I have been thoroughly enjoying the Olympics, watching sports that I usually wouldn't and listening to the interviews afterwards. One thing that has really struck me is how open a lot of competitors are being about their mental health.
Adam Peaty, one of the best swimmers in the world, secured a silver medal, which some might have thought he would be disappointed with, but he came out of the pool beaming. He explained that he had been in a dark place and this is incredible considering the mental journey he has been on.
Ros Canter, an olympic gold medalist in the eventing and world number 1, also shared how she fights with imposter syndrome and a lack of belief.
It doesn't matter who you are and how others might percieve you. If you don't believe in yourself and have self-doubt, it is so much harder to achieve. The difference between the Olympian and us? Not much! The main difference is that they recognise their mental barriers and do something about it.
Visualisation is huge with athletes in every sport. It has been proven that visualisation increased your ability, your success rate and your positivity towards what you are doing. One of these studies was in Basketball in the USA by Dr Blaslotto. They had one group of athletes who did absolutely nothing, a second group who practiced half an hour a day and another who just visualised these basketball shots for half an hour each day. The results surprised many people and changed the outlook of visualisation. The first group showed no improvement, the second group improved by 24% and the third group, who didn't even touch a basketball, improved by 23%!
You can see why athletes do this, but why don't we?
We maybe don't know about it, don't really know how to do it, don't realise that it could benefit us, even if we aren't doing sport. Imagine you have to run a meeting and you are nervous about it. You can use visualisation to have run it through in your head many times over so that you have already done it, already know what to expect, so that when you stand up your subconscious mind already knows how this is going to go and you feel more confident.
I challenge you to think of something you are nervous about and to rehearse in your mind how it will positively go. If this seems a bit tricky, drop me a message and if you haven't already had a free call, book one in.
The top athletes have mindset coaches to do better, so why can't you? You can also feel like an olympian and live your life in a more confident, happier, content state every day...
What will you choose?
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