inside excellent life
Cristiano Ronaldo and Jonny Wilkinson show us with their ability in kicking the ball how important it is to have a routine whenever you are in a position to make a free kick in soccer or rugby. The video you find highlights the similarities between these two players and the need to train this skill. How many coaches teach their athletes following this procedure? In just a few!
During a tennis match it’s very easy to watch and listen one of the two opponents to talk against him/herself, with behaviors (sadly shake the head or move the racquet like a stick) showing the presence of a negative emotional state, exasperated and that hurts the play in the next game. These scenes occur more rarely among professional players because they have been trained to deal effectively with stressful competitive moments. These errors are common among young people and are very frequent among the players maybe even technically gifted but who have not understood that playing a match is not just a matter of physical strength and good technique.
To play good tennis, whatever their level, needs to want and be able to think and this goal becomes very difficult if are dominating moods of anger or devaluation of themselves. Everyone wants to win and since the first moment of the match the emotional tension begins to grow and if the player does not act to control it, since the first 15 – 0 for the opponent he/she will also start to worry. The court stresses the beliefs of the player: you cannot lay the blame on teammates, you cannot blame fate: the mistakes are yours mistakes. You must bear responsibility for how you are playing and thinking for doing something different right now .
The question is: to do something of different. Easy to say when you watch someone else play; it’s more difficult when you have to apply this simple rule to you. This positive attitude is built by first becoming the main supporter of yourself and not the main detractor. The tennis player after a fault must always do two things: encourage him/herself + give a simple technical instruction that will permit to avoid repeating the previous error. The match is like a battle, in which to overwhelm the enemy you need to have confidence in the information received from their commander, which in this case is you. Therefore to encourage ourselves is required to maintain a high level of confidence and control of emotions.
If in the field the player does not show this attitude, the mind of tennis player will be like a sailboat without the skipper, prey of the opponent. I suggest to the players to establish a priori checklist of things to do when they are in trouble :
1 . What to do when the first service does not enter.
2 . What to do when I want to conclude too quickly the game .
3 . What to do to decrease the anger or disappointment at that time.
4 . What I want to say to encourage me .
5 . Which are the technical information for me more important in the difficult moments.
How many times have we seen ditching the match point and then lose the game ? Too many!
How many times have we seen players play the very well one set and then lose the next one perhaps dramatically to zero? Many!
How many times after a wrong service we have seen players lose your head and continue with this negative sequence until the end of the set? Many!
These are all situations where is not prevailed the killer instinct, the result is that one imposed his/her game while the other with the negative attitude underwent the opponent.
What is the killer instinct :
It’s the will to do what is reasonably necessary to win or to achieve your goal.
It’s the awareness of when you have to push to close a game, set or match, and you go for it.
It’s the awareness that when you drive the match, you should not pass up the opportunity to continue to do so.
It’s the awareness that when the opponent is down, you have to continue to keep him/her under .
It’s the will to want to emerge successfully from a negative phase of the game .
In tennis win who makes less mistakes. In Australia, Diokovic lost against Stanislas Wawrinka after more than five hours to have committed three errors more than his opponent. Karin Knapp lost for only two errors more than Sharapova. What should these matches teach players? In the court it does not matter how many mistakes you make, the important thing is to make one less than your opponent. At this point a match fought, in which they play even 100 points, one players can also win by committing even 30/40. This fact shows how important it’s for the players to accept their mistakes with the awareness that in a match won they will do may errors. Conversely, if after the first error you begin to speak against yourself and lose self-confidence, the effect will be to increase the probability of being wrong even more. To do mistakes, instead, is part of the physiology of the game. Typically, the winning player is the best to accept them.
An important key point for athletes is to be proud with themselves for having done their best even if they have made mistakes. In doing so, they will have less fear of making mistakes, as they consider the information coming from the errors as necessary, though not pleasant, to do better next time. This thinking can lead them to continue to choose challenging targets because they are not frightened by failure and they are aware that they will always have the opportunity to try it again. In the long period, being focused on performance (do your best) and not on the result (win, lose) will lead them most likely to achieve their potential and to abandon the idea of being afraid of making mistakes.
In business, as in sport, the competitive arena is now worldwide. Technical and tactical advantages are rapidly disappearing. With deadlines tighter and pressure to perform increasing, the ability to control concentration and emotions is critical. That’s where we come in. Our performance-enhancement systems combine sport and business psychological research to give you the winning edge. When we use terms like coaching, team building, and competition, we know what we’re talking about.
PAY ATTENTION
Ask yourself what the best business executives have in common with elite athletes and Navy SEALS — the ability to pay attention, to avoid becoming distracted and remain focused on the task at hand. Whether you are a business executive or an athlete — you can’t perform effectively if you can’t concentrate. Mistakes break deals and lose games.
| THE INVENTORY: THE TAIS
EPS has developed the most effective tool in the industry for assessing attentional and interpersonal skills enabling individuals, teams, and companies to perform better. Unlike many other programs, Enhanced Performance Systems employs a performance-based instrument — The Attentional & Interpersonal Style (TAIS) inventory — to gain crucial information useful over a wide range of applications from executive coaching to employee selection and screening. TAIS inventory is a 144-item, performance-based, self-report inventory. Derived from the Theory of Attentional and Interpersonal Style, TAIS inventory provides a direct link between the concentration and personality characteristics measured and performance. TAIS is designed to increase the ability to understand, predict, and control behavior of highly effective individuals. It is the only inventory of its kind in the world. |
GIVE MORE THAN LIP SERVICE TO COACHING
It is no surprise that sports metaphors are widely used in business. Both arenas employ strategic planning, emphasize competition, and demand performance under pressure. EPS was founded by one of the country’s leading sport psychologists, Dr. Robert Nideffer. TAIS and ACT have been used to enhance the performance of some of the world’s most talented athletes and teams. Why is it an advantage to have a background in sport and coaching and an instrument that has been tested in the athletic arena? Because, unlike in business where mistakes may take years to be detected and where improvements are often measured subjectively, in sport, it’s crystal clear what works and what doesn’t. You can’t charm your way to a four-minute mile and money won’t buy you a seventy at Pebble Beach Golf Course. For more information contact: info@ceiconsulting.it |
Tennis is a sport that requires a continuously high emotional control by the player. This request concerns not only the professionals but also the children. It’s unfortunately very common to see boys between 11-14 years that begin after an error a negative self-talk, expressing anger/frustration. Already so young people have difficulty accepting their mistakes! They ignore that learning is a function of their ability to manage their emotions. Parents are often pessimistic about the ability of their children to change, because they are convinced “that you are born like that” and then they have tried to tell not to react that way but he/she did not get any change because the character never change. Fortunately not everyone thinks in this way and around the world programs are active to counteract this phenomenon starting from the school. The sport, and the court in this case, represent an important situation in which young people can learn how to effectively manage their emotions and it’s an indirect way to teach parents that it is a skill that can be improved as well as they learn the basics of tennis and then puts them together to build their own game. Of course, parents should support their children’s activity with no expectations about their future tennis but supporting their motivation to have fun through sport. It ‘s very difficult to play this role, however, because the personal vanity leads them to believe that their child can become a champion. How do you agree to take him/her to play tennis 3/4 times a week, to see him/her after the first mistakes to start these negative behaviors and go on to say ” but he/she likes so much tennis.” You cannot ignore it, thinking that sooner or later passes. Rather not pass ! To those who think this way, I suggest you read the Edutopia, which aims to teach children and adolescents to improve the management of their emotions and social relations. In Italy I wrote some time ago of a similar program grew out of a research by Dove, which will promote in 10 secondary schools of Milan, a series of four meetings, reserved for girls and boys aged between 12 and 14 years.
