Do you try to visualize your performance
perfectly, but then that may come back to bite you when you don't perform
perfectly?
Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn with Peak Performance Sports at peaksports.com.
In today's video,
you're gonna learn about how to visualize your performance
prior to executing that performance, but also understand
that your performance is not going to
come off just as you visualized it.
Here's the question that I received from Tory.
Tory said I usually try to visualize myself
performing my routines perfectly. However, after reading your emails
I'm thinking that this might not be as constructive
as I thought. Should I be doing this?
Tory, it's a great question. The question is really all about
what your visualization should contain
and more importantly it's about
you maybe not matching that
specific visualization that you have. So what I tell athletes is like for
golfers, for example,
or gymnasts, for example, or even basketball players,
I tell them you do want to visualize a shot or routine
perfectly, but I'm going to qualify what perfect means in this situation.
That means well within your ability. For example, if you're a golfer
and you hit a fade and you hit 250 yards,
well, you're not going to visualize pounding a draw out there 280 yards,
if that's not what your capability is. So when you say perfectly, you have to
visualize within yourself
the routine that you're currently doing. If you're talking about a
beam routine, for example, you want to visualize that just how you're able to
do it in practice.
But, here's the big caveat: Where athletes get mixed up
is they try to perform in that way. In other words, they worry that their
performance didn't match that visualization.
So, if you visualize a perfect beam routine
and then you had a slight bobble on your first pass or your second pass on the
beam,
and then you start to worry that is not what you visualize,
that's a problem, right? So, the idea is to setup
the ideal scenario for your ability
in terms your visualization, but then you have to accept whatever happens
on that beam routine. It's like golfers,
they tend to want to visualize perfect shots, what they're capable of,
and that's fine,
but then they stress out that they didn't hit the shot exactly as
they visualized in their mind. And the great Ben Hogan, who was one of the best
ball strikers in history,
he said I only hit three or four shots
just as I imagined, the rest
were good misses. So, that really says a lot
there about Ben Hogan's quote. And that's how you want to
approach it is
set up the ideal scenario well within your abilities
but then you have to accept whatever the outcome is or whatever that
performance is,
accept that you're probably not going to be perfect.
Well, I can guarantee you're not going to be perfect.
But, you're not going to be perfect each and every routine,
each and every shot, and each and every play, but you certainly do wanna set that
up in your mind.
Thanks for the question and good luck with your game!
Hey, if you have a mental game question for us
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