Learning more about the connection between mind and body for optimal performance should be high on the list of every committed coach’s personal development plan.
The best part is you don’t have to be a brainbox or science boffin to grasp and implement sports psychology techniques that reap speedy and substantial rewards. In fact, we guarantee the examples in this article alone will make an indelible impression on those who are a little late to the party.
In the last chapter, we examined how emotions drive thoughts, thoughts drive behaviour, and behaviour drives performance.
In this chapter, we will show how visual imagery can play its own fundamental role in the behaviour cycle.
Imagery influences emotions, emotions drive thoughts, thoughts drive behaviour, and behaviour drives performance.
It remains a vastly underused and underrated skill outside elite sport, and Frank appeals to coaches to work on their use of similes, metaphors, analogies, storytelling and figures of speech, and enjoy discovering innovative ways to apply them.
One of the most important things, as a skill, that you have to learn as a coach, is the ability to find analogy, to find metaphor, to find simile, to create stories. Because if you can do that, you can change how people think,” says Frank.
Frank’s examples will bring these concepts to life in full glorious technicolour and leave you free to paint your own vivid pictures in the minds of your athletes. All you will need is a dash of imagination.
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