Sports is such an arena, where apart from the physical fitness, mental soundness is equally important, to keep a sportsperson going successfully. You may ask that each and every field of work equally demands both physical and mental fitness. True, but despite that, I would say that sportspersons require something extra to boost up their performance. It is not very regular and common to the everyday life of an office go-er to increase or maintain their physical and mental wellbeing in equal measure (although it would probably be a good idea!)An individual can continue his office work even if he does not like it doing and although that would not be the most fulfilling way to spend the day, they could get by unnoticed. A sportsperson, however must not only love the sport; he has to be passionate about it. And in this respect, if he becomes lenient in his attitude he could find his achievements waivering.

There are a lot of aspects that affect the sporting skill. Whether you could be a successful sportsperson depends on your hereditary factors, fitness standard, technical expertise and over everything else, your mental strength. It is believed in NLP that “Everyone has the resources they need to succeed” and enforces the idea that if one person can do something, anyone can do it.

Perhaps you have seen reports that a sportsperson is at his best level of performance during a given period of time. And if you ask him about the tremendous “form” at that time, it is most likely that you would get the answer, “I don’t know it JUST happens”. The reason for lack of knowledge about their heightened performance, is that the improvements are happening unconsciously, and are not accessible in the conscious mind, that’s why he did not know the reason behind his outstanding performance.

In NLP, strategy elicitation is sometimes used to extract this subconscious peak performance information so that it can be perfected and installed in others. However care has to be taken, as when you make unconscious skills conscious, they can become over thought and no longer “flow” as they did before. It is also true that strategies can be supported by many deeply rooted beliefs, and these beliefs would also need to be considered as part of the performance ability.

The core principle of playing any game is the sporting spirit, which tells you to compete in the game and not to win it. But there would be few, who play the game to lose it. So it is essential that if you want to be a good sportsperson, you have to excel in the game. There are a lot of ways that NLP can show to augment your sporting skill. NLP enhances all of the hereditary, fitness and the technical expertise that are required in sports. It is the most off the track way to keep you on the track. The most notable performers in the world sports are known to rely on various subconscious as well as conscious techniques to boost up their performance.

By Gemma Bailey

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