Sports performance

You can maximise your sporting potential by incorporating Hypnotherapy, Mindfulness and NLP into your training regimen.

The mind and body are linked in the same way as the different parts of a computer are linked. Your mind tells your body what movements to make, and your body tells your mind what it is seeing and feeling.
The mind is the most powerful computer in the world and it can help your body to achieve amazing things.

So, using Hypnotherapy, NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and Mindfulness practice, we can tap into those areas of your mind that allow you to maximise your potential, both in the sporting arena and in your life as a whole.

As any great athlete will tell you, success when you're in the zone is easy, as everything just seems to fall into place.

It's as though time itself slows down and you have more time to think.

As a sports person, you're always looking for that extra edge, either as a professional athlete, or even if you want to improve what you do in the amateur leagues.

When assessing an athletes performance, it is often the lack of a mind body connection that is hindering their potential and thus preventing them from entering into the zone.

So in our work together we'll look at these three areas :

1. Goal Setting
2. Mental Imagery
3. Mental flow

1. Goal Setting : Here we look at what you want to achieve not only in your sport, but also in your personal life, as everything is connected.
A setback somewhere in your personal life can obviously affect your sporting performance, so if we can resolve that, we can improve your overall performance.

I also like to establish some short term goals so that you can get into the habit of achieving those goals. This makes a connection between success and goals that can carry you towards your ultimate goals.

Those at the very top of their sports have often said something like "I won it a thousand times in my head before I won it on the field". So we know that by utilising this strategy, we can achieve a greater level of performance for our clients.

In reality, we're not creating something thats completely new. We look at what other sports people who have excelled in their sport have done, and then we emulate that.

This provides us with a short cut to getting the results we want much quicker than having to wait years trying to invest in a strategy.

What do they think about?, what is their motivation?, how do they keep their motivation going? - these are all great places to start.

2. Mental Imagery : Here we actually envisage what success looks like in our mind, before we execute it in our sport. Sometimes this isn't about just seeing this happen in your mind, but about feeling those feelings that you would expect to be there as and when you perform at the level you want to.
Experiencing those feelings and knowing how powerful they can be, can drive you to excel in your sport just to get those feelings back again, thus creating a mental connection between where you are now, and where you want to be in your sport. It's a very powerful process.

Some people use affirmations such as "I am getting stronger every day",
or “I am the greatest!” This will improve your 'self-talk', but to truly change your internal belief system it is necessary to make use of mental imagery and rehearsal.

It improves your vision and your focus. You can think about someone who makes you angry and without them being in the room you can indeed feel the sensations of anger. In the same way if you rehearse success in your mind, you will start to feel successful. This is your way forward.

If you use mental imagery and rehearsal in your preparation and coaching, you are more likely to achieve positive personal development and performance management as well as motivation, self-confidence, self-esteem and a new and powerful personal belief system.

3. Mental Flow : This involves being 'in the zone', being engrossed in an event to an almost spiritual level.
Have you ever known you were going to score a goal before you even made contact with the ball? Have you ever felt invincible as if it was your day and nothing could possibly go wrong? This state of performance is sometimes known as a peak experience.

Hypnotherapy can profoundly increase our inner beliefs, and in sport, belief is everything.