Performing at your best every time you step out into any arena whether it be a sporting one, a musical one, a theatrical stage or even a podium for a business presentation is almost impossible. Everybody who performs knows of that ‘perfect day’, the day when it all went right, they ‘couldn’t put a foot wrong’, they were just ‘on it’, but why can’t that happen every single time ! Being ‘in the zone’ is just a state of mind, a very favourable state where everything feels good and generally if your mind feels good your body tends to follow suit. Finding that state consistently is not so easy without having the tools to do it.
Mistakes happen, injury can strike, unfair decisions, distracting crowds can all create havoc in the mind. Managing how you respond to these and how you let it effect your performance is something you do actually have control over you just need to know how. Focus, concentration, executing the skills you have are one thing, managing all the external stimuli is something else. There are a number of tools and techniques which can really help evaluate where things can and do go wrong and we can reprogram or ‘de-hypnotise’ the mind from its normal responses and initiate new responses which will markedly improve the consistency of your best performance.
Sports people especially young athletes tend to have a single minded focus on ‘winning’, the outcome is everything, this can cause its own set of problems with pressure and expectation. I work with the premise that progress and improvement is where the focus should be, ‘Take care of the little things and the big results will take care of themselves’. I will take time to understand the ‘why’ you participate and what motivates you and together we can set out the actions required to achieve your desired outcome or goal.
Having played tennis competitively and coached professionally for a number of years, I am only too aware of the part the mind has to play when it comes to competition. What can seemingly work perfectly on the practice court can be reduced to barely functional on the competition court if the mind starts to play its own games.
Focus wavers between what is happening externally to what dialogue is happening internally in our mind and if this focus doesn’t follow the right continuum at the right time our performance inevitably can be effected. To improve performance the ability to focus attention on the right thing at the right time is essential. Performance anxiety can be crippling as when our fight, flight, freeze response is triggered our mind literally cannot think straight. If this hits before stepping out into any arena then clearly the experience is not going to go very well and most certainly won’t be a very pleasant one.
Confidence is just a measure of how certain you feel you can achieve a particular outcome. If there is any self doubt or anxiety, confidence is reduced . To improve confidence we have to resolve limiting beliefs and replace them with new positive ones, Hypnotherapy is particularly effective with this aspect.
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) has many useful techniques to help the mind to stay calm, focussed and in control, build confidence, motivation and pull together all the positive resources that we hold inside, overall improving the consistency of producing that peak performance we desire.
I will see clients for any type of performance issue covering any sport, acting, musical performance, business , public speaking or just being in new social situations, as Shakespeare said ‘All the World’s a Stage and all the men and women merely players’.
‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. If you know the enemy, and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles’ – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
SESSIONS ARE ARRANGED AS PACKAGES, BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD AND PLATINUM
These will offer a range of session types and cover varying timescales (1 month to 6 months) and will include according to package :
- Initial consultation and Goal Achievement Plan (GAP)
- 1-to-1 Sessions using specialist performance enhancing techniques
- Specific pre- performance / match / competition techniques
- Attendance at practice / rehearsal sessions (with technical coach present if desired)
- Attendance at performance / competition for pre-performance / match guidance, observation and feedback
- Ongoing measurement of actions in GAP and timely reinforcement of goals
For more details of each package please email me at tanya@tanyalawton.com
Watch out for new website coming soon www.mindperformance.co.uk
Visit me in Aldington Road, Lympne,