Sidebar Technique

The SportSuccess(tm) system was created by patterning top performing athletes in
many sports. The system allows athletes to systematically create repeatable
competitive mindsets which enhance their abilities to succeed.
Here is a basic exercise which you can use to prepare the ground for creating
strong self-efficacy beliefs.
Efficacy Search
1. Think through the experiences of your life, both sporting and otherwise, and find
as many experiences as you can where:
• You performed well at any task
• You were praised for a task
• You persisted in the face of obstacles or difficulties
• You gave 110% to some endeavour
• Any activity that you performed that would be worthy of praise if you noticed it
happening in someone else.
We are interested in quantity of positive experiences first, then size or "grandness"
of experience. It doesn't matter how small or apparently trivial the experiences are
to start – as long as you start somewhere.
2. Write them ALL down in a list and add to the list as you recall more experiences.
3. You are now going to make a movie of all of these experiences – a documentary
where you are the director. Arrange all of the experiences into a single movie.
4. Watch that movie in your mind from beginning to end several times. On the
basis of what you have seen in the movie, what can you truthfully say about the
person in that movie? e.g. "They really stick with it even when things aren't going
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Self-Belief in Sport using NLP
well." "He's got a tremendous amount of focus and concentration on what he
wants." "She's got great dedication to learning and improving."
5. Now take that movie and this time go through it as if you are experiencing the
events in the movie as you experienced them when they happened. But this time
the events happen in the order of the movie rather than the way they happened in
life. It's as if you are the actor in the movie and you see everything from that main
character's perspective.
Run through the movie to the end, and when you've finished say to yourself the
phrase or expression that you said from #4 but say it as an "I" statement. e.g. "I
really stick with it even when things aren't going well." etc.
By paying attention to and choosing to dwell upon as many positive reference
experiences from your personal life and sporting activities as you can, you begin to
build a foundation for strong self-efficacy beliefs which will serve you in your
sporting activities.