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Practice Makes Perfect
But What Are You Practicing?
Mick Hawes
In this article I'm going to be talking about a subject that
has just recently been brought to my attention. Although I've
been teaching it a fair bit of recent years. I've learned
so many new applications for it recently, so I've brought
it forward. I would have spoken about it a little later in
the series, but I think it is pretty darn important that we
talk about it earlier rather than later, and that is understanding
that "practice makes perfect".
There is a time to look at results and a time to focus on
process or the action steps required to get the result.
I noticed the importance of this a number of years ago when
I began doing work with some of the best junior tennis players
in our country. I would be traveling around the country observing
and coaching these very talented individuals. I would always
ask this question "what is the most important part of your
game at this high level of competition? The physical part,
meaning the skill and fitness, or the mental and emotional
part"? In every case the answer was the mental and emotional.
Mostly because at the highest level of competition all of
the players have a great deal of skill and fitness.
The second question I would ask is "how much time per day
do you put into practicing the mental and emotional side of
the game"? What do you think the answer was? you guest it,
"none" I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and it was consistent
all over the country, the most important part of their game
was receiving no time or attention. And what was even worse,
when I observed the players practicing I would notice that
every time they made a mistake they would get frustrated and
angry.
So let me ask you a question, what happens when you repeat
an action over and over? That's right it becomes habit. So
in essence what these tennis players were practicing was anger
and frustration, so guess what happens under the pressure
of competition? They would get angry and frustrated when things
didn't go their way, which causes tension and tightness in
the body, which doesn't allow the athlete to play at their
best, which in turn causes more negative emotion and the cycle
just keeps compounding until the player smashes the racquet
on the ground or throws it over the fence!
Now right about now you might be asking what has this got
to do with me? How can this help me? Well I think the same
thing happens with many people. They practice negative emotions
every day.
There are many situations during the day when little challenges
present themselves, (some people call them problems, but we
don't anymore do we?) where with a little bit of positive
thought and discipline we could come up with a positive response,
but we don't. We get a tiny bit angry or frustrated, we take
the easy way out and let our emotions control us, we have
a lazy approach to our emotional mastery.
Do you remember the "Law Of The Farm"? 1 cent doubled every
day works out to be almost 11 million dollars. Well we need
to apply this law to our emotional lives. Look at these seemingly
insignificant challenges as tremendous opportunities to practice
our positive emotions. If you do this at every available opportunity,
you will notice yourself having more and more positive responses
to life's little challenges. You will amaze yourself at how
different your emotional responses can be even under the most
trying circumstances.
So continue to ask yourself the question "what emotions am
I practicing?" Because practice does make perfect, but what
do you want to make perfect? Your negative emotions, I think
not. So let's make sure we are practicing the good stuff!
Till next time, remember you only have your bad habits to
lose so, GO FOR IT!!
All good things, Mick Hawes THE HEAD COACH
http://www.headcoach.com.au
The Head Coach, Mick Hawes, has an amazing way of
turning something that most people struggle with into an easy
and fun way to you go from stress to success.
Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com
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