fearless Mind, written by Dr.Craig L. Manning, we also train people how to develop these skills.

Psychology of sport is the study of the thoughts and behaviors that are exhibited in sports by individuals associated with those sports. This can be coaches, athletes, fans, and parents. But we all can develop the skills necessary to perform at a high level, no matter what area of life we wish to apply those skills whether is it sports, family, or business.