Chapter 14 - Building a Better You
The Self-Image is the sum of your habits and attitudes. Your attitudes determine whether you feel positively or negatively about an item or concept. Your habits determine how you act. You will do certain things because it is consistent with your Self-Image.
A re these attitudes familiar?
I perform great in practice, but when I get in the match, my score drops.
If I do well at the beginning, I lose it at the end.
I am so busy, but I just don’t seem to get much done.
I can never remember names.
I can’t sell anything. I’m not that kind of person.
I could never speak before a large crowd of people.
I’m technically sound in my sport, but I choke under pressure.
These are statements I’ve heard from students of mine. They are all temporary Self-Image attitudes. They can change. In fact, the same people who held these attitudes initially soon began to talk like this:
I perform better in matches than in practice.
I can count on a good performance, especially under pressure.
What accounted for the change? They all experienced a change in Self-Image. When you shift the Self-Image, the change is often permanent.
We tend to perform within a certain “comfort zone”. Bob bowls between 120 and 160. It is like him to bowl an occasional strike, but he has never bowled four in a row. He gets nervous when he bowls three in a row. It’s not like him to hit four strikes in a row so his Self-Image executes a correction to keep him in his comfort zone; here comes an open frame. He’s comfortable between 120 and 160. That’s like Bob.
Your Self-Image “makes you act like you.” It keeps you within your comfort zone. If you are below your zone, your Self-Image makes you uncomfortable and turns up your power until you are within the zone. Likewise, if you are above your zone, the Self-Image will cut your power, dropping you back within your zone. A s long as you “act like you”, the Self-Image is content and does not interfere. To change your performance, you must change your Self-Image and elevate your comfort zone.
Controlling the change in your Self-Image may be the most important skill you will ever learn. You can change any attitude you do not like. When the Self-Image changes, performance changes.
Beginners tend to have comfort zones that are quite wide with the upper and lower levels not well defined. A s one improves in skill and these limits become more predictable and the upper and lower limits should become closer to one another. Elite players strive for consistency in tournament scoring with very small comfort-zone variations. When your score is well below where you expect it to be in a competition one place to look for answers is the Self-Image.
There is good news and bad news ahead. The bad news is that your performance and your Self-Image are almost always equal. If you do not like your score there is a good chance that you need to change your Self-Image. There is more bad news. The Self-Image resists change.
This is actually a good thing. If you changed too easily you would love your spouse one day and not like her/him the next. The good news is that Self-Image can change but I admit it is not easy.
The problem for most of us is that we know something has to change for our score to improve we just do not want it to be us. We’d prefer that our problem would be solved by buying that new piece of equipment. We’d prefer that if we read another book or took another lesson we would change. We’d prefer that someone else be the problem instead of me, anything but me. But, no one can change your Self-Image for you. You have to do it yourself and the first step is to admit that you are the problem.
So, once you have decided to change, how do you do it? You can try the most common method used by frustrated players that is certain to make you even more frustrated. Just train more. That is a good way to change your Subconscious mind but it will do little to change Self-Image. Playing more doesn’t always improve Self-Image but imprinting a good performance always does.
The Self-Image you have now got that way somehow. Doesn’t it make sense that you would have to change it the same way? How does Self-Image change? You change it through imprinting. Every time we hit a target we imprint a hit. This is called an actual or environmental imprint. Your environment gives you an indelible imprint every time you perform. Let’s take golf as an example. When you hit a bad shot you have just improved the chances of hitting another one in the future because the Self-Image has imprinted that it is like you to miss-hit shots.
Every time you practice or play you risk getting a bad shot and getting a bad imprint. However, you can imagine a great shot with 100 percent accuracy. A n imagined imprint is still an indelible imprint. Now, I will admit that scoring an eagle in a big competition tends to have a stronger imprint than an imagined imprint but which is easier for you to do? We can imprint thousands of imagined perfect shots with 100 percent chance that they will be good ones. A ll it takes is a little knowledge of how to do it correctly and some effort.
My experience has been that the method of imprinting that is used affects the amount of Self-Image change. Visualization is not as effective in changing Self-Image as is rehearsal. OK, what is the difference? Most people understand visualization to mean SEEING as clearly as you can what you are actually seeing when you perform an action. I have even used the term in my work. Many players are concerned that they cannot seem to get a sharp picture and do not really SEE clearly when they try to visualize. I don’t think that the clarity matters. In fact it is not what you SEE that is important but what you FEEL. Rehearse the feeling of hitting a good shot. Don’t try to see it. Try to FEEL it. What does the move feel like when you do it properly? When you imprint in this way you avoid having to clearly visualize and you reinforce the non-visual aspects of the shot as well. Many good players talk about being a feel-player. When you do that you are rehearsing not visualizing.
A nother factor is WHEN you rehearse. The best time to imprint is just before and just after the action of hitting the ball. Rehearse hitting a good shot both before and after the swing or putt. This causes three imprints on each shot and two of them are guaranteed to be good. Not only does this greatly improve the chance of a better score but it causes the Self-Image to grow at the same time. There is a huge cumulative effect to doing this. Can you imagine if you did this on every shot for an entire season? What an advantage! So, why do so few players do this? I believe it is because it takes extra effort and most are just are not willing to work that hard to win. That is good news as well because if you A RE willing to expend the mental energy you have an advantage on those that are not that dedicated.
A nother thing to consider is that we imprint continually. The Self-Image cannot tell the difference between past, present or future events as far as imprinting is concerned. Each time you recall an experience the Self-Image imprints it again as a new event. If you think about a problem you had in the past, the Self-Image imprints it again as if it has just happened. If you imagine a future event your Self-Image imprints it as occurring now. You are in control of the imprinting process. I won the Olympics thousands of times through imprinting in the years prior to the Gold medal. Imprint anything you want to happen and you have improved your chances of actually having it happen because it becomes like you to do it..
Be careful not to think about anything that you do not wish to have happen. Do that and you imprint it as being like you. Most people worry that they will perform poorly in some part of their game. This normally intensifies just prior to a big competition. What a mistake! Keep your mind only on what you want to have happen. If you catch yourself worrying just rehearse performing well and the worries will tend to disappear.