How to improve your performance in sports through NLP?

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
Michael Jordan, former NBA player

Sport is all about mental strength. To win the game in the external world, you need to win the mind game in your inner world.

The most difficult Enemy

Your most difficult and devious opponent is not who faces you on the court but is the one inside your own mind. NLP tools and techniques are extremely effective in sports, as it enables the coach to understand the mental map of sportsperson and recognize any problems which is coming in the way of achieving success. Think about it. In the world of professional sport what is the crucial factor which decide success? Is it talent? Or is it technique? Is its physical ability? Is it mind-set? It is usually a combination of the above with mind-set most vital to winning the game.

Values and Beliefs

The sports person’s values and beliefs shape up the behaviour or physiology. NLP enables and ensure that their thinking is aligned with the goals. Values and beliefs of players, teams, and coaches play a huge part in any sports performance, as it is the team effort which matters in any sport. NLP Coaching in sports works on improving the team dynamics as well as individual levels to remove any blockage which stops them to perform at their best. Something that sets you apart, something that gets you the winning performance over your competition.

And that is why NLP is now the coaching tool of choice for professional sports people because it is a fast way of making huge improvements to performance.

Below are the 3 areas that sportspeople will find it helpful to start to with …

Goals and Values

Aligning your thinking behind your goal: Yet unless the goal is supported by both the conscious and unconscious mind which aligns with the values system, it is impossible to perform at your maximum potential. NLP coaching for sports helps in rewiring the brain for new pathways to ignite their motivation for success and performance. It is all in the mind.

Internal Conflicts

Sometimes you think one thing, but on the other hand sometimes you think something else Doubtful thinking like , “I don’t think I can win this match” OR  “We lost last time also” , “I never perform on this day” are the conflicts which are sabotaging the performance levels, both as an individual as well as for the team. By using NLP techniques in sports, a person can go into ‘flow states’ to consciously enter states of peak performance as and when needed.

Modelling

NLP is also used to ‘model’ or study a person’s performance in order to identify how exactly they do something. It helps in  identifying how they perform and achive success and what are their actions and moves, based on which a NLP coach will work on modelling the techniques of a successful sportsperson and reprogram the brain for successful patterns.

NLP is crucial for sports performance because it is always about mental strength in any sports.

Calibration

Calibration is extremely powerful as it like a superpower, it will allow to predict the next move or strategy of opponent which is very important to prepare our self and win the game. Further, it empowers you to read the mind and  behaviour patterns of opponent plan accordingly.

Long back in 1990, a simple calibration of Boris Becker’s slip of the tongue gave Andre Agassi an upper hand and he went on to win 10 out of 11 matches.

Reprograming the mind

Many topmost sports persons use NLP to reprogram their minds. This reprogramming has following effects:

• Breaking the existing patterns by going to the root causes
• Reprogramming the mind to behave differently in challenging situations
• Staying calm, relaxed and yet focused in highly stressful situations
• Getting instantly into resourceful states

These are just a few ways in which NLP can substantially help improve the performance of sports people. The art and science of NLP is often said that it could have been designed for use in sport! It is about achieving great things with an unrivalled mind-set.

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