Re-Identification. When it feels like you lost that drive

Re-Identification. When it feels like you lost that drive.

Re-identification is a process I developed and use with many clients and also myself.

It all came from a session I did with a client who had lost that “fire” when getting ready for an important competition and as we were talking, I was putting myself in the same position and then something happened……………

Most of us who have been competing for a while, have experienced that terrible foot dragging feeling of getting through a pre competition build up and wiling ourselves to get through days of training even though we are really focused. Its an odd situation – you are committed to competing and want to do it but that drive isn’t there we had when we first started in those first couple of years.

There are a number of elements which happen, some of them are too in depth  to go into here which in include a shift in values levels etc, but the actual process of adding elements into what was a simple and clear path to competing increase over time. So what does this mean?

Over time, our lives become more complicated with relationships, jobs or business, our priorities change, pressure can increase as you go up the ladder of success in your sport and additional trappings you never had to consider before get latched onto and intertwined with the gaol you want to achieve. Its no longer “I want to win”, “I want to smash this record” or “I want to stuff my opponent into oblivion” – it can become “I don’t want to let all these people who have helped me down”, “I don’t want to look like a twat because everyone will be watching me” or “ I have to win otherwise my sponsors will drop me”. We start to lose the essential drivers (values criteria)  we had which gave us that unstoppable push right at the beginning. We forget what is important to us at the root level which makes us motivated to compete and succeed and it gets crushed and suppressed under the other obligations.  

When I sat with the client who was a professional footballer, I took him back to a time when football was everything he ever wanted and he was happiest. He recited an event when he 13 years old and standing on the pitch and full of excitement, a feeling of confidence that he deserved to be there, complete focus on the game and that feeling we all get of being encapsulated in a bubble where nothing existed outside it…………………and most of all…………….it was FUN.

He was “re-identifying” with the original values which made football for him what he ultimately wanted to do and his ideal state of mind. Now, obviously things change in our lives but the absolute core values which band together to create what we classify as “motivation” or “happiness” generally tend to stay the same. Some elements will change yes but tapping into and identifying those pure values can make us realise what we have lost or are not fulfilling in order to get that drive back.

This is where the “re-identification process” came from which I now teach my students and have put into a degree course I am lecturing on.

It doesn’t stop there – we now have to DO SOMETHNIG with this information.

So, at that time we do a process which enables us to look objectively at those values and utilise them into our situation now. You might think this a bit odd but it is a process of disassociation allowing you to think objectively and not in the clouded state we can get ourselves into where we cant see anything as emotional state prohibits the view.

So, at that moment I asked the client to step out of the body of the 13 year old and be standing on the pitch beside him as him current self. Now, ask the 13 year old boy what he thinks he should do to regain that fire he used to have. So – what we want to do at this point is to establish, through the mind set of the 13 year old, the criteria and motivation. At which point we got a reply of “stop fannying about, enjoy the bloody game and your mates and remember you love this sport and this is what you are doing it for. Its FUN for ****s sake!”.

This may seem very simplistic but  the process of reconnection gives us a tangible path to re-apply those values into our training and competing now and also fire the neurological connections attached to those values.

Remember – this is coming from YOU and those elements you forgot along the way with the sponsors, the day in day out concentration on technique and pressure of success get lost so we need to re-identify with those criteria.

Alright – so we have the dissociated elements and now we have to put them into practical use. So, what do you need to do and remember now to re-identify with them. For my client, changing the way he viewed the management was paramount from “oppressors” to “nobs with good intention” (which is how he thought about the coaches and managers when he was 13) due to resentment and demotivation of how he was viewing them now as well a series of steps to follow pre training in the way he used to when he was 13.

Now, his performance has improved, his motivation has increased and he also has been spotted to go to another Premier League team at the end of his contract in an upwards move. Additionally, any clients who have gone through this process have also increased performance and drive……………as well me as the therapist.

Re-connection and application of those core elements can cut through the mire of  baggage we accumulate as life becomes more complicated from when we didn’t have any money and would have done anything to succeed and when it was “simple”. We don’t lose parts of us which were once there, they just get buried and all the neurological connections which are associated and fire with them are still there, they just need to be “re-awakened” and that is also the reason why when we go back to that ultimate time of motivation that we still can get that feeling back and the more often we can access them, the stronger those physiological connections become.

2013 is a year for many of us who want to push the boundaries, can put into practice a huge amount of experience and learning curves to come together and create that ultimate performance. No failure is ever a failure, it is a unique opportunity to use an experience no one else has had to improve and to give you that extra advantage the others who are continuously winning don’t get.

 www.ironpsyche.com

 

Dealing with Competing Anxiety – Face your Demons

So there you are, faced with a weight you are either not sure about, got squashed by before, never tried or were told by your Great Aunt Maud that you would never amount to much therefore you probably wont get it. Or everyone is watching you which means if you don’t get it you will look like a twat, you start talking yourself out of the lift by going all analytical or a barrage of negative thoughts come trumpeting across the hemisphere of your brain to give you a good old dose of wobbly knee syndrome, strength disappearing through your feet issue or palpitations that would shake the Great Wall of China to pieces.
The old “experts” out there who fill their empty articles full of crap because they have never competed for their country and had the infinite words “if you don’t get this we will lose the world championships” have no clue as to how this can feel and therefore are null and void with any of their hypotheses. For those of us who have stood there and had are entire souls tested in these situations fully understand that feeling.
So what is anxiety?
Simply put it is a message from your unconscious brain due to past experience, values, self worth etc that you are focusing on what you do not want. Combine this with a chemical change in the brain and signalling running through your system to now initiate a fight or flight response and release the triumphant adrenal cavalry to the rescue and you have a very nice case of anxiety.
The problem we face are the warning signals coming from our “unconscious” to beware of this as potentially for us we are staring into the jaws of potential injury, humiliation and shame (~the latter is the ego sticking its oar in). The unconscious is where all our automatic responses are held, those things that we feel we are not in control of.
In essence – we are in fact in control of them as we had to learn to respond to them in the first place, so when the brain recognition system kicks in and sees a situation where it had to protect you before then it automatically comes to your rescue and low and behold you have an entire reaction designed to keep you safe and NOT commence the lift. It is a very logical reaction even though you may think it is not and you have to remember that the brain is designed to keep the rest of your body (or the brains transportation device) safe at all times.
So – what do you do?
Firstly you have to ask yourself – what is it I am focusing on that I do NOT want? It could be almost anything, from “I’m going to drop this bar on my face” (my own personal favourite) to “you know you’re crap really so you won’t get this”. This is the hardest part – realising what it is that you are actually focusing on. The second you feel that anxiety you have to ask yourself this question. You could in fact recreate that situation in your mind and notice what it is that you are focusing on and you should still get that anxious feeling when you think about it.
Once you have identified it, let’s take my own one of “you’re going to drop the bar on your face” then you have to ask yourself what it is you DO want?
For me, I want to feel strong and controlled. I want the bar to feel manageable and I want a controlled feel through the lift and as I drive, a strong and continued line feeling the crossover into triceps response and lockout and the power feeding through from my feet and following the kinetic chain to rhomboids, rear deltoids through to the triceps on extension.
So – this is what I want and I need to choose a short phrase I can run over and over in my mind to literally block out any other conscious thoughts. This also forces you focus on what you do want, changing the signalling in the brain and producing a different physiological response. You will notice a change in the feelings you get, the anxiety will dissipate and as you focus on the feeling you do want and the outcome you want it stops the pattern of behaviour. We term this as a “pattern interrupt” technique.
It is very simple and I have used it with Premier League Footballers, power lifters, ice skaters, strongmen, runners, high jumpers, moto crossers and a vast number of different sports people I have worked with including myself.
Of course once you feel that change you then can commence the lift and remember this doesn’t just apply to lifters – this also applies to any strength and power sport where explosive movement is used and a number of other sports and issues as well.
From years of experience there are numerous other techniques I use with clients which are all designed around that client’s needs and the way they react. In reality, unless you have actually been there then it is unlikely you can advise anyone effectively and once again the myriad of “experts” appear with their theoretical knowledge based on what they “think” should work. Unfortunately this is dangerous and I have also seen the results of these idiots and had to clean up their mess with clients coming to me after an unfortunate consultation which has ended up in the client injuring themselves or at worse getting no benefit at all.
However, these techniques also depend on the client being really committed to dealing with the issue and ultimately wanting to overcome the problem. So – if you are not completely committed to change or you feel like there is something stopping you from obtaining your real performance level then more than likely there is another issue lurking underneath in the unconscious which has to be resolved and again, unless the person working with you has been there – they won’t understand or know what to look for in the issue.
Anything you use in relation to a sport with potential injury is going against your natural evolutionary instinct to protect yourself, so putting yourself into a situation of potential harm, either physical or emotional is going to produce a negative response. This “override” technique is quick and simple to use and ultimately is only as good as you are prepared to be truly honest with yourself. You may not like the answer you get when you ask yourself “ what is it I DON’T want or am afraid of happening?” but for those clients I have seen that can be brutally honest with themselves and face their demons, they are the ones who have made the most outstanding progress.
Face your demons, be honest and have real heart. That is the essence of a champion.

www.ironpsyche.com

Emma James - World Record Bench Press NEC 2009

NLP Sport – Regaining Belief in your Competing Ability

 

 

 

 

When I run any adverts for my NLP courses I always use the word “pragmatic” in the description of the course. Something which always bothered me about my profession was that claims were sometimes that NLP was all you needed, it could change anything and you could create changes in any sphere you wished.

 

What bothered me most was that ultimately our profession was doing exactly the same as others and in fact limiting itself within its own boundaries as the “only choice”

One of the main themes of Neuro Linguistic Programming is that it is not a “do to” process, it is a “do with” which I perceived always to be an encompassing statement of not only the client or groups you are working but also the learning and experience you are developing and in effect the evolution of the techniques you are using.

 

Now, the only way we can do this is by learning, understanding and utilizing the expertise and experience of other professions to in fact make it as “do with” as possible and in turn making the entire discipline as beneficial to those we work with as possible.

The ethics and original intent of NLP work incredibly well with other professions and frequently there is an overlap which when taken out of its own context bear similarity and therefore should in fact be complimentary to one another.

 

The reason for an introduction to an article in this way is to make it clear that, as a Trainer and also someone who works with individuals and teams as well application to my own competing, the discipline I teach and also practice can be a beneficial addition to any therapeutic tool kit. However, at this point I will not make wild claims that NLP is the only intervention required to deal with cancer, world war and getting your client to get off their backside and get on the track.

 

There are a great many interventions which NLP uses but primarily, in a therapeutic context,  it is used to establish and elicit a pattern of behaviour from root cause to exhibited behaviour and to the highest intention of the behaviour – all of which can in fact have their own belief system and own ultimate goal.

 

One of the issues with using NLP in sport is that when you are standing out on the track or pitch in a gale force wind with your client,  working through a pattern of behaviour for example an over analytical thought process, to at that point suggest you go through a complex question and answer session plus a complete intervention is somewhat impractical let alone soggy coupled with a seriously bad hair day.

 

One of the parts I teach is about adaption to the client and thinking “laterally” about how to apply what you are using. Using calibration skills to notice a state change in the client as they take you through the stages of the problem step by step, watching the eye patterns and listening to the predicates which will indicate which “language” system they are using in order to effectively then communicate with them in their own language pattern.

A number of other basic and simple first steps to understanding the problem and in fact getting to the bottom of the real problem instead of problem they have handed to you!

 

There are a great many ways the use of NLP can be incorporated into sport, the coaching of and performance in. Its another angle and has varying techniques which can be adapted and moulded to the individual client or team to produce the desired results.

 

A very small part of that are the direct interventions – the rest are elicitation strategies, values, rep system and communication infrastructure and recognition systems which will reframe and divert thought process and patterns. We use these from the smallest part of a competing strategy which is causing a problem right through to underlying causes of self belief issues acting as a block.

 

Some of the skills we teach I honestly think are somewhat temporary unless the actual underlying cause of the problem is addressed possibly in the hope of diverting the behaviour or process long enough for it to ingrain. Again, working a sport environment, frequently you do not have the time on site to elicit the root cause as the problem needs to be addressed now.

 

For instance, a football player I was working with had a situation that he was about to put on a transfer list due to a tackling issue. He had a crutiate injury over 18 months before which was fully healed and he had been given the all clear. The help he had received form the club at that stage wasn’t working for him and he was referred to me.

 

He had never quite regained confidence in the knee and tackling force he could use so as he came in for the tackle, he would experience a sudden loss of power. Up to that point, as soon as he knew he was going to tackle an entire thought process was starting which was negative and so he would enter into an over analytic process forcing him to go conscious at that point. Overall this was causing a loss of self confidence and in his playing ability as well as producing a sudden return to a consciously incompetent state instead of unconsciously competent.

 

From the angle of what I do and the processes we use, we looked for the trigger, the moment both systems started. He was highly process orientated and so the trigger when he realized he was going to tackle was an internal dialogue which began. For that we used a anchoring technique which made the connection to the physical stimulus of that action and provided a new direction for the behaviour so that he didn’t have the same internal dialogue.

 

We also used a replay of the moment when he would lose the power which was when he drew his leg back to directly challenge for the ball which was the same leg he had the crutiate problem . At that moment we used another anchoring technique to collapse the sudden loss of power and be overtaken with a focused drive he had experienced in the past which we used.

 

He then went into tackle with another player and found that the loss of power had gone and he in fact carried through in a committed movement without the fear or protective loss of power.

 

Now, this was all carried out on site so no other underlying cause or interview was carried out that point so in effect these issues were only temporarily dealt with.

 

On a one to one session at the clinic 2 days later, we then went into the underlying issues which had build over that period of time which had effected his belief in ability and was therefore producing a limiting belief. There is no quick fix as such for this and I covered techniques we use which I know are questioned but work for me. We used a values elicitation which transpired that his criteria had changed and his own success in football had been overtaken by an away from motivation of not wishing to let his club and family down therefore reducing his drive to move towards his goal.

 

A fear of failure had also started which was blocking him and causing limitations.

Along with sub modality work and reframing I also covered with him methods of changing the internal dialogue which then change the focus of what  you want. This meant that he  needed to practice it and there is no fast way of doing that and the main key is being able to recognize that you are in fact doing it before getting sucked into that vortex of self doubt and negative thought process. This takes time but eventually will change the overall process if they can stick at it.

 

The outcome 3 weeks later was that he had successfully tackled at the clubs matches and he had in fact been taken off the transfer list. Of course there were ongoing small issues which needed to be dealt with over a period of time but none of them required further direct work with me and he could work on these himself whilst keeping in contact by email and phone.

 

The example is only used as small except of some of the work which can be done but I really do want to emphasise that what we do is not something I believe is a “cure all” and in a ideal world if all the disciplines that are available could be lumped into one, then we would have something amazing. However, regardless of who does what, the only thing which should be important is the individual and getting results for them and watching them reach the potential you know is there.

For further information about NLP in sport and performance optimization please visit www.emmajamesport.co.uk