NLP Sports Training and Coaching Tips for Performance Coaching

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Cheers,
— Don MacNaughton,
Zoned In Performance

Ive loved working with Inverness Caledonian Thistle over the last couple of seasons and am very proud of the boys achievements. So it was great to see these words from Terry.

“I have got to know Donald MacNaughton very well over the two years he has helped me at Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC. He has helped to transform the club during this period following it’s relegation and promotion in successive years. His techniques are simple but extremely effective and the players have all come to admire and respect his intuitive and instructive manner. Donald can easily teach and improve large or small groups but is inspirational on a one to one basis; with any sporting pursuit. I have no hesitation in recommending anyone to employ Donald MacNaughton - it would be a massive step in securing a brighter and more satisfying future.” Terry Butcher Manager Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. ex England and Rangers captain

Picture the scene: you’ve been in intense training all year for one big event and today is the day, competition day. Your preparations have gone well, you’ve remained injury free, and your results in practice have been consistently good; you’re competition ready. Recent competition results confirm that you’re ready, your coach’s comments confirm you’re ready but yet a nagging voice inside your head keeps telling you otherwise. As the big moment approaches, it yells louder, “You’re not ready!” When this happens, no matter how physically prepared you are, you’re NOT ready because you’re not mentally prepared. Mental preparation is key to competitive success. If you don’t believe you’re ready - you’re not!

If you believe it, you can achieve it.

There’s convincing evidence to suggest that you’re ready for the big event, in fact, there’s only thing one thing suggesting you might not be and that’s the voice inside your head. So why do you choose to believe it? If you’ve been producing consistently good results in training , you know what you’re capable of achieving because you’ve already proven yourself to be capable: there is no doubt so why does nagging self-doubt convince you to believe otherwise? Clearly, mental preparation for competition requires more than physical skill practice.

Self-doubt, or lack of self-belief, will often result in an attack of competition nerves when the pressure is on and competition nerves are the most common cause of under-achievement in competitive athletes. Effective competition preparation must combine physical and mental preparation. You can only ever be ready when you believe you are.

England needed to improve their game to make it through to the final sixteen in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The disappointing results of their previous first-round matches had led to supporters booing them off the pitch and as a team, they appeared to be buckling under pressure. So, with the pressure of everything riding on their final first-round match, where did their winning performance come from? Was it just a simple case of things coming good on the day or was something different about their physical and mental preparation that helped them to pull together as a team and then pull a great performance out of the bag?

Much has been made in the press of England’s “pre-match beer” and manager Fabio Capello’s relaxation of his alcohol ban. Capello said, “They were allowed to drink beer before the game, you can ask them. It’s true. I changed something and used my imagination.” From a sports psychology point of view, the key word in Capello’s statement is “changed.”

Ringing the changes

If you want things to be different; if you want your circumstances to change, you have to do something different, you have to make changes. If you continue to do the same things, you continue to get the same results. Clearly, England’s results were below expectation so something had to change. Capello said he used his “imagination” and that demonstrates beautifully the importance of not only doing things differently but also of thinking about things differently. Pre-match preparation is not just physical, mental preparation is equally important and in England’s case, it proved crucial.

Capello’s managing style is described as “strict.” In interviews, the players have commented on his insistence that rules must be adhered to and his inflexibility was rumoured to be causing friction in the England camp. But, Capello himself commented that the team he saw out on the pitch in England’s first two matches was not the team he knew. He said the players in that team had “no spirit” but after their winning third match performance he said, “I have my team back.” As manager, he recognised the need for change. He recognised that continuing to do things the same way would cause the players to think and therefore perform the same way: a way that was holding the team back from achieving its true potential.

“The ability to summon positive human emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership” - Jim Loehr

Jim Loehr is a world-renowned performance psychologist. He believes the key to team success lies in ensuring every player is “fully engaged.” Players who are fully engaged bring their best energy to the team. He says, “Full engagement is the pathway to extraordinary performance.” Players who are not fully engaged bring negative energy to the team, they become “disengaged” and in sports psychology terms, the end result is a team without team spirit. Familiar?

Taking control
Breaking the routine by relaxing the “rules” appears to have been the “change” the England team players needed. In fact, whether the players chose to down a shandy or two is immaterial, as I believe it was simply having the option that made the difference. In terms of mental preparation, relaxing the rules gave back ‘freedom of choice.’ Up until that point, the players appeared to have forgotten that the only person who could choose whether they should be fully engaged or disengaged on the pitch was themselves. Maybe it was the beer that boosted their performance but I suspect it was the change in Capello’s approach that prompted the return of England’s team spirit. Makes me wonder what rules might be relaxed next?

“It’s not the sex which tires out young players, it’s the staying up all night looking for it”
- Clemens Westerhof, Nigeria manager 1994 World Cup

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Wimbledon 2010 is underway and No.1 seed Roger Federer is bidding for a seventh men’s singles title. Much to the surprise of spectators, the ‘Super Swiss’ found himself two sets down in his first-round match against Colombian Alejandro Fallo, ranked world number 60. Federer recovered and secured a win but in a post-match interview he said, “I definitely got a bit lucky today, this is a match I should have lost and he played incredible.” But how much of his recovery was down to “luck” and how much was down to mental skill?

I think the answer to that question can be found in something else Federer once said: “I know I can be beaten when I go on court if I’m not on top of my game.”
In that one sentence, we learn that Federer takes nothing for granted; he’s not complacent, and he never sits back and rests on his laurels. Basketball coach Kevin Cook once said, “You’re only ever as good as your last game,” and I think that’s a viewpoint Federer shares. He may be the No.1 seed at Wimbledon but he didn’t get there by chance and staying there is down to a lot more than luck.

Dedicated Effort

You don’t just wake up one morning to find yourself at the top of your game. Federer’s rise to the top has not been meteoric and he has experienced a great many defeats on his journey up through the ranks. It takes dedicated training to master your craft and Federer’s professional career highlights the importance of mastering both physical and mental skills.

In 1998, aged 17, Federer entered four ATP tournaments and lost three. Things weren’t much better the following year, winning only one challenger event. Then in 2000, he lost five times in a row and totted up a total of fourteen losses in first-round matches. I think it’s fair to say that at this point many lesser mortals may have been considering a different career path, but he kept going! In 2002, Andre Agassi beat Federer in a final. After the match, Agassi said, “When Roger Federer learns how to play tennis at this top level, we’re all in trouble.” And learn he did.

Positive Thinking

So what does it take to keep going through the rough times? Clearly, Federer was prepared to put in the training hours to master the physical skills required at top level but it’s perhaps his mastery of mental skills that can really help us to understand what it takes. Federer has a winning mentality and he focuses only on the positives. Mastering his craft meant learning from his mistakes but not focusing on the failures; learning from mistakes and moving forward. We all know that we can learn from mistakes but it’s important to remember that we can also learn from successes.

Federer’s success comes from his ability to play any strategy he wants on the tennis court, he has a phenomenal level of physical skill as a player, but it’s his mental skills that sets him apart from his opponents. Every game, every set, and every match, he is focused only on winning. Being two sets down to an ‘inferior’ opponent could have created a potentially performance damaging downward spiral of negative thinking, but Federer kept his focus firmly on what had yet to be achieved - winning - and firmly away from what had already been done, and therefore couldn’t be changed. With his mastery of physical and mental skills, he learned how to “play tennis at this top level” and yes, everyone else is in trouble!

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There’s never any love lost between Scotland and England when it comes to football or any sport for that matter! - but even though I’m Scottish, I’m still left wondering why England are playing so poorly in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. What has caused the England team - the cream of England’s club players - to perform so poorly? From a sports psychology point of view, the big question is, why do they appear to be cracking under pressure?

Ever heard of the lizard brain? It’s a term used to describe the part of your brain concerned with basic survival. Your lizard brain doesn’t want you to take any chances or do anything risky, it wants you to play it safe and just stay alive - no matter how dull that life may be! Writer Steven Pressfield describes the lizard brain as ‘the resistance.’ It’s the voice in the back of your head telling you to be careful, to go slow, to back off. In writing terms, the resistance can result in writer’s block, and in sporting terms, the resistance can result in under-achieving. Ringing any bells?

The lizard brain doesn’t like change. It fears change, and fear sabotages success.
Could it be that England manager Fabio Capello’s lizard brain is preventing him from changing his managing methods? Could it be that the lizard brains of the players are sending warning signals, subconsciously reminding them to play it safe and not to take chances? In sports psychology terms, are the entire England squad experiencing a fear of failure?

The tricky thing is, without our lizard brains, we’d be reckless in everything we did. A reckless soccer team probably wouldn’t have qualified for the World Cup at all but now, a sports psychologist, would see a team paralyzed by fear. The fear factor stops players from playing to their full ability.

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