Competition the day the practice pays off

• To compete well we need to manage our state.
• To compete well we need to manage our state.
• To compete well we need to manage our state.
• To compete well we need to manage our state.

Why I do repeat this is due to people change their state so fast unless we keep track of the state as we compete.
You got the state, you know how your performance state is, well keep track of it, make sure you have it, keep it and go for it.

First thing we check, state, second thing we check, state, third thing we check, state and do you get the idea?

Then after we have the state, we check for other things.

Competition is all about performing at your best, and making sure your practise as similiar to competition and have all the skills and knowledge then its all about having your state witin your designed context (beliefs) and with that the information of skills, experience with the sport, etc...

Having a peak performance state allows for maximum Optimal performance to take place.
This is also outside of the beliefs people have about competition.
meaning, we set a new belief in regard to the competition, in Golf we play the game on a golf course, that is my context, if it is practice round with myself, friends does not matter, or if it is British Open or qualification, I am playing at a Golf course, that is it.
Same game, same performance on a golf course.
Some golf courses gives you money and even people who watch you play.
Nice of them dont you think?

I talked to a Olympic Champion in Swimming, his routine to perform his best is the same idea as I am following with the additions of a lot other small ideas.

To perform, practice as your going to compete, make sure the context stays the same, ie for me a golf course.
At some golf courses they have some ill planned pin placements trying to make it difficult for players.
Not sure who runs the Golf course but you get my idea.

Check your state.

Have fun.

Enjoy life and the game.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Practice the basics of a winner

Any master of sports knows one thing, its the basics that are tested over time, thats why they practice the basics over and over again.

When you got a move down, you can do it, your technique is properly done, you then starts to practice the move until its done and then you start over again.

The key is to get several aspects down,

• Setting a baseline, something you can rely on when the heat is on.
• A fallback if for some reason your to emotinal, thinking to much or any other error.
• Having something that simply works.

Practice must be fun and you also need to work with the whole routine.

When I practice Golfshots I do this,

• Wedge shots, hearing the crowd applauds, making a wave with my hand.
• Full shots, smiling for the heat I put on the shot. Looking out the fairway. Hearing my playing partners saying "Nice shot".
  
• Hitting it down into the hole hearing screaming audience and high fives.
  

Seriously, the practice needs to be done as much as your in competition, and yes, you will look silly waving, and thanking the audience from time to time.
However, your training yourself to do this in competitions where there is a different context than at your range.

People always say, its hard to take the swing from the range to the 1 tee.
Yes, unless your range is the 1 tee.

Making this a part of your practice, how the competition will be is a great way to practice the basics, when entering a course, playing there, you already have the shots made, you already knows how it feels like since your already been here, scoring low.

When you practice, make sure your doing the things you do well, better.
If you have a good performance with a particular movement, do that and improve on that using audiences, roar from the people, laughter, camera flashes, the screams for get in the hole, or even people screaming for your opponents shots. If needed tape a competition from TV, on a recorder, play it up at the range.

When you practice the new things, you work on particular things, mainly feel, how the sensation of the movement, in motor-cortex are cordinating with your eye, balance and senses, and how it will go into a feeling of knowing how this is like when doing it properly.
When this is reached, then a fluid movement takes place, it starts to go automatic, by itself.
This is the point of coding the move into long term memory, and the more aware you are of this the better quality and refinement you can do.
As long you dont interfer with the feeling and coding.

Any movement follows the rules of learning,

1. Whole movement first.
2. Continious movement, rythm, tempo and timing, feel.
3. Coding appears to be set with motor-cortex and sensorychannels and internalize feel.
4. When stable a long term memory charge is waiting for coding and repetition until a whole move sensation appears.
5. When this happens, you own the move.
6. Modifications can now be made without any fear of fucking the move up with Consious details and such small detailed fix.

In Golf, people fuck the idea of swinging the club up so much you would be suprised how much garbage I have heard and been reading.

People judge a golfer how their swing looks?
Oh my god, of course, that is why Jack Nicklaus won 19 majors, he was a good swinger?
Or maybe a great sportsman?
Ben Hogan people admire for his swing, but he was able, to go to Europe, play in 1 british open and win it.
One time only, one win.
Now, that means he was a good player and it isnt about the swing, ever.

Its about how well you can perform over time and under pressure.
How well you can cope with emotions, your thinking, your physical body, your fitness, your focus of attention, following your gameplan, performing at your best, keeping the state and so on.

Making good practice is to practice that, NOT the swing.
The swing is just a tool to get your shots where you want them to be.

So, start practice after you own the move with competition like context, with this you be used to fairways that are small, bad lies, fast greens, rough that isnt cut etc...

Martial artists knows that the basics is what is going to save their life, not the fancy high wheel spinning kick.
When someone is coming after you, they want to see blood, not a black eye or some punch, they want to tear your eyes out, kick your balls into oblivion and then you need good basics.

You need attitude, which is trained by good practice by adding compeition like context into your sport.
Obviously, martial arts are more life concerned context than making a 300 yard drive down the fairway.
However, having the tour card on the line can be as life concerned situation for anyone.

Make good practice, incorperate life like situations and you be a better player and are able to Opimize your Performance while your practising.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Technique the never ending quest

The idea is to Optimize Performance, that means working on your techniques.

Now, the question is, when and how much?

Technique is such a elusive function, when we learn things we rarely start doing it properly first, we just do trail and error.
Now, in golf for example there are literally several different ways people can swing, however, everyone when they are at impact hitting the ball, they all look the same.
The measureable evidence in your technique must be what the Optimal Performance are for your sport when the Performance is Optimal in result. (In Golf obviously pre-impact and impact positions must be in a specific way)

Then what is needed is to have the proper state linked to the chain of events that makes up the responses to the movement we need to have.
When that is done properly, we can do the movement, we have the proper state, then there is no extra movement, no extra musclecontractions, no antagonists active and the performance is flawless.

When we do this we make internalizesations, we take information in the learning process, how it feels like doing it it properly and we translate that into feelings, how it feels like when the movements are done right.

Then when we done it enough its habitual.
Automatical.

We can then improve it further, refine and improve the quality, and therefore its important to do it right from the start.

In my backyard, I can do short swings, I then practice various elements of my technique, I can focus my attention on various muscles, various positions and improve how it feels like doing it right.
I then measure how the result is, I use a counterexample, how it is not to be.
Then I can train with proper feedback, allowing a refinement to take place in a very short time.
I discovered in my last range session that I was finding the core in the swing, a compact hit, so in my backyard I then focus on getting that in my chip and pitch shots, and then I can test and find out of various elements in my technique.

Our brain learns by knowing a difference between two points.
If there is no difference, there is no learning, only reinforcing what is.
If that is bad habits, you continue improving bad habits.

To improve and refine, we need to know the difference between a movement, we need to feel it, see it, and hear it, we need to make the sensations of positions in our body relative to gravity and the movement into a measureable difference.

So, learning the golfswing this year is a much different experience than I ever had learning anything in my life.
I am discovering things, sensations, experiences, understandings and a lot more doing it this way that are a exploding wavelike effect.
I am improving so fast, so efficient that it almost seems to easy.

Its like that for me due to having had a hard time learning to swing a club before.
Now, I know what to do, how to do it, do a make over if needed of old habits, what I need to do becomes obvious and easy and the learning goes much faster.

As I progress I shift my attention of focus to various elements in my learning process.

Your ability to enhance your technique over time is important, refined the current level is needed to further enhance the thickness of your neurons that fire of the signals.
Each time we do it, the neurons grow thicker, stronger, and the signal value keeps increase.
Doing it correct is then important from the start, to get a good startpoint, then as we move along increase the density of the neurons until they are dense and thick and has strong quality in the signal.

Having a good technique is all about to teach the brain to know what neurons is needed to fire of.

Good habits are important to train properly from the start.

I am going over every point in my swing to make sure its done with the right sensations and correct performance.
This is then measured to the distance and sensations I have when swinging.

A work in progress.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Your state of consiousness

A state is the level of your consiousness is at any given moment.

States are contain into contextual parameters and beliefs which can either be totally outside or fully inside or a mix betwen those two extremes.

Performance steams from the proper state and other factors previously mentioned.
If your having limiting beliefs, your state will be affected, if your thinking about things in a specific way your state will change with your thinking.

State is a lucid phenomena and will be affected by various phenomena, now who cares about that right?

We want to know when a state is stable and works under pressure, right?

Look at golfers, when they enter the last few holes in a tournement, they tense up, their swing gets faster, they get all red in their face, (Darren Clarke in his last win) almost destroyed his win due to his change of state, red face, strain faster swing with 3 bogies, he laughed and got relaxed at the last hole and that was enough for him to regain his state to make a birdie and win.

States of consiousness are seldom stable, however, they will be stable if they are done properly, they are always stable if the following variables are done,
its a confined context, meaning, as long this context is as it is, then no change in state happens.
With this follows belief, if your beliefs within this context are set up with your state as a chain reaction a cause-effect, the state affect the belief that are proven true by your performance then the state chainlincked with the evidence of your belief and performance are evenly matched this will continue to be stable and allow our Optimized Performance.

Please note: Context are defined in how we view the world ie: see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
The five senses and how they interact.

So, if we choose a belief in advance, as in my first blog post, then add the proper state to this belief, adding along that the evidence to support the belief and then what will the state be like when all of this is done?

A stable state with the proper evidence to support the belief will allow such a performance...
Due to been given a contextual defined format.

Now, this took me about 15 years to figure out, in how to set it up and do it with all variables and the how to knowledge.

What has happen is that my practice is moving along nicely, I am having different goals each practice, each practice shows me where I need to go, to move to find the skill and sensations I need to have due that this is already set up for me by myself in my outcome belief.
My perceptions have changed slowly, alterations in how I percive the shots and what to do, changed, the level of play I be able to play starts to alter into this level of performance I have set up.

I do this blogg as a doctor would do a patient who would come in and have a unique virus, that would kill the patient, but knowing this patient allow a tracking of the disease and how the virus grows and affect the body and mind of the patient, might save peoples lifes by providing knowledge in what the virus is doing.

Obviously I am not a virus or a patient.

I am however able to map and track changes in my perception, how I think and view due to my long term experience with NLP, Hypnosis and other methods and applications.

The range session I had today, showed me something extraordinary, after an hour and a half, I suddenly got calm, slowed down, a peak performance state surfaced, this happen along the way of finding out how to swing the club to make the same swing for each club, a core connection, I suddenly found that I could sense where the ball hit on the clubface.
With that followed an aha moment of sensing the positions I need to have to swing properly and I payed attention to how that felt for me.

I chipped in my backyard yesterday, 20 yard shots, I suddenly sensed a feeling of absolute certainty that I could hit this ball exactly 20 yard with that club.

This is finer distinctions in vibrations from the ball, to the clubhead to the shaft to the fingers to the arms to the head to trancelate this to, what kind of hit am I doing.

The golfer I coach have said such things, feelings when the ball is hit, that the dimples on the balls are felt.
Now, most would say that is impossible unless we understand that our state when performing such tasks are allowing a finer distinction to be made due to practice and knowledge, the experience we have gained from thousands of golfhits.

Peak states show us finer distinctions, we can be more sensitive, slower in our motion, have more time to sense what is going on as we do the performance.
This helps us by allowing a better quality to the experience we are having as we perform but also to improve the performance due to being able to have this state as we play.
To have that, more time, is what people say when they are in the bubble, in the zone, it goes slow, its just that people seldom never are there, they dont know how to get that state, and when they have it, they dont know how to get the state going on forever.

Obviously this will slow down a golf round to the absurd, a 4 hour round will feel like days, weeks or even longer, but still it is just 4 hours in real time.
Knowing this and knowing about positive emotions can send us into a really enjoyable time while we perform even when its slow since we are enjoying how slow it is.

We can then keep track of the state, setting controls, slow up and down, make the shots takes longer, the down time in between faster, we can play at our very best and enjoy the time doing so.

This type of peak states in performance are important to elicit, and notice when they enter and alter perception, not just thinking, if I am going to do this and have some sensations that is a proof I am in a peak state, thinking "ABOUT" then obviously its easy to be deluding onself to not be in the state but beliving that we are when we are not.

One way to check this state are to check for the space between things, listen to music, does the sound, sound different?
Does it take longer to get dressed, does the ball move slower, the clock, people movements and so on.
There is a number of things we can test if they are different to what we normally percive them to be.

The states of such performance are crucial to have, and to be ready to use when needed.
Most who teach stuff like this use hypnosis, or other means, however, this can all be done in consious awake and tracked and set up by understanding how peak states emerges in performance.

When I was visiting Canada and did a workshop there, I did a time slow demo, I slowed down time after the lunch, the afternoon was a never ending one, people was ready to go home, and I asked, why?, well its late they said, late? I said, its only 2 o´ clock?
They looked at the watch and was amazed.

In performance, slowing time down allow a finer distinction and adjustments to be made in your movements.
When doing a movement, you can almost like superman move so fast for the outside people to see, but for you its slow, allowing adjustment to be made that was previous impossible.

Useful?

Oh yes.

However, the current state of the art in sports psychology dont know how to do this, they know all about it though, they dont know how to design it, set it up, make it stable, permanent in the performance.
I worked with a pro golfer over a few years, a lot of the findings we done due to testing and adjusting have brought this blogg but also the knowledge in how this all works in relation with the variables.

The experts wants to know how to do it, but no know how have ever came forth until now.
I am running this model for myself this spring and summer playing golf.
I am setting high goals, measureable beliefs, measurable feedback loops, measureable states of consiousness, measureable skills, and so on just beacuse, if I can do this, teaching it, then anyone must be able to do it right?

And the answer is yes of course you can.

Tests, measureable evidence is crucial however, mapping that you do improve are feedback you want to have and measure as you practice.
I have already found my crossfit practice for 2 months allow me to crush balls 2 hours at the range without my back goes down, the muscles and workouts I have done are allowing for a core stability and improved stamina in my golf practice.
I feel better this year doing so than I did last year even under the season.

I am still tired, and my get back stamina is slow but overall my system works better even if its slow.
This makes my crossfit traning even more inspired to continue and improve upon.

Since it all works togheter, if my stamina goes down, I get tired faster, my focus can shift easier due to my body cant hold the fitness level I need to make my performance optimal.
So,
keeping the state of a peak performance is easier if we design it the way this blogg suggest.

States are like water, they will flow in any direction unless they are supported by walls made into rivers, or even stopped in direction to build up over time in Dams.
Allowing a huge increase of water to be going down or smaller trickles.
Obviously as a metaphour its limited but true.

States need a guide, something to show, the way, how to be held in form and how to be used within a confined space we call context.

Developing that are important for our performance.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Physical Performance

Not done the endurance and pre set season fitness?

In all sports, being on top physical affect our performance in different ways.

IF we are fit, we can endure longer harsh conditions, we can stay at peak states longer and we can endure such diversity and we can maximize performance due to keep the small detailed focused attention when many loose theirs.

Then we need to work with how our muscles are, loose, flexible, stiff or dynamic.

The Crossfit program at www.crossfit.com are a program that develops an "adaptiv response to ordinary acivites" which means, the way they train there, allow a workout to be more effective under a shorter time.
Its however a long term goal to be able to do everything they do. Crossfit is working on a lot, not being specialized allows for the program to be used everywhere.

For me being ill for a long time, I done the crossfit program at home, I had to scale back a lot, I also need more rests between the workouts, but the timetable, doing 8 or 15min workouts does fit me.

That is a good all around endurance program, allowing for more work if you need it, if your weak on aerob you can run shorter distances more than strength training, its the diversity and not doing the same program after another its the idea.
Doing that allows the body to adapt to the workload, creating hormonic fire off responses and greater developement of muscles,aerob and anarob, strength etc..to be built.

For golf this is great news, building strength of fast movement creating power which is more important since we want speed not big muscles.
I done the program for almost 2 months, and as far, I gain strength, adaptive anarob and some aerob endurance. I just spent 2 hour on the range, hitting balls, and for me this was the easiest and best rangesession I done and was basically easy for me to do where last year I almost couldnt hit the ball after a while since I would run out of steam much faster.

Now, when I got home, I am tired, however, resting today and if all feels ok I do some workout crossfit style tomorow.

If your not fit and work on your physical body, you get tired faster, loosing focus, you need to have endurance, adapt to circumstances not of your control, and the crossfit program can be used by anyone and has great merits.

I highly recomend it.
Best I ever used.

When you got a basic adaptiv response on some of the things you work on, then you can work a little more on areas you previously havent got to that level.
I am doing a little more aerob and also working my back muscle groups.

That be the focus more this coming month than as far I done.

Crossfit can be addictive ;)

There is also new research that shows that this type of training is effective and better than what people used to belive and recomend.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

The mental Game thinking about thinking

There are a lot of people out there who thinks about thinking.
There are advisors that suggest how to think.

Thinking is just a small portion of performance, most will even say remove the thinking and anyone would perform really well, and yes that is true.

The quest to enhance performance is to understand what affects performance.

Thinking consists of several variables,
using the words, connected with sensory channels of sounds, images and feelings allow someone to compare different information based data that affect the decisionmaking your engage when making a decision.

In any decision there is a comparsion made, even when its fully automatic, then the 1:1 relationship is what is to be done and then do it.

When someone enters flow, a perfect moment of zen or such examples of being in a bubble able to just perform the way its described is the same.
I demonstrated this in classes, that when someone enters flow, and such states their thinking do NOT stop.
They still thinking, however, now it does not affect their performance.

Their state of focused attention are in a higher charged state which if someone spends some time there will affect weight a lot due to the burning required to be in such a high peak performance state.

We can then conclude that thinking and the thinking is done in a not peak performance state will affect the performance BUT when its a flow state it will not, it might but that requires a lot of strain to do.

So, then the state are more important than the thinking to do it right.

Reacting to stimuli are faster than thinking what it is and then react.
The thinking is made from a confused state, trying to make sense what is going on, the reaction is faster when just reacting.

Training oneself you must be able to step into a high performance state, allow for a full elicitation to be made and then keep the state stable connected to the beliefs that allow a full performance to be made that is futurebased.

The reason is that the futurebased one allows improvement over time where the past referenced would create stagnation.
Your performance would drop ever so slightly and the competition would sooner or later catch up.

Thinking is made with images, sounds and feelings and then the words that are used. When people get angry they make often colors and red is one often used within, and the words people use often are used in an intensed state.
Ever been there?
Never been able to map what is going on as your into such a state?

Ever tried to talk sense to someone in a angered state?

No question asked there, to map and handle such states are to do it when someone is not in that state.
States and their thinking that with the proper beliefs and expectations of beliefs are a cause-effect soup where the result triggers a belief about expected behaviour and the feelings starts to rise and this often are where people have high expectations of themselves and when not perform according to their beliefs creates intense anger or similiar feelings.
Handling emotions are about handling how you think when things happen and create a awareness of how its all beliefs and expectations that creates this using a comparsion.

Setting a belief about your performance, futurebased, sets a new context, a new bubble if you like where you can put in anything that is needed to perform like the belief expects.
It also allows a sorting out to take place, anything that limits your performance is sorted out and all you need to keep track of is the feedback your having when being in your own bubble.

This creates a new context to form inside your mind, your now highly charged peak performance state with the emotions that supports this with the beliefs, with the skills and the practice made is done from this supported context.

Your in essence told your brain this,
I want to perform as this belief suggests using this state with the appropriate skills and emotions with the thinking that follows along.
Your brain not able to make any decisions about if its real or not just respond to the instructions.

Our brain is that simple.

The brain just do what it is told or showed, hypnosis have been used to show this over and over again.
That under hypnosis people can see, smell and hallucinate freely to things that is not in the room.
However, if we add a belief that it is not possible to be hypnotised and do such things then that belief will make sure that does not happen.

So if we do this, using our thinking to plan how to perform we are setting the appropriate context of whats crucial to have when performing.
Limitations of any kind must be sorted out, must be set aside and establish a pure clean context of your enhanced performance state.

Thinking then is best done before and after performance, while your performing all the thinking can do is to keep track of your actions so it works as it was set up.
Its possible to shift this depending on what your performing is about,
if playing golf there are a number of moments when adjustments can be made between shots. If its 100meter race, its not do good to think when running.
The state shift must be clean, adjusted and then sorted into the context of performance, and then tested.

Keeping the context of performance free of thinking allows an even better performance to be made over time.
The brain works simply and the habitual forming of pathways in the brain grows bigger and fire of stronger and stronger impulses.

This means, do the set up properly.
Its all about doing it right and correct from the start, if that is done which will take a little more time, all that is needed later is to enter the state which happens automatically due to the entering of the context now are connected fully.

Bad thinking is belief based.
It shift your state and you perform worse. The bad thinking creates emotions of confusion, doubt, anger, nervousness, uncertianity and so on
Beliefs are the power behind your performance, make sure your using the proper ones.

Its impossible to perform at the optimized level if your thinking is not sorted out properly before your going to perform and under.

I meet people who say, I played really well that day, but it was a fluke, I am not that good normally.
I hear golfers say, I played better than I am.
Now, if someone plays that well, isnt they as good in that moment?
Sure they are but they believe they aint so good, and then they start to loose that ability to play that well.
Their belief starts to remove them from that fluke.

I didnt know how this all worked many years ago, but using NLP and a lot of research I made over the years I believe I found out how this works togheter.

As you have been reading this blogg you notice beleifs are important to get right, and I set them first, for my golf this summer I set the belief about my level of play that is futurebased.
This allows my brain to know the difference between my game as it has been and how it is.
And how it should be.

No, I did not set my state first, I set the belief, then I set the state in how I wanted to play golf my way.
Then I looked at the skills I needed to have to perform like that.
This is information seeking.
Then what is needed is a plan.

Then what happens is practice, feedback in testing if the improvements continue along the path set.

Since I did the above I found,
books that helps me define the practice, ordering DVD´s that covers the whole game, swingtechnique of the one that promise a 20 times faster learning to play well.
Due to winter here still I havent been able to practice that much but the small things I been able to practice have allowed an improvement.

So, thinking is knowing how to plan for optimizing the performance you want to have.

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Emotions the power of destruction or action

Its all well known that we think thinking thoughts. Its also well known we feel things, respond to events in different emotinal bursts.

Emotions are tied to our thinking in different ways, in regard to performance emotions can be a powerful ally in the stream of adversity. When we perform, often what happens is that people evaluate what is going on, the result achived is measured and compared to a expected result.
Now, our thinking can be perfect, but our performance even if wanted seldom is perfect.

We strive for perfection.
Its in our genes.
Or brain if you like.

This is why people feel anxiety, worry or are nervous before a competition, they make mental images based on expected results that are matched against beliefs we have about the performance we are about to do and what that performance will lead to, the result.

This is very emotinal based, they link to our beliefs and subsequently our states in performance are tied into a context.
This context are twofold, one is the one we engage into and the other is what we have inside our mind. We have created small links that in some ways tell us how to respond to in a particular situation based again on our beliefs and criteria of expected result, when this are met we can react positivly or negativly or not at all.

We react with emotions.

This is tied into our learning brain based system, our brain needs emotions to learn, its also simple but highly effective directed charges of information for our brain to respond to.
If the emotion is strong enough it creates a unique learning experience, in NLP this is called an anchor.
The anchor never subside but shows up its ugly face or happy face depending on what we have attached to this anchor and learning experience, we might have formed beliefs about this event.

Micheal Jordan learned to play at his best when he got the ball at the end and nailed it and his team won. Then he wasnt afraid when it got seconds left due to him now, wanted the ball, he had a positive learning experience, he then re-inforced that with beliefs about him performing at the best at the end and he wanted the ball.

He connected his experience under enormus pressure to define a belief connected to this last minute performance.
He now had the ability to in this context just hook it up, feeling he wanted the ball, that he could get it in, waiting for the moment, and had all positive lined up for him.

Now, many think that feelings of peak performance are random, just something that happens from time to time.

What I am suggesting is that you can by design set this up, connect and hook all up in such a way you be performing at your level as you want in the context you set it up with, at any time and under any circumstances.

Moe Norman had the "Feeling of Greatness" when he woke up, he knew he would hit the ball better than anybody on the planet.
As a golfer he shot 59, 3 times under competition, he set numerous course records.

This is what emotions do to us, they become such positive forces if done properly. However emotions can destory a life in seconds due to improper care.
A guard was stabbed to death beacuse he did a intervention between two people, the guy cutting him down said, he laughed at me. He had just smiled to calm the guy but the guy in his state saw him laughing at him and stabbed him.
The guy who stabbed obviously coulndt make a judgement call due to seeing someone laugh at him, most likely due to a bad experience in his early ages and sad enough couldnt handle his emotions and killed someone.
This was after his team had lost their match in the world cup 1998.

Emotions with proper beliefs, tied into the state we want to have when performing allow a positive peak performance to take place.
We know what state we want to have how we want to feel and experience the performance and has this set up in the way we want.

This also means, we dont need to wait for peak performances to happen, we can get them whenever we want.
We can choose to design and set this up and I use the future based performance in how to do it.

I choosed a belief in how to play golf, I adressed the way I want to play the golf I want, the state, then adding basically important findings into this, as skills I need to have to meet the requirements needed to play the level I set up.
Then practice takes place, reinforcing this emotinally, feeling this, measuring that it works, refine it, until it works automatically.

Basically it follows the steps of,

1. Set a belief about future performance matched with evidence of factual events.
This means, the level I want to have can be measured agaisnt the best who perform in that area and the statistical data can be used to measure my performance and improvement.
Since I got the belief set up, with performance under factual evidence the next step is to choose the way I want to play.

2. Set the state you want to have when you perform.
This means we need to access in our experience what this feels like, inside out. We need to have it, holding it inside our body looking out, seeing our percepetions shift, feeling it and even hearing things differently due to this state of experience first hand.

If your perception do not shift when entering a peak performance state, your not in the state.
Your still thinking about it.

3. Add whatever needed into this belief and state and define the contextual parameters where you be performing from this state.
Stuff as knowledge, skills, refined movement, adjusting emotions make them stronger, sorting out unwanted stuff that might crept into old performances etc...

• When the beliefs are set future based on factual level of performance, the states have been elicited and linked with the beliefs and the additions of skills and emotions and other stuff set in a contextual parameters are made we can consiously be aware of entering the state, have our evidence of being in the state, exploring how it affects our perception and adjust on this new experience how it affect our performance.

• Performing under practice and competition should be the same. This means, for you there should be no difference between going out and practice or entering a competition, there is no difference unless we set a difference.

• You might perform slightly better under competition however due to increased positive emotions added to enjoy the level of performance you now have so it re-inforces itself when entering competitions.

You then practice this until you automatically just enter the wanted performance level when you need to. Just checking that you got this and then just perform. If loosing this due to unforseen circumstances does not matter since you also know how to get back into the performance state.

All adjustments should be done after practice and competition, at bedtime or when time permits, adjusting based on new evidence and experience.

This will allow a continious improvement over time for your performance.

Emotions are an ally when used positivly, reinforcing this level of performance, you know before your going out there in whatever you do that you be doing your absolut best this day, that you be able to perform at the highest level with expected results time after time again and again.

This creates feelings of joy, happiness, confidence, selfworth and other positive ones due to you are building on a positive formula and feedback.

For me, I discovered when entering the above process that I felt excited and also found that Golf would be a much easier and simpler game this time due to properly knowing what to do and how to get it done.
I still need to make the time for practice and summer cant come soon enough.
I am motivated, not just to play but to practice the skills I need to have to be able to compete at the level I want to do.

Easier and faster than ever before.

Enjoy

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP

Beliefs are the power

I will continue writing about the supporting variables regarding performance.

Beliefs are the single important variable in regard to performance.

I sort beliefs into two categories, one is beliefs supported by facts and factual references and beliefs purely hypotetical opinions, ideas, and such where its more important being right than correct ;)

What I do is to sort trough what the basis is for the performance, then I ask several questions to make sure the evidence that someone has for what they do are supported.

An example: A golfer leaves the putts short, when asked why he leaves them short, it was due to him being careful, he leaves them short since he dont want to leave them long, and when confronted with a counterexample based on factual event, namely this, so if a putt is 1m short or 1m long, which one is easier/harder to putt?

Confronted with factual events, he could notice his own belief that was running his putting and change to putting the putt where they should be.

Why he had got this belief about putts going past the hole was harder than leaving them short was from some golf trainer who stated that and he as a junior didnt know better and took it as truth.

So, what do you believe about your performance that has its roots in factual events?

If there isnt a physical hindrance there is no limit to what someone could do.
In basketball it helps if your 2m long, 1.50cm just dont cut it in basket due to the handicapp of length, no one has ever started a basket league for short people??
I wanna have one on my own.
Being 1.65cm is just ruining my basketball dream....

To have the best performance you need beliefs that support your performance based on facts. You need to know if your going to do something will work or not before you do it.

I set up some performance goals in golf this year.
I wanted to play scratch level of play, at current 11.1 handicap I need to shave of 11 strokes of my game this season.
Obviously, my perfomance isnt up to scratch play previous seasons.

However, I have had days when I played really well, where my personal bests is +1 over 18 holes if the best 9 holes are to put togheter. My eclectic score is 52 shot since I birdie all holes and had one eagle on my home course.
So, if I can play at my best that would most likely allow a scratch level of play.
But how to achive that?

I set up the outcome for the season, I want to be able to play a qualification for next years tour here, to do so I need to perform at scratch level.
So, this now is the factual event, I need a specific level of performance to match the qualification due to knowing what level of performance is needed there.

Now, I measure that against my current level which allowed me to look at my baseline today and what I need to have.
Not a pretty sight I my add.

Now, most will give up now, due to having an overwealming steep curve to make that level of performance.
But that is a belief about opinions, not facts.
Notice that difference?

I dont know if its possible or not, and I also know that it is possible.
Why?
I havent even tried to do it yet.

A lot of people when seeing the facts and what they think they are often become helpless, its no idea, its to late, its not possible to your age, your skill level etc...

Instead of limiting myself....

I started to do this,
I needed a belief that helps me achive that level of perfomance.
I sat down, I am a professional elitgolfer.
That is my belief, that btw has no relevance to factual events.
It has however bearing to becoming that level of performance and when I reach that level of performance scratch level of play I would have such a belief naturally due to then I am so good. (this is based on the evidence and structural format of how beliefs are formed and proven true)

So, beliefs have the power to do just about anything if they are matched and based on actual events, either it is the current skill level or a coming one.

The first response I had was that the golfers on the TV shrunked.
I looked at the TV broadcasted events, and suddenly the people there had shrunked. I looked at my TV and wondering about my eyesight.
Nope, it was all fine.

So what did happen?

My brain accepted that when I play in the future this level of game, then my belief would be this one, this automatically shifted my perception to a future oriented one.
One result obviously, my collegues who plays golf at that level shrunked.

Why this happen is to show how beliefs shift our perception, it shifts our behaviour and how we think.

Beliefs that match what you want to do in the future must be set first if your going to get that level of performance.

The next thing that did happen was that I needed to set a plan to improve my game stats.
Hitting 35% or so greens is not good enough. I need to double that. I also need more distance with tee shots, and I also need more consistent play.
Its a lot.

So, I find sources in what to do and how to do it.

This approach allows me to plan ahead, I already know what beliefs I need to have to play my level of performance I want to have, I can then plan my game improvement based on actual facts, how good am I today, what do I need to improve to match the best in the sport?

• I need to hit the driver 300 yards.
• I need to know that the distance I hit with every club is in 1 yard distances.
• I need to be able to play consistently.
• I need to putt less than 30 putts a round.

Dang, looking at all that could make anyone to go to bed and give up right away, right?
But I installed a belief that I am so good in the future, now I dont have such limitations learning to improve my game due to me already having that level of skill and performance.

So my training and practice now will be set from that baseline of the future skill and I need to improve fast and doing so requires a good feedback and a great tool set to have.

I need to improve my physical status, My weight is 90kilograms, I need to loose fat, and gain muscles, I need to drop a few kilograms and add muscles and becoming more fit.
Hitting the ball 300 yards, requires stamina and strength.
So, its all or nothing to get there.

I need to check my eating habits, I need to check what food allows drop of fat and gain to muscles, I need to find out methods of training that does this fast.

Over a month, I have found out all I need to do to make that level of performance.

Why?

I set the outcome, I used a futurebased one, I then checked my factual skill and what I needed to have to allow such performance I wanted to have.

Now, what is needed to do is to practice all this and to ingrain all this and use feedback to measure my improvement daily.

For my sake this means,

• set up a test to measure my driver distance (300 yards).
• set a test to measure my short game in regard to tourpro.
• set up my putting to a level of tourpro.

Tests allow me to see, did I improve or not?
I want to improve, to get better, measure how much better I get, to find out is the training doing the thing I expect it to do or not?

All this started from setting my outcome, setting the belief to match the future based performance.

Now, its all about grinding and doing the homework fully.

One guy set a outcome to play under par in his homecourse in one year, he was shooting 103 and a high handicapper, did people tell him that it wasnt possible?
U bet, and did he make it?

Yes, with 2 days to spare.
He also had a plan.
103 to 70 in a year?

Beliefs needs to be examined and tested agaisnt actual factual evidence based as far its possible.
Then that allow someone to have an edge in performance, he/she will know that they have a level of performance that they own.

Bulding a lot of tidewaves with confidence, fun and glory.

Enjoy

/Robert Johansson
Re-New NLP.

Being NR1

Optimizing Performance is what all sports are trying to achive and any athlete serious about performance are continiously looking for methods to improve their performance.

Are you?

I work as a coach to improve golfers and even Triathlon athlets. What I do is to help them Optimize their Performance on several levels in their sports.

Let me give you an example,
when setting an algoritm of continious improvement for a pro golfer he started to hit the ball 30 yards longer with his irons and up to 50+ yards with his driver.
When I worked with the traithlon athlet she got improvements and could get everything out on the competition day. Made a personal best on that course.

So, what is it that I do to Optimize Performance?

Any sport has a few fundamentals, one is the technical or mechanical side of doing a movement. If its hitting a golfball or swimming or running or trowing basketballs or any other movement there is always a Optimal way of doing the movement with less energy.

There is also a way to make the technique even better for the individual and I can do so without even understanding the sport!

I understand the basics behind the Performance, the brain, the emotions, the mental side and the hope and fears behind Performance due to my background doing NLP and modeling for more than 13 years. Now, NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is a great tool to find out the basics, what is going on behind the scene, the swedish 400 meter hurdler Sven Nylander did his personal best in the olympics, set a swedish and nordic record and was the first swede to run under 48 seconds.
He did it by using NLP to improve and being able to get the best out of him at age 35.

Now most laugh at mental advisers, coaches due to them often being clueless about the sport and how to improve Performance.

So naturally I got to prove that what I can do is for real, that I can actually do something that works and not only that, that its possible to do it again and when doing it the next time the Performance has improved.

This blogg, well its all about me observing and commenting on various aspects of the mental, emotional, physical and technical sides of the Performance of athlets.

Performance is a multipaced various level of interacting elements that can affect how well you do out there in your sport.

For example:

• Beliefs
• Emotions
• Mental (thinking)
• Physical
• State/s
• Technique
• Practice
• Competition
• Eating habits
  

They all interact and affect the performance in various ways.
If the belief is based on your percepetion and not factual information about your Performance you can either be better or worse as an athlet depending on what the beliefs do for you in your perception.

Let me again give you an example,
If you believe your good, even best, and you have a flawed technique, you will not get the best performance and when confronting with actual measureable evidence you deny them due to you saying in your beliefs and perception of those, the evidence cant be true due to me being good at what I do in my sport.
Confronting athlets with such evidence are important to actually find out what you are doing is working and also that what your doing in your practice relate to actual transfer to competition.(More on that later)

This is also true the other way, that you limit yourself due to a belief about how good your not and then when confronted with evidence again deny the truth about how well you do.

When you have a flawless technique and the skills to perform at the highest level in your sports, then its all about maximazing those into a fluid optimal performance in all aspects of your sport.

Making sure the physical attribute can support this level of performance, how you eat, and how the emotional and mental side in what your doing in your head affects your performance.

Being Nr1 in any sport is all about one individual at the time, what is to be done to get there are to Optimize every bit of your skills and other attribut that might affect your Performance.

You need to belive its possible.
That your able to do it.
That is done with a future orientation I use to create a future scenario where this already has transpired for you, its already real in the future but the experience of this future is all about having it today.

So how can you have a future in advance?

Well, your brain how simple and yet complicated it is are basically trying to make sense of what your thinking and what your not thinking.
All the time.

The input you put there, be it consious thinking what you want to do and the beliefs you often not aware of are feeding a loop of checkpoints to achive a balanced outlook at the world, in your percived reality.

Example;
Now imagine that your put in fear and doubts, and its not possible, this will hinder, stop any attempts to improve and you will taint the performance due to the performance not being sorted out in the various levels that needs to be sorted out for Optimal Performance.

A lof of athlets do that and the effects are often fear, doubt and worry about what they are going to do in the competition before they have done it.

The opposite of that is to do the following,
Make a belief of what is possible to achive, set a physical state of performing at your best, often fluid flow like, adding a future scenario where this with practice did lead to Optimal Performance and in competition did perform in the way you experienced before you did enter the compeitition.
This will lead to confidence, and trust in your own abilites and you are able to enter the compeition due to properly sorted out what you are going to do and not what to do.
Then you need to obviously have a good technique, and support by practice etc..but then its all about being able to execute at your highest Optimal Performance level that day.

Now, if we add a improvement to this new standard in Performance so that you will refine and update your performance on this new hight in you skill, then what would happen?

The reason mental practice works well is that your are able to mentally visualize the performance "perfectly", there is no trial and error by doing it physically so the input to your nervsystem is done perfectly each and every time.
This build physical connections to a feedback loop to improve what your doing over time.

Now, what if we set an automatic improvement based on the basis of previous performance, then what typically happens is that you be doing a simpler movement perfecting the technique without even training and practice at all...

Normally ahtletes have to do a numerous of mental visualizing drills, however, non have seldom tell you "how to do the Visualizing" so it might be your not doing it right even when you think you are but in practice aint.

Checking actual facts in how your actually perform is tidious and often boring.
Its however the real key to find out how to Optimize your Performance.

When you have a good technique, then its all about setting a continious loop to improve that over time and then to add the state/s to perform and how to access this state and performance level in practice and competition.
Naturally, adding the rest of skills, experience, eating habits, physically fit etc...
can also be Optimized and do affect your performance.

For me its sad to see how many athlets cant get Optimal Performance due to them not having the tools to do so or waste the talent and training due to not being able to cope with their thinking or emotions in competition and so on.

I play golf, I have set and started to do everything I am writing here about and are going to continiously update my experience of doing this from the start.
I am a 11.1 handicap today, last year I standed still in my Performance. I hit a platue.
I did not do what I will do this year, reason is simple, I practice and test out ideas in my game and have done so a few years.
This year, I started in the other end.

So, naturally my approach to the game has changed, what I have found out is that I need to check my actual technical skill, the baseline, the statistical data and to find methods to improve that.

So what I will do this summer for my golfgame is what I am teaching others to do in their sports.

My teaching is all about Optimal Performance.

Now to find out how I will do that.

/Robert Johansson
Re-new NLP