The Big Idea: winning consistently requires the mental programming of a champion.
Principles of Mental Management
- Your mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time. If you are picturing something positive in your mind, it is impossible, at the same time, to picture something negative. Choose to think about what you want to create in life.
- What you say is not important. What you cause yourself or others to picture is crucial. Give yourself commands in a positive manner.
- The Subconscious Mind is the source of all mental power. You perform best when you allow your all-trained Subconscious to do the work.
- The Subconscious moves you to do whatever the Conscious Mind is picturing. Positive pictures demand positive results from the Subconscious. If we think negatively, we have to expect negative results.
- To change your performance, you must first change your Self-Image. Some people hope they can win. Some people expect to win. Winning Olympians control their Self-Image.
- You can replace the Self-Image you have with the Self-Image you want, thereby permanently changing performance.
- When the Conscious, Subconscious, and Self-Image are all balanced and working together, good performance is easy.
- The more we think about, talk about, and write about something happening, the more we improve the probability of that thing happening. Do not spend time thinking about failures. Think only about your successes.
- The Self-Image cannot tell the difference between what actually happens and what is vividly imagined. Mentally rehearse and replay good performances. Rehearsal can help reduce fear by giving you many positive mental experiences before the actual performance. Rehearsal can help restore relaxation.
The Balance of Power
- When beginning any new activity, we have to use the Conscious Mind since we have not yet developed Subconscious skill. Also our Self-Image tells us we are beginners.
- If we practice properly and are encouraged, our Subconscious and Self-Image circles will grow to match the Conscious circle and we will be in balance.
- Learn how to make your circles (Conscious, Subconscious, Self-Image) larger, while keeping them in balance.
The Mental Management Goal-Setting System
Only the super successful ever bother to set personal goals and plan their work.
- Decide exactly what you want.
- Decide when you want it.
- List the pay-value.
- Create a plan.
- Start.
- Never quit.
Improve Concentration by Running a Mental Program
Winning requires you to develop a consistent mental picture. A mental program is a series of thoughts that when pictured, will trigger the Subconscious to perform the appropriate action. A mental program controls the thought process occupying the Conscious Mind.
- Initiate: just be consistent
- Attitude: picture the feeling of success
- Direction: rehearse success
- Control: center concentration on the most critical part of the action
- Focus: the last thing you picture
How to Develop Skills
- Catch yourself doing something right. Study only your successes, not your failures.
- Train 4-5 days a week. 2-3 is not enough.
- Wherever you are, be all there.
- Rehearse the match day within the training session. Treat every training day as if it had the same importance as the most crucial competition day.
- When you are shooting well, shoot a lot. If you are having a bad day, stop training. Do not practice losing.
- We raise or lower ourselves to the standard we are around. Train with people who are better than you and you will get better.
- Make a bet with yourself, when you win it, pay off.
Performance Analysis
- Keep a performance journal or diary. In it, record your schedule, diary, solution ideas, successes, and goals.
- Use your journal to document and track your training program.
Building a Powerful Self-Image
- Remember to run a mental program and record successes in your journal.
- The Directive Affirmation is the most powerful tool for changing your Self-Image. The Directive Affirmation is a paragraph written in the first person present tense that describes a goal, a plan, and habits and attitudes required to achieve the goal. Write it down on index cards, placed in prominent places around your home and work. Rehearse it every time for 21 days and rest for 9 days.
- Constantly promote and praise others, your coaches, teammates, and colleagues.
Seven Strategies of the Mentally Tough
- The Principle of Transportation: transport the habits and attitudes you need to perform at the higher level and adopt them today.
- Your Past Is Not a Prison: do not think about the past, focus on the future
- Imitate the Champions: find out what the best people in your space are doing and copy what they are doing. Go to the places where these people train to learn from them.
- Train Hard, Compete Easy: outwork the competition in training, but not in competition.
- Visualize Before Game Day: mentally rehearse the competition before the competition.
- Take All Problems As Positive: problems identify areas we need to work on.
- Have Big Dreams: don’t settle for mediocrity, dream big, achieve big