Neuro refers to your brain and your neurology. It is about how you take in information. For example, you

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1 NLP Neuro refers to your brain and your neurology. It is about how you take in information. For example, you can use your eyes to see something. Other ways to experience an event include: hear, kinesthetic (tactile touch or emotional feeling), gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell). Linguistic refers to the language -- pictures, sounds, feelings (kinesthetic), tastes, smells and words -- that you use to remember a particular experience (or to forecast a future experience). For example, did you have breakfast this morning? When you remember having breakfast, can you see a picture in your mind, can you hear sounds (maybe a radio was on or someone said something to you), what about tastes and smells, how were you feeling - happy, tired, excited? For a future experience, do you see yourself being successful? Or failing? The pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells and words that you use to describe future experiences have a bearing on what actually happens! You do create your own reality! Programming refers to your habits, patterns, programs, strategies, etc. If it is a workday, do you follow a particular pattern, as you get ready for work? Maybe you like to stay in bed an extra 5 minutes after the alarm goes off. Do you shower right away or have breakfast first? If you take time to look at what you do, I am sure that you will see a pattern that you follow in getting ready for work. If for some reason you do not follow that pattern, do you find yourself feeling that something is missing? You have patterns, habits, strategies, programs for everything you do. Some of these patterns serve you, others do not - resulting in unwanted outcomes. You are maybe fully aware of some of your patterns. You may become aware of other patterns only when someone else brings them to your attention. And you may choose to quickly forget about these patterns because you do not want to address that part of your life. And there are still other patterns that you are not aware of at all; yet they continue to influence how you look after yourself, communicate with others, etc. If the patterns serve you - generate positive results in your life - great! If you find that some patterns do not serve you, would it be useful to discover which patterns they are and to change them?

2 Mental Drills Maintaining Motivation Write down the main reasons you participate in your sport. Write down words or phrases that get you energised in your sport. This could also be images, sounds, feelings that get you motivated. Identify and write down some of the situations where you have motivational problems. Write down the words or phrases that you will use in each of the situations that you have motivational problems. Positive Thinking: thought replacement Write down what you say to yourself when you get down on yourself on sport. Identify a pattern interrupt word or phrase as a stop signal. Focus on one positive aspect of your game or say something to yourself that moves you away from constant negative inner dialogues and moves you to be more positive and concentrated. Confidence and Body Language Think of a poor performance Think of those not mentally tough Act out what do they look like? Imagine what you look like see, hear and feel it. Replay the situation only this time respond with confidence. Use a physical release. Visualise how you would respond and act confident. Fake it to make it Brain does not know the difference between a real or imagined experience

3 Small Words That Can Make a Difference to Performance Although small, there are words that can hold you & others back from accomplishing what you desire or create an illusion of progress when there is none. You probably use or hear others using these words on a daily if not hourly basis. Be aware of them and realise the impact they have on how you live your life. As a coach, realise how these words may shape what your coachees see as possible. You may be able to identify other words and here are my favourites. But You have just finished sharing an idea with a colleague and the first word out of her mouth is "but " or "Yes, but " What's your reaction? Do you think she was actually listening? Do you feel your idea has been rejected? Now assume she said 'and' instead of 'but'. Does this feel different? Do you have a sense she was listening and is now building on your idea? The word 'but' has the potential to diminish or kill whatever idea, thought or experience immediately precedes it. "I have lots of skills, but I don't have a xyz." Far too often we use 'but' when 'and' is a better choice. Begin to notice where in your conversation you can enhance your communication with yourself and others by using 'and' in place of 'but'. Try How often do you hear or say, "I'll try."? And what does this mean? Sometimes the word 'try' is used to mean "I really don't want to do what you have asked, and I don't know how to say no to you.", or "I don't have sufficient confidence in myself to make a full commitment to getting this done." When I hear people express their outcomes with the word try, I usually ask myself, "How serious is this person about achieving their outcome?" "What messages are they sending to their unconscious mind?" I see this as having one foot on the playing field and the other foot in the stands and hoping to score a try. Highly unlikely! Trying is a waste of energy. How would your life change, if instead of saying, "I will try to do " you say "I will do " or even better "what I am going to do "

4 Hope to, Want to These are similar to 'trying' to do something. The idea of accomplishing something is there and with 'hope to' or 'want to' there is no commitment or visible action to getting it done. If you are really serious about it, why not say, "I am committed to accomplishing this by (date or time)" and then focus your actions on doing so. Should Are you one of those people who has a list of things they 'should' do and rarely accomplishes any of the items on your list? Think back five years and notice how your life -- career, relationship with your children, parents or spouse, health -- would be different today, if you had actually accomplished some of the items on that 'should' list, rather than letting them wither and fall away. How will your life be different later today, next week, next year or five years from now if you were to identify a few critical items on your 'should' list and actually do them? This is not about trying to accomplish these critical tasks. This is about making a clear commitment to carrying them out to the best of your abilities and available resources. That is, identify a small critical subset of must do activities, each with a clearly defined outcome and timeframe that you will honour. Can't 'Can't' is used far too often and shuts out the possibility of doing/achieving something. Saying, "I can't do backhands." closes down any possibility of doing backhands. If instead, you say, "I haven't yet found a way to do backhands." this leaves the door open to finding a solution and puts you on a path of discovery. Instead of saying what you can't do, what would happen and how would you feel if you talked about what you can do? "I can volley, serve, run all day and concentrate and I haven't yet found a way to do backhands." This small change can have a significant effect on your attitude, how you feel about the task before you and your creativity. If, When, Yet

5 Use if when you want to imply doubt and use when when you want to imply certainty. Use yet to alter the time frame for someone. I can t play a backhand.yet Don t Avoid using the word don t remember your unconscious cannot process a negative. Always say it the way you want it. Building a resource anchor Anchors You can create anchors to serve you or change those that do not generate the results you want. To do this, you need to understand some basic concepts about anchors. Anchors can be created Repetition, the continual association between a stimulus and a response. Repetition is needed if the emotion is not strong or there is no emotional involvement. Television commercials often link an alcoholic beverage with a pleasant experience. After seeing this advertisement a number of times, you begin to make the association. The anchor needs to be: Unique, distinct and easy to repeat. If touching your thumb and index finger is not something you do on a regular basis, then this would be a good kinesthetic anchor. Saying a word internally to yourself in a particular tone of voice would be a good auditory/auditory digital anchor. Selecting a trigger that you inadvertently fire quite often has the potential of dissipating the anchor and rendering it useless. Unique triggers make better and longer lasting anchors. Linked to a state that is cleanly and completely re-experienced. If your client wishes to create an anchor to feel confident in certain situations and he recalls a past event when he felt confident, but

6 he was also confused as to your instructions, then the stimulus will generate a response that is a mixture of confidence and confusion. Timed just as the state is reaching its peak. As your client recalls a time that he had a certain attribute (e.g. confidence), the feeling of confidence will begin to get stronger until it reaches a peak. Generally, the anchor should be applied when the response is about 2/3 of its peak and held until it peaks. Depending on how fast your client accesses his feelings, the anchor could be applied anywhere from a couple of seconds to 10 seconds. Applying the anchor past the peak, may pick up a weakened state or some other state. The basic steps for anchoring are: 1. Have your client recall a past vivid experience for the state you are anchoring. 2. Apply a specific trigger as the state is reaching its peak. 3. Break state. 4. Test the anchor. When you fire the trigger, does your client think of the state? 5. Repeating steps 1 3 several times will make the anchor stronger. This is called stacking an anchor. The best state to anchor is a naturally occurring state (e.g. you are laughing at a joke you just heard). The next best state is a past vivid highly associated state. If you wish to create an anchor for a specific state that you have never experienced, do you know someone that has that quality? Imagine stepping into that other person s shoes and taking on her physiology and feelings (this person can be real or imaginary). To elicit a past memory for anchoring purposes, you can use the following scrip for yourself or with your coachee: Remember a specific time when you were really (e.g. confident). Close your eyes and fully associate into that memory by going back to that time, putting yourself in your own body, looking through your own eyes, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and have the feelings of being really. You can also assist your client by using a voice tonality that reflects the state he is accessing. If he is accessing an energetic state, then your voice tonality would reflect energy.

7 To maintain an anchor, it should only be fired when necessary and have regular reinforcement. To reinforce (or build up) an anchor, you can either on a regular basis repeat the process you used to establish the anchor or if you notice you are naturally experiencing the state that you desire then fire the trigger to enhance the anchor. To make an anchor really strong or to associate different resources to the same anchor, you can stack anchors; that is you repeat the anchoring process several times by eliciting several occurrences of the same or different states and anchor them in the same place. Lots of NLP articles written by Rodger Ellerton an NLP trainer can be found by visiting

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