Did you know most of the world’s top athletes have used advanced mental programming techniques to go from good to great?
Celebrated gymnast Mary Lou Retton frequently used visualization to train her body into performing her routines perfectly. This technique helped her bring home Olympic gold!
Basketball phenom Michael Jordan successfully used hypnosis in his pre-game ritual to enhance focus and boost his mental stamina!
Your subconscious mind controls breathing, movement patterns and many other systems automatically, you simply don’t have to think about it. Ask a top level professional how they pulled off something exceptional, and they might have a hard time explaining because their subconscious mind had taken over.
Sports Hypnosis Helps Athletes:
- Reinforce established goals
- Increase concentration
- Eliminate distractions
- Manage pain effectively
- Control feelings of nervousness
- Boost motivation
- Decrease performance anxiety
The potential downside here is your subconscious is also in charge of your emotions, beliefs, fears and how you see yourself. The secret no one tells you is that your subconscious can adjust your perception of reality based on past performance.
An athlete’s beliefs will hold back performance:
An athlete’s beliefs will hold back performance:
- “People won’t like me if I lose”
- “I’m not good at coping with pressure”
- “Coach will drop me if I lose”
- “I’m a failure if I don’t win”
Questions to ask today to gauge the quality of your mental game:
- What’s my pre-game self-talk? If worded incorrectly it can actually hurt performance because the subconscious mind does not process negatives
- Telling yourself you won’t miss? Oops, your mind just translated that to I will miss.
You want to be doing the proper mental rehearsals when not playing or practicing. Many methods don’t give the correct type of instructions to the crucial areas of the mind that carry over to enhancing sports performance.