Yes, you can live a life that yields the same kind of outstanding, inspiring results achieved by the leading athletes at the recent Olympic games.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the recent winter Olympics in Vancouver, and have also taken time to see some events from the Paralympic Games under way currently (finishing March 21st).
During the Olympics in particular, I was pleased to see how much emphasis our Canadian Broadcaster (CTV) placed on the psychological components of the athletes’ success. After all, when interviewed and asked about the impact their self-management from a mental and emotional standpoint has on their success, athletes often state it is very significant. In particular, the athletes that win the medals use this actively.
In one recent interview I heard with gold medalist from previous winter Olympics, she attributed at least 50% of her success to applying what she learned from her sports psychologist.
What kinds of things do they use? Visualization (of successfully doing their event and of winning), and positive self-talk seem to be most common. Meditation is also used by some athletes to focus the mind and calm the nerves, and visualization can be done during meditation.
So why am I talking about this on my blog?
Because these same practices can be applied to ANY
aspect of your life to produce great results.
In fact, many of the management or personal effectiveness gurus recommend this and offer specific strategies to use these tools. I use them too, and they do make a difference.
I remember seeing an interview with a leading sports psychologist who described how they took these practices and applied them to the NASA program with great success. In their research using them for Olympic athletes beginning in the 1970′s, they would hook athletes up to sophisticated biometric feedback sensors while they were practicing their event. These senors monitored things like heart rate, body temperature, muscle activity, and so on.
Then, they would leave the biometric sensors on and ask the athletes to rehearse the event in their mind. To their amazement, they discovered that the same muscles fired in the same sequences when the athletes ran the event in their mind as when they actually physically ran it.
Their conclusion (now considered “old news” in these circles), was that the mind could not tell the difference between what was real and what was imagined. This rings true intuitively. All you have to do is think back to the last time you awakened from a vivid dream. When we awake, startled, excited, or puzzled, sometimes we have to spend a few minutes reminding ourselves that it was “just” a dream before we really return to our previous state.
If you imagine or visualize success,
you reinforce the notion that you CAN achieve it.
I’m not saying you should do this about every aspect of your life. But if you’re trying to accomplish something that is important to you, it may be worth investing some effort in visualization and positive self-talk. After all, you’re already investing considerable effort in trying to achieve the result or goal, so why not support your ability to achieve it by doing this?
If you’re really honest with yourself, probably more than you think you are giving yourself negative self-talk as you hit hurdles along the way. In fact, you might not even notice how much you trash-talk yourself sometimes. I know I’ve done it.
In my client work, I often ask groups I’m working with how often they denigrate themselves or express internal doubts about their ability to achieve something. Consistently I get confirmation that they do it. We all do. In fact, we are often our own worst critics.
Here’s to supporting yourself in the achievement of what matters most to you.
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