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Achieving Peak Performance
Sport psychology is also concerned with making sure that
people can perform to the absolute limit of their ability,
at the times when it matters. Training and motivation are
part of that, but there are other factors, too, which are
the concern of sport psychology. On the training field, for
instance, many athletes reach top performance. But when it
comes to actual competitive events, some people consistently
win, while others just don’t seem to be able to manage that
last, final edge which means success.
Positive thinking
Positive thinking is a crucial factor in
distinguishing between people who are likely to be
successful and those who aren’t. Highly successfully
sportspeople don’t allow themselves to think about failure.
They don’t just block it off – instead, they think
positively about success. Not about winning the golf medal,
but about actually doing the activity successfully. When it
is being used in this way, the person imagines him/herself
going through the whole activity successfully – running the
race, or taking exam, or whatever it is. By concentrating
only on positive thoughts, and systematically imagining each
successful stage of the activity, the person leaves no
mental room for the doubts and worries which would add to
their level of stress.
This sort of approach requires a high level of mental
discipline on the part of the athlete or performer. There
are various techniques for doing this. One of them is
learning how to concentrate your mental focus, so that you
are aware only of the part of your surrounding which matter.
The champion tennis player Billie Jean King described how
her mental focus change from a wide range, encompassing the
whole count, while the ball was over the other side of the
net, to a tight, narrow focus the minute the ball was hit by
her opponent. The golf medal-winning athlete Linford
Christie used to limit his mental focus to the track in
front of him during the few minutes before the race began,
ignoring everything else except the starting pistol.
Another way that successful athletes use positive thinking
is in visualizing achievement. The hurdler, David Hemery,
described how one year he tried to prepare himself for
disappointment, by imagining realistically how he would deal
with failure. He lost. The next year, throughout his
training, he allowed himself to think only about success,
and didn’t entertain the thought that he might not win. That
was the year he won his Olympic golf medal. Taking a more
optimistic approach by thinking positively gave him an
overall edge which the more pessimistic outcome didn’t.
As with using visualization for training, Hemery’s mental
images weren’t about standing on the podium. What he would
visualize was completing the track without a single mistake,
in the best possible time. By creating a positive mental
image of what he was capable of achieving, Hemery was able
to build up his feeling of competence and confidence, and to
make sure that his performance on the day was the best that
he can do.
Managing performance anxiety
Another aspect of making sure that you do the best you can,
whether in a sport competition or in an exam, is making sure
that your anxiety levels don’t get out of hand. Anxiety can
interfere with how we do things, so it is important for
athletes not to allow themselves to get too worried. Using
positive thinking is also a good way of doing this. By
filling the mind up with positive mental images, there isn’t
much room for thoughts about failure or mistakes.
Athletes also manage performance anxiety by making sure that
their bodies are not physically stressed in the wrong way.
Anxiety can be increased by eating wrong things, or by
eating too infrequent intervals. If we haven’t eaten for
several hours, for instance, we automatically become more
anxious and aroused, because this is an ancient biological
mechanism encouraging us to go out and look for food. Many
athletes drink milk, because it contains natural calming
substances which work in the brain to reduce anxiety without
interfering with our physical abilities. And, of course,
they regard it as very important that they are properly
rested and have good night’s sleep before a key competition.
Exactly the same principles apply to any sort of demanding
human experience. It’s just as important when you’re doing
an exam, for instance, to eat properly and to be rested, as
it is when you are entering a sporting competition or taking
a graded sports test. But it is astounding how many people
ignore the physical demands of their bodies, and make their
anxiety much worse by not eating properly, or staying up the
night before to ‘studying’. There is a physical aspect to
managing any kind of performance anxiety, even exam
performance.
Using setbacks constructively
Another feature which seems to distinguish the top
performers from those who don’t do as well, is how they
handle failure when it actually happens. Many people respond
to failing a test, or an exam, or losing a competition, by
feeling upset and disappointed. But the top sportspeople
don’t do this. Instead they react by being angry with
themselves. They know that they can do better than that, and
so they resolve to make sure that it won’t happen again.
This
is everything to do with the process of attribution, which
is about the reasons that we give for why thing happen. And
this makes the difference to how we respond to failure.
If someone attributes their failure at sport (or education
or anything else, for that matter) to lack of talent or
ability, that is stable, global and uncontrollable, so they
are unlikely to try very hard to overcome it, because they
won’t think there’s any point. If they think it was because
they didn’t practiced enough, that is something that they
can do something about, so it spur them on to more effort.
Alternatively, if it was just a ‘bad’ day, that’s unstable
and not always going to apply in the future, so again they
will continue with their training, and not be too bothered
about it. It they think it is because they were doing
something badly, which they could be better, then they will
work very hard to learn better techniques to make sure they
don’t make the same mistakes again, it is the attributions
they make for setbacks or failure which distinguish the
champions and make them special.
Sport psychology, then, like so many aspects of psychology,
brings together many different levels of human functioning.
We have to perfect our physical skills, and ensure that they
are fully co-ordinated. We learn by practice, accustoming
ourselves to repetition and association. But we are also
affected by our thoughts, beliefs and imagination – and
these can make all difference to how we learn, and how we
perform, skill actions.
This article for the book Understand Psychology
by Dr. Nicky
Hayes 2010
Philip Ang
Asian Golf Centre
Certified & Licensed
USGTF
Master Golf Teaching Professional - USA
Certified Professional Teacher and Trainer - University of
Cambridge UK
Singapore Sport Council - NCAP Level 1, 2 & 3
Singapore WDA-WSQ ACTA Certified Trainer & Assessor
Certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP™) Practitioner -
USA
Certified Professional Clubmaker by GCA (USA)
GCA Winner International Clubmaker of the Year - USA
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