Sporting Excellence: Optimising Sport Performance Using NLP: Optimising Sports Performance Using Nlp - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ted Garratt founded the organisation Target Resources, a human resources consultancy specialising in training and development. He is involved in all types of organisations and sectors, and specialises in facilitating personal, team and organisational change.

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(Taken form the Preface): Over the last thirty years the focus of attention in sport has shifted dramatically. The traditional ways of building up to a major event, the immediate preparation beforehand, the attitude displayed during the event, and the analysis carried out afterwards, have altered beyond all recognition. It is no longer enough to simply turn up, compete and go home again.

During the same period a similar shift has occurred in most other walks of life: in business, where the whole approach is more rigorous; in education, when people are preparing for examinations; even in politics, where expediency and muddling through become harder to maintain.

So what has contributed towards these shifts? Undoubtedly the pace of life is quicker and the stakes higher. The consequences of failure are more dramatic, careers are made and broken more quickly, and burnout takes a higher toll, and at a younger age. The media attention, focused both on the person and on the performance, means that the effects of success and failure are given greater meaning and substance, creating even more pressure to get things right more quickly.

Developments in the field broadly labelled as sports psychology have mirrored this evolution. Virtually every individual or team has their own coach or fitness guru, coupled with an individual training and development programme. Great attention is paid to diet, relaxation, fitness, mental preparation and many other aspects in order to achieve a greater possibility of success.

Corresponding with these developments has been the advent of NLP which stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP was created by Richard Bandler (a mathematician and student of psychology) and John Grinder (a linguist). Their choice of name has probably created more confusion and debate than they ever intended, but each aspect of this name does have particular importance.

Neuro refers to how the brain processes actually work.

Linguistic refers to the way our experiences are represented by the use of language, both externally in communication with others and internally in self-talk.

Programming refers to the specific patterns and programmes of behaviour and thought that we follow, to produce specific results.

We all use well-established strategies and patterns of behaviour in order to live our lives effectively, e.g. when driving a car, carrying out home improvements or writing a report. Most of these strategies and patterns are unconscious, i.e. we do them automatically, without thinking. It is very hard, for example, to consciously consider and act on every single thought and action required to drive a car (think back to how difficult this was when you were first learning to drive).

It would not be possible to live our lives if we had to consciously think about every thought and action we undertake. It is the patterns of thought and behaviour that happen unconsciously that are encompassed by the word 'programming'.

From a sportsperson's point of view, these patterns are of enormous importance, because they determine not only the physical actions we carry out, but also the thought processes that lie behind our actions. These thought processes may be beneficial, and may lead us to great sporting victories, but they may also be negative and may inhibit our performance.

NLP allows us to get inside our minds, analyse these programmes and then change them. Obviously, in sport, these changes can be measured and monitored.

NLP also allows us to analyse the strategies both conscious and unconscious that successful people use, and to adopt aspects of these for ourselves.

In a sporting context this does not mean that every footballer can be an Alan Shearer or every cricketer a Brian Lara. But it does mean that by using some of their key strategies, all of us can substantially improve our game.

To date NLP has been used mainly in the business, self-development and therapy fields. However, aspects of it have been included already within sport, in areas such as mental preparation, dealing with limiting beliefs and building on successful performances.

This book is intended to help sportspeople of all descriptions, and at all levels, without any prior knowledge or training in NLP, to have fun playing with the techniques and substantially improve their, and their team's, performance.