homepage Self-Belief in Sport
using NLP
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"He goes into every game believing he's the best player in the world." –
Paul Ince on Michael Owen
"Gold medals are not just won on superior talent alone. It is the ability to
keep a strong mind and to truly believe in yourself and your ability
regardless of the conditions and the opposition." – Iwan Thomas, 400
meters Commonwealth and European Champion
"Sport is only partly about ability, talent, accuracy and skill – all those
lovely things. To think otherwise is to be taken in by sport's great
illusion. But talent is not enough in any sport; it is not superior ability that
separates champions from contenders, it is superior nerve. It is the
ability to respond to a clutch situation by playing your best."
These words were written by Simon Barnes in The Times following Rob
Andrew's famous drop-kick in the quarter final of the Rugby World Cup
in 1995.
The mental side of sport is receiving more and more coverage and attention
by the media, by players, managers and coaches. Sport Psychology has failed to
have the impact that many believed it originally would as most of the current
information is mainly in books which are often too theoretical and technical and
thus not really appropriate. From our research it is also apparent that there has
been a fair amount of stigma attached to sporting professionals working with
psychologists as if it suggested that there was a problem or something was
wrong with them. One particular world champion we worked with a few years
ago explained that if he had told his team mates that he was training to improve
his mental attitude so that he could have more control over his emotional state
he would have been the laughing stock of his peers.
Attitudes are changing with many top experts in sport agreeing that the
mental side of competition is exceedingly important. Billy Jean King said
"more matches are won internally than externally". Many of the top athletes we
have spoken with, go so far as to suggest that, on the day of competition, their
"focused confidence", "mental toughness" or just plain "belief in myself" is the
deciding factor. Graeme Le Saux, the England football International says "So
much of football is a mind game... so I go on to the field in a positive frame of
mind".