produce more consistent world champion athletes rather than having ones who
dwell on their failures instead of savouring their successes. When this happens
it often creates what psychologists call "learned helplessness". When an athlete
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Self-Belief in Sport using NLP
lacks self-belief, control and purpose, it can result in excessive negative selfcriticism
for poor performance, leading him to brood over his mistakes.
We have found that athletes in this predicament tend to conjure up disastrous
scenarios in their minds. Instead of planning how to develop and improve, they
practise feeling bad about themselves and their capabilities. A sage once said of
how the mind operates: "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves."
The average sportsman tries not to worry as he/she thinks about what is at
stake and the potential consequences of failure. The ability to deal with failure
can heighten or hinder your belief in your ability and learning how to deal with
it should be taught at an early age as failure is an integral part of sport. How it is
handled can be the most important determinant of how successful an athlete
becomes. Baseball players experience massive amounts of failure, even the elite
players find that 70% of their efforts end in failure.
Some years ago Michael worked with a client who wanted help with the
mental side of his tennis game. He noticed that he became more and more tense
as the game went on and every error produced an onslaught of negative
messages like, "you stupid idiot" and "what a crap shot". The player explained
that he hated playing in tie-breakers as he always lost them and not surprisingly
the third set produced one and from there on in his game just collapsed, he went
to pieces as he became more angry and frustrated, at one point smashing his
racket on the floor. After the game, Michael asked him who he was shouting at
when he was playing. He explained that he was shouting to encourage and
motivate himself to raise his game.