Swimming in the Zone

Success in any area of performance involves using your mind as well as your body. Preparing your physical skills takes care of the Outer Game. Preparing your mental skills is the essence of the Inner Game (T. Gallwey).

The Inner Game has to do with your mental approach. This includes your belief, attitude, confidence in yourself and your team, your concentration, and coping with pressure.

When your Outer Game and Inner Game are working together, actions flow with a kind of effortless excellence called performing or playing in The Zone. When in The Zone, you experience the following:

• Performance comes without effort and without having to think about it.
• A feeling of confidence and an absence of anxiety and self-doubt.
• No fear of failure or self-consciousness about achieving your goals.

Physical practice is what builds the skills of your Outer Game and puts them into `muscle memory` so you do not have to think about them during the game. Similarly, certain mental exercises can help you to improve your Inner Game. The following are some principles and practices that one can use to develop their Inner Game (Mental Skills). Give them a go!

• Action on the Outside, Relaxed on the Inside

  You will find the following steps useful to practice before you start your competition or performance:

  1. Take four deep Yoga breathes (deep from your tummy) and centre yourself.
  2. Now, imagine you are bridge over a flowing river, and liken your thoughts to leaves floating in the water - you watch them float by, but do not involve yourself in these thoughts.
  3. Then, feel a sense of power and and strength in your body and focus your attention outside of yourself, on whatever is most useful.
  4. Your `minbody` is ready to perform successfully.

• Visualising Success and Mental Rehearsal

  Visualisation is used by athletes and sports coaches to help improve performance. It is our ability to practice a process or activity in our minds.

  1. Chose a skill you want to improve.
  2. Think of a good role model for that skill. e.g., a star athlete (Popov), your coach or another player in your team.
  3. Picture how the movement/action is done in your mind as if you are an observer watching it on a movie screen.
  4. Step into your mental picture as you are the star athlete (Popov) and imagine you are doing the action exactly as you pictured it.
  5. See, Hear and Feel the whole thing.
  6. Future pace - Imagine yourself performing the movement/action successfully in the future.
  7. Then, do a self-talk (affirmation), that you are now empowered with all the resources you need to reproduce a successful performance now or a time in the future.

• Anchoring your Inner Resources

  Anchors or triggers can help you quickly get in touch with your inner resources when you need them. It is a natural process of association which help you recall positive experiences.

  1. Identify an inner resource that would help you improve your Outer Game - e.g., determination, motivation, confidence, focus, calmness etc.
  2. Remember a time when you experienced that resource very strongly.
  3. Find something to use as an anchor to trigger that resource (object, mental picture, keyword etc).
  4. Step into the resourceful experience. See what you saw, Hear what you heard, Feel what you felt as clearly as you can.
  5. Break state - focus your attention to something else.
  6. Now, turn your attention on your anchor. You should immediately get the resourceful feeling back. If you do not, repeat step 4 a few more times.

• Focusing on Feedback instead of Setback

  Good athletes learn from their setbacks, but do not get obsessed about them. The following two suggestions can help you see things from a positive perspective:

  1. Think of your mistakes like you are watching yourself on a movie screen, looking at yourself as if you are a good coach giving yourself constructive, positive feedback.
  2. When you recall your good performances, put yourself into the picture and relive the experience as if you are right there doing it.

• Always occupy your mind with positive thoughts

  Occupy your mind frequently with your past and recent successes and successful personal achivements. This ia a good tip, especially when you find yourself thinking about nothing! If we do not occupy our mind with (positive thoughts) our mind will have a tendency to drift and gravitate toward negative thoughts. Unfortunately, this is the way our brain's thought processing mechanism is wired! But, the good news is, we all have the inner resources, to construct better mind-thought circuits... (Thanking R. Dilts for the inspiration).