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Affirmations: How A Sticky Note Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

Fri, 08 May 2020 00:10:35 GMT

What is an affirmation?

Affirmations are phrases that are either repeated or posted in prominent places for the user to see. Sometimes they are just trite positive sayings, but other times they are a significant goal that is personal to the user. They are meant to be encouraging.

Affirmations can be useful when used correctly, but most often they are just wishful thinking. You can write “I am a marathon runner” on sticky notes and put them up all over your home, but that will not make you a marathon runner. It will not strengthen your legs, your lungs, or your endurance. But there are four ways that affirmations can be useful.

Affirmations can open your mind to the possibility of achieving your goal
Affirmations can help you visualize your goal
Affirmations can remind you of your goal
Affirmations can motivate you to work towards your goal

Many affirmations will have all four of these elements. Others may only have some, or have all the elements but have a strong emphasis on one element. Your affirmations should emphasize the aspects that will help you the most.

1. Affirmations can open your mind to the possibility of achieving your goal

Affirmations can help your mind stop saying “I can’t do that!” We tend to believe what we read, and with the use of affirmations we can gradually begin to accept our goal as something we will achieve. Ever get upset because something bad happened to a character in a book you were reading? Or excitedly race through an action-packed novel? Or eagerly anticipate the solution to a mystery? Those words you read became real enough to get an emotional response from you, even though you knew it was just a story. Your affirmation can become just as real to you by reading it regularly.

2. Affirmations can help you visualize your goal

Affirmations can help you visualize yourself successfully doing whatever your affirmation is about. If you can start seeing yourself as capably performing whatever your affirmation is about, then you can work towards it with the belief of future success. It is much easier to work towards something you believe you can achieve than towards something when you have no inner hope of success.

Every time you see your affirmation about becoming a marathon runner, you should mentally picture yourself making the run, crossing the finish line, and feeling the emotions of achieving your goal. Is your affirmation about giving a successful presentation or musical performance? Then see yourself performing beautifully, accepting applause at the end and enjoying the feelings of having given an amazing performance. This visualization work helps it feel real, and the more real it feels, the more your mind will believe in the possibility of achieving your goal.

Perhaps your affirmation is somewhat vague, such as “I can handle difficult situations” or “I can remain calm and walk away from an argument”. You will need visualization practice to see yourself handling difficult situations or leaving an argument if you want to really achieve this goal - hopefully you won’t have enough practice time in real life! (For more information on how to visualize, please read our article “Imagery: Improve your Skills and Confidence without Breaking a Sweat”.)

3. Affirmations can remind you of your goal

When you see your affirmation, it will remind you to put some work in towards your goal. Dieters often put a note on the refrigerator to remind them not to eat the wrong foods. Seeing your affirmation on the mirror first thing in the morning will get you thinking about what you will do on this day towards achieving your goal. Seeing your affirmation the last thing at night will help you mentally review what you actually did that day to work towards your goal and celebrate your success, no matter how small. This is not the time to scold yourself for not working towards your goal, however – if you did nothing or even had a setback, then make a plan for what you will do the next day to make progress towards your affirmation goal.

4. Affirmations can motivate you to work toward your goals

Seeing your affirmation posted all over can motivate you to work to make it reality. If your affirmation is about getting fit, when you reach out to hit the snooze button on your alarm but see (or feel) your affirmation over it, you become more motivated to get up and do those exercises. When you get in your car after work feeling worn out from the day and see that affirmation on the dash, it can be the difference between driving home to lie on the sofa or driving to the gym.

Affirmations can also include your “why” – your reason for working on this particular affirmation. Instead of just saying “I can walk away from an argument” you might say “I can walk away from an argument so I will have a happier family life” to give you the motivation to do it. This makes for a longer affirmation, and for many people the shorter version will be enough, but add more if it helps you.

Finding the right affirmation for you

If you cannot believe your affirmation even a little bit, it is not the right affirmation for you. If you cannot see yourself at all performing the way your affirmation reads, you need to change it. If you do not know why you want to make this affirmation part of your reality, it’s not right for you. “I want to be healthy” is no good if you don’t really care about being healthy - you won’t choose to get enough sleep or eat right or exercise if you don’t have a reason behind it. You need an affirmation that you are willing to work towards, not magically expect it to happen without effort or belief.

Affirmations do not always have to be big, broad goals. A piano student who wanted to learn a piece of music that was far beyond her current skill level simply could not make herself believe it was possible. So she used the affirmation “I can learn one new measure every day” because that, to her, was believable. She often exceeded that small goal and did, in fact, learn to play the entire piece beautifully.

If you have trouble seeing the big end goal, use affirmations that will take you there bit by bit. Want to run a marathon but are just starting out? Then use affirmations for smaller goals – I can run a 5K, I can run a 10K, I can run a half-marathon, I can run a marathon. Write all four on sticky notes and stack them with the 5K the visible one on top. Once that is achieved, pull off that affirmation to see the 10K one, and when that is achieved, pull it off to see the next and so on. That way you can really feel your progress towards the ultimate goal you know is on the bottom of the stack. It is often easier to believe that you can lose two pounds than that you can lose 100 pounds. Break big affirmation goals into smaller ones to build in success and thus increase your belief that you can accomplish whatever you are setting out to do with your affirmation. (For more on goal setting, read our article “The Three Tiers of Goals Needed for Success”.)

Affirmations should be written in a positive way. Writing what you want rather than what you don’t want works much better. “I am strong and fit” is far better than “I am not weak”. Which tense you use depends on your ability to believe. If you know you are out of shape and you want to do something about it, it’s up to you to choose an affirmation you can believe in. Perhaps “I am strong and fit” feels laughable to you. What about “I can be strong and fit” – perhaps that is something your mind can agree is a possibility. Or go somewhere in between with “I will be strong and fit” which adds some determination to your affirmation. Perhaps “I get stronger and fitter every day” helps motivate you more. Every person is different. You must find the words that work best for you. Try one for a few days and see if it has the right effect on you. If it draws the wrong response from your mind, then alter your affirmation in some way.

How to use affirmations

Write your affirmation on sticky notes and post them in key places that you spend time. The bathroom mirror, on your bedside table where you’ll see it the first thing when you get up in the morning and the last thing when you lie down at night, on your car dashboard (don’t read it while driving!), on the inside of the door to your home, by your computer, on your treadmill control panel, on your cell phone – wherever you will see it regularly.

Beside posting your affirmation all over, you can simply repeat it to yourself in times of need. When things get challenging, repeating your affirmation to yourself can both inspire you and remind you that it really is possible to do what you have set yourself to do.

When you look at your affirmation at the end of the day and review your progress, be sure to make some plans for how you will work towards it again the following day. Choose an action and a time to do it. Set yourself up for success.

Affirmations can be a useful tool in your quest for accomplishment. However, you cannot just wish yourself into playing a piece of music perfectly, giving an outstanding presentation, or winning a competition. You must put in the hours of practice to get good at it in order to perform well. Many people wish to be an Olympian, but only those willing to put in the time and effort will have a chance of becoming one. Affirmations are not a magic pill that will make you achieve your goal. They can, however, be a useful step in the process.

Imagery: Improve your skills and confidence without breaking a sweat

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 21:44:22 GMT

Imagery, or visualization training, is a powerful tool to help you improve your performance. Imagery is not just daydreaming; it is careful and controlled mental rehearsal. While daydreaming involves imagery, you can also deliberately practice with it. With imagery, you visualize yourself performing successfully with many repetitions in great detail. Imagery can be used in many different ways:

1. To practice skills and reinforce learning :

As you write in your training journal after practices or competitions, visualize what you did to reinforce it. As you go to sleep at night, use imagery to review what you worked on that day.

2. To g et used to performing :

Athletes use imagery to see themselves competing, starting from arrival at the competition through the end of the day. Include warming up, feeling your adrenaline, feeling your nerves, settling your nerves, competing hard, and seeing the results of your success. In your professional life, you might see yourself entering a room full of people, walking confidently to the front of the room, giving your presentation, and answering questions calmly and knowledgeably. Musicians can see themselves walking on stage, settling in to their instrument, feeling the music and playing better than ever before.

3. To adjust energy levels:

Using different imagery can calm you down or get you going.

To adjust energy level upwards, one of my students liked to imagine stoking the fire in a steam engine train. When I was competing, I would visualize a sort of wishing well beside me that was filled with liquid energy, the color and texture of honey, that I could dip into with my hand whenever I needed more. Others like to visualize an enormous ocean wave crashing against the shore, an erupting volcano, or anything powerful.

To calm down, you can think of a relaxing place. Perhaps you are lying on a fluffy white towel on the warm sand at the beach. You feel the warmth of the sunshine on your body. A palm tree sways lightly in the gentle breeze nearby. The sky is clear and a beautiful shade of blue. You hear the waves lapping gently on the shore and smell the fresh, ocean air.

4. To get the mind ready during pre-performance time:

Use imagery to see what you intend to do that day – see yourself competing or performing well. Fencers might see themselves scoring great touches, controlling the distance, controlling the bout – anything that is particularly important for you to focus on that day. Musicians might see themselves controlling their breathing, the shape of their phrases, moving their fingers with agility, maintaining their tempo, or whatever they feel it is most important to focus on when they perform.

5. To refocus

Part of refocusing after something goes wrong is to see yourself executing the action successfully. Imagery can help you let go of what just happened and set you on the right path for what comes next.

6. To practice when it’s not physically possible:

Maybe you are traveling, injured, or ill and cannot train normally. Or maybe you need a training partner and nobody else shows up that day. Or maybe you are the best in your region and you need to train against tougher opponents. When you do imagery well, you are just under the level of actually firing the muscles, and you are getting much of the benefits of actually performing the actions.

7. To motivate by seeing images of goals and by seeing success :

When you feel like you’re in a slump, or just not making the progress you want, or you’re tired of working so hard every day, it helps to motivate yourself by using imagery to feel what achieving your goal will be like. How will it feel to shake hands and see the respect in the eyes of your opponent? How will it feel to hear your teammates cheering wildly or to hear you coach tell you how much your hard work has paid off? How will it feel to be on that medal stand? These images can help motivate you to keep working hard. Let’s face it, not all training is fun if your goals are lofty.

So, there are a lot of good reasons to use imagery training. But how exactly do you do it?

First, you need to choose an outside or inside view. The outside view is the view of yourself as though you are watching yourself on television – the camera angle. This is useful when you want to see how your body is positioned or how it is moving relative to other people, or to see yourself performing in the gold medal match. A musician or an actor might want to visualize how his bow will look from the audience’s point of view, and a speaker might want to imagine how his movements will emphasize his important points to his listeners.

But the inside view is the one top athletes use the most. This is the view through your own eyes. This is the way you will experience competing, or performing or presenting, so doing your imagery this way makes it the most realistic to your mind and body.

You need to incorporate different senses. See what you would be looking at. Hear the sounds of your actions. Smell the air around you, or any distinctive smells of your sport – the chalk of a gymnast, the horse of an equestrian, the rosin on the cello bow. Feel the equipment or your instrument in your hand and the ground beneath your feet. Make your imagery as realistic as you can.

When should you practice using imagery? Every chance you get!

Any time you have a few minutes to daydream – although it is a bit different from daydreaming because you are really controlling what is happening.
Whenever you are writing in your performance journal, you should visualize the actions as you write about them.
During a break in the action, or when you conclude a piece of music or speech. If anything went wrong, visualize it going right immediately. When you do something incorrectly, and then you visualize doing it well, you have done it correctly 50% of the time. If you have time to visualize it twice correctly, you’ll improve even more.
Immediately after doing relaxation training. After relaxation training, the brain is in a very receptive state for vivid imagery training. This is a particularly effective time to do imagery work.

Try to set aside a regular time for imagery training. Make it a daily habit. Repeat actions in imagery training often enough to replace your previous self-image of how you do that action.

If you'd like to learn a lot more about imagery and how to use it, check out our online course!

Self-Talk: How to Deal with Negative Thoughts

183:750527785 (Judy O'Donnell) — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 01:56:41 GMT

How to communicate effectively with your body

We communicate to ourselves all the time. We analyze, we respond or react, we express our feelings to ourselves with our thoughts. We do a lot of self-talk – up to 300 words per minute. Much is normal thoughts – “I’ll do the laundry when I get home” or “I need to answer that e-mail” or “I should call my mother.” But there is a lot of negative self-talk – both obvious criticisms “I’m terrible at this” or the less obvious “I never know what to do” or “I’m nervous when I perform” or “I panic at critical moments.”

Negative self-talk affects our confidence and our self-image. If your self-image is one of incompetence, inferiority, anxiety, or failure, you are not likely to produce a stellar performance, and you will lack confidence. Proper self-talk will help both your overall confidence and your performance.

Self-talk should be either positive or constructive. We easily yell at ourselves for mistakes, but when was the last time you told yourself you did something well right after you did it? At the end of the day, we tend to dwell on our mistakes, but instead we should pay more attention to the things we do right. Reminding yourself regularly of what you’ve done well helps boost your self-image and confidence.

Self-talk is often negative. What do you say to yourself now if something goes wrong? If you are like most people, you yell at yourself in ways you would never speak to anyone else. You might call yourself names, put yourself down, and reinforce that you “can’t” do it. Maybe you allow yourself to get frustrated, and start rushing, using poor technique and basically throwing away your abilities in order to match your self-image of failure.

Negative thoughts prevent you from performing well. In sports, they serve no one but your opponent. Positive self-talk is key. There should be no name-calling, or putting yourself down. Treat yourself as you would a little, vulnerable child. If he made a mistake, would you chew him out? Or would you tell him it’s okay, and help him find a way to do it better?

Words to Avoid and Replacement Words

Absolutely no “I can’t.” Use “I’m having trouble with” or “I need to” instead. “I’m having trouble with” is good when you are trying to figure out what’s going wrong, especially if you realize you are going to need your coach, teacher, or boss to help you. “I need to” is great when you know how to fix the problem.
You can also switch “I can’t” to “I must.” This is particularly useful when you lack the courage to make the attempt. Change “I can’t get around his parry” to “I must get around his parry.” “I can’t get my horse over this jump” becomes “I must get my horse over this jump.” “I can’t return her serve” changes to “I must return her serve.” “I can’t write this paper” becomes “I must write this paper.” “I can’t ask my boss for a raise” changes to “I must ask my boss for a raise.” You’ll be surprised at how much this small change in thinking will help your training, your competing, and your life.
“Try” sounds like an innocent word, but it is not. When you TRY, you are giving yourself an excuse to fail. You are not committing to the goal, just to a little effort. When you TRY, your action is full of effort, but you are not committed to success. You are leaving yourself room to fail. “I TRIED to study, but my favorite show was on.” “I TRIED to practice, but my friends kept texting me.” “I TRIED to write the proposal, but …” Notice that TRYING is often followed by “but.” TRYING is followed by excuses, not success. Don’t TRY it, DO it. Replace “I’ll try it” with “I’ll do it.”
“It’s hard” or “it’s difficult” are self-fulfilling prophecies, and an excuse to fail. I did an experiment once, when I was teaching a new action. I told one group of students that it was very hard to do and they would find it difficult. I told another group of students that it was easy. Guess which group learned it faster and had confidence in the move more quickly? Right, the students who were told it was easy. (And yes, I did feel bad about the first group of students, but the next week I told them it would be easy now that it was their second training session on it, and of course, it was.) Replace “it’s hard” with “I can do this easily by giving it my full attention.” With this phrase, you will put yourself on track to perform well.
“I’m afraid this might happen” or “I’m afraid that will happen.” Remember, it is rare for anyone to do anything perfectly. Nobody wins a fencing medal in the Olympics untouched. EVERYBODY gets hit. Many work presentations and musical performances aren’t perfect. Nobody is perfect at parenting. Remind yourself you can deal with whatever happens – that you can handle it if something doesn’t go as planned. Take the risk and do it. Tell yourself “I can deal with it if _____ happens.” When you do visualization training, practice these scenarios until you have good outcomes.
“I hate.” Instead of saying that about competing against lefties, or tall people, or whomever you feel less confident against, tell yourself that you love the challenge. “I love the challenge” gets you excited to solve the problems presented to you.
“Should” implies that you don’t but could. So instead of saying “I should train 4 x/week” say “I must train 4x/week.” You’ll either do it or have to admit to yourself that you are choosing not to. Maybe you are choosing not to because life is getting in the way and something else has to take priority now, or maybe you are choosing not to because you just don’t want to work that hard. Either way, understand you are making the choice.
“Should have” implies that you were meant to do it but forces beyond your control stopped you. You “could have” won if you had performed better, but your opponent won because he was doing better than you, physically, mentally or both. Instead of “should haves” think about what you will do to compete against that person better the next time you meet up. Remember, when you lose, if you learned something from it, then it is not a complete loss. Maybe you think you “should have” said a particular thing in your discussion at work, but that is in the past now, and the past cannot be altered. Change “I should have” to “next time I will” so that you will be ready for future situations.
“Not” is another innocent-sounding word that trips up many people. Brains think in pictures and we have no picture in our brains for “not”. Tell yourself what TO do , instead of what NOT to do. If I tell you NOT to think of a pink elephant, you will immediately picture one. But if I tell you to think about a prowling tiger, you will think about the prowling tiger, and not the pink elephant. If you tell yourself NOT to move your arm a certain way, you will do just that. But if you tell yourself how you want your arm to move, then your body knows what to do and will be much more likely to do it. If you tell yourself not to say “ummm” during your presentation, you will say it many times. Instead, tell yourself to speak clearly and distinctly, allowing silence to fill any pauses. Replace “not” with what you actually want to do.

How to Deal with Negative Thoughts

So, what do you need to do to put these changes into practice? And what other strategies can you use alongside rephrasing to get rid of these “I can’ts” or “I’ll never be able tos”?

Awareness . You need to notice what you are saying to yourself. Try putting 25 paper clips into your right pocket in the morning. Every time you catch yourself with a negative thought during the day, move a paperclip to your left pocket. Try it for a few days and see how often you have negative thoughts. (These are negative thoughts about YOURSELF, not about how boring math class is or how your boss is mean.) Most people will catch themselves thinking negative thoughts 20 – 30 times a day. One student I had counted 736 in a single day!

Blocking. You need to STOP those negative thoughts. Mental imagery is a good way of doing this. Some people like to imagine a big stop sign, or erect a stone wall between themselves and the negative thought. You can imagine the thought bursting into flames, or see it on paper that you crumple and throw away. Whatever works for you is fine.

For a persistent thought, you can also “tree it” – physically put the thought somewhere. There is a very rough game played by some tribes in Africa which typically involves a fair amount of violence. When the game ends, as everyone leaves the playing area, each player touches a tree. When asked why they did that, they explained that they left their thoughts of anger towards the other team there. Otherwise, they felt they would end up having wars between the tribes.

I once worked with a horseback rider who had a pretty negative trainer. As she rode her jumper horse around the course, her thoughts were full of the negative comments her trainer had said to her. This made her tense, her horse tense, and things were not going well in competitions. Once she learned to “tree” her trainer at the gate as she entered the ring, her performance improved tremendously. She was able to focus on the task at hand and ride her best.

I found as a competitor that I could also “tree” pain. When I’d had an accident and my neck was very painful for a long time, before I started competing I would lean over and smack the floor with my hand to “tree” the pain there. I knew the pain would be back when I was done, but it helped allow me to focus on what I needed to instead of the pain.

Sometimes people just use a simple hand motion, as though they are pulling that negative thought out of their head and throwing it away. A surefire way to get rid of it is to do something silly – a little “happy dance” or movement that makes you smile. (Of course, you can’t be too inhibited to do it, if a “happy dance” is your plan.)

Replacement. Once you are aware of a negative thought and have blocked it or “treed” it, you need to replace it with a productive thought. If you’ve just made an error and had a negative thought, then you block it or tree it, and then replace it with a useful thought – solve the problem of what to do next to score.

Some people simply replace a negative thought with a positive affirmation. If they find that the cause of the error was their own loss of focus, they tell themselves “I am focused.” Or perhaps they messed up the distance, so they tell themselves “I control the distance.” Maybe they made a half-hearted action, so they remind themselves “I go all-out.”

Sometimes our negative thoughts come in the form of questions. “Why do I always drop my hand?” or “Why do I always miss?” If you ask yourself the question this way, the answer won’t be nice. “Because I’m a terrible athlete” or “Because I never get it right” or “Because I’m stupid.” But you need to ask a better question. Instead of asking “Why do I always drop my hand?” you need to ask “How can I keep my hand in position?” or better “What exercises do I need to do to practice keeping my hand up?” Change “Why do I always lose my balance” to “What exercises will improve my balance?” This way you are focusing on the solution to the problem, which is what you really want.

You can use these techniques to get rid of negative thoughts and replace them with useful ones. Instead of filling your mind with worry about whether or not you will score, focus on choosing your action and let yourself commit to it. Speak nicely to yourself, give your body clear instructions in a positive way, and improvement will follow.

Relaxation Training: a Practical Solution to Nervousness

183:750527785 (Judy O'Donnell) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 02:19:41 GMT

People get tense even when doing activities they think of primarily as fun. Why? And what can you do about it?

Nervousness and tension come primarily from two things: perceived importance and uncertainty of the outcome . Perceived importance is how important the outcome is to you. Back when I was a collegiate fencer, I would get terribly nervous before any dual meet. Since my team wasn’t very strong, I knew that if I didn’t win all of my bouts, my team would probably lose. I felt the pressure of needing success for both myself and my team. When I started competing in local United States Fencing Association competitions, I still felt a lot of pressure. Later, as a world cup competitor, I considered local tournaments just part of my training, and wouldn’t be nervous at them. The importance that you personally give an event is the perceived importance. The same event may be a big deal for one competitor and not at all important for someone else.

If you are playing against a six-year old in practice, you probably don’t perceive the outcome as important (you might even let the little guy win) and you have no uncertainty of the outcome - you either beat him or let him win, but you know it’s up to you. Likewise, if you are competing against the world champion, given your current skill level, you have a pretty clear idea of the probable outcome, so you don’t get so tense and just enjoy the experience while admiring your opponent’s skill.

But what happens when you are competing against someone who is your equal? Now the outcome is uncertain. And now, how does it feel when you know that you have to win this in order to qualify for nationals? Or to achieve whatever your goal is? The importance level rises. Significantly. So now you have both uncertainty of the outcome and a high perceived importance, and suddenly you are feeling a lot of tension. You need relaxation training.

What will relaxation training do? It relieves stress, and trains you to be able to reduce your stress during times of great pressure. Relaxation training helps you use your conscious mind to control the state of your muscles, so your body can perform its best. Tension flows between the body and the brain; when your muscles are relaxed, your mind can be more relaxed and think clearly.

There are many methods of relaxation training. My personal favorite is progressive relaxation training, because I have found it to be the most effective for my students. In progressive relaxation training, you tense and relax muscles systematically, training them to respond to a cue word. The muscles learn what they should feel like when you tell them to be relaxed with your cue word. In this case we will use the word “loose”. (I don’t recommend using the word “relax” because we tend to associate it more with tension than with real relaxation.) If you do this on your own, you can choose whatever cue word your mind associates with true relaxation.

How do you do progressive relaxation training ? You will tense various muscles and then relax them when you say your cue word. This trains the muscles to go to a truly relaxed state when you hear your cue word. Tighten the muscles, but don’t put yourself in agony. Tense and release each muscle segment twice before moving on to the next.

Follow these simple steps:

Lie down comfortably on your back, with your arms at your sides.
Tense the muscles of your feet. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my feet. My feet feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your legs. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my legs. My legs feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your midsection – your buttocks, abdomen, and pelvic area. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my midsection. My midsection feels warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your chest and back. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my chest and back. My chest and back feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your arms and hands. Clench your fists. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my arms and hands. My arms and hands feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your neck and shoulders. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my neck and shoulders. My neck and shoulders feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tense the muscles of your face and jaw (tighten your forehead and clench your jaw). Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my face and jaw. My face and jaw feel warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Tighten up all the muscles of your body, starting with your feet and adding the legs, midsection, arms and hands, neck and shoulders, face and jaw. Tell yourself “Feel the tension, hold the tension, hold it, hold it, hold it… and loose! All the tension is leaving my body. My body feels warm, and loose, and comfortable.”
Notice how your body feels. This is the state of true muscle relaxation. Enjoy the feeling!

That’s it. The whole set should just take about five or ten minutes. But doing relaxation training just once won’t help much. On average, my students have needed to do this relaxation training session about thirty times before their body will react to their cue word when they are actually under pressure. In a month, most of my students have had excellent results. The ones that haven’t? They generally admit that they just didn’t get around to doing this training. But it’s easy to do – just remember to do it every night when you go to bed or every morning before you get up.

If that important competition or special presentation or performance is just two weeks away, try doing relaxation training twice a day, every day leading up to it.

Be patient and do the repetitions – the results will come! Some of my students in the past worked hard on this progressive relaxation training, and it really paid off. One student eventually responded to his cue word so well that if you put it in a sentence you could actually see his muscles relax whenever he heard the word. His cue word was “loose” and if I said “This grip is loose” his muscles responded instantly.

It helped another student once in the emergency room. At a tournament, he managed somehow to get a fleck of hardened paint in his eye. We couldn’t wash it out, so I took him to the emergency room. There was, of course, a big to-do, and soon he was on his back on a table with a doctor ready to remove it from his eye. They told me he would have to remain absolutely still, or it might go badly for his sight as the paint was directly over his pupil. I took my student’s hand, gave him his cue word, and his body went completely relaxed, the fleck was removed from his eye, his sight was restored, and the doctor immediately offered me a job. I had to tell him I couldn’t do this with just anybody; that we had trained the ability to truly relax into him.

Often the difference between winner and loser when the score is tied and the next action wins, is which athlete is more relaxed. I had one student who took his tied score win percentage from 50% to 95% by doing relaxation training.

You can use this in other areas of life, too. Many of my students have had to do presentations for school or work, and have found that using their cue words to relax beforehand has made it much easier to do an outstanding job.

Once you are getting a great response from your muscles when you use your cue word, you won’t need to practice on a daily basis. Do practice at least once a week, though, to maintain the response you want. If you feel it slipping away, increase your frequency of relaxation training.

There are other forms of relaxation training which I may present in future articles, but for now, I hope this progressive relaxation training helps you perform your best!

The Three Tiers of Goals Needed for Success

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 17:14:41 GMT

Outcome, proficiency, and training goals: each is integral to achieving the others.

Outcome Goals

What do you want to achieve ? In sports, outcome goals are things like “I want to win a local tournament this season,” or “I want to make the US team.” In life, they can be things like “I want to get promoted” or “I want to perform flawlessly at my next concert” or “I want to make the honor roll at school.” Outcome goals are rarely entirely within your control, so they can be a little scary to set. You may want to win a local tournament, but if the Olympic team shows up that day, you likely won’t make that goal. However, an outcome goal needs to be a goal, not a given. Something that will not be easy to achieve. The main purpose of an outcome goal is to motivate you to work hard at your proficiency and your training goals.

Proficiency Goals

Next, set your proficiency goals. What skills do you need to have to achieve your outcome goal? If you are an athlete, maybe you need to improve your balance or your ability to change direction. If you are a musician, maybe you need to improve your rhythm. If you want to get promoted, maybe you need to make better presentations. You may need to work on several proficiency goals in order to reach your outcome goal.

Training Goals

Finally, set your training goals for each proficiency goal. How will you improve those skills? What specifically will you practice? How often will you practice it? Set one or more training goals for each proficiency goal. If you need to improve your ability to change direction, you might practice specific footwork patterns, and add plyometrics to your training schedule. If you are a musician trying to improve your rhythm, you may need to force yourself to practice with a metronome. If you need to make better presentations, you may need to regularly practice in front of a mirror, improve your speech by taking an acting class, or learn how to make more interesting slides.

What are your outcome, proficiency, and training goals? Tell us in the comments below.