In this event, you’ll learn

What any coach’s number one job is

Why visualizing yourself doing something helps let Self 2 take over

How to best prepare your mind for any match, competition, or important event

The best way to practice focus methodically

Why differentiating between the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to do things is unnecessary

How you can use role-playing to become a top performer

About the Author

W. Timothy Gallwey has produced a series of bestselling Inner Game books, which set forth a new methodology for the development of personal and professional excellence in a variety of fields. For many years, Gallwey has been introducing the Inner Game approach to corporations looking for better ways to manage change.

Overview

The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey is a book that is focused on how to develop the inner skills required to attain high performance. The author has written several books discussing and teaching his methodology for coaching and developing “the inner game.” The book discusses and teaches the principles through the metaphor of tennis, so if you play tennis or are a fan of the game, the examples will resonate clearly. If you aren’t familiar with tennis (I am not), don’t worry—the methodology and principles that are discusses can easily be applied to business, and all other areas of life.

In everything that we do we have two selves that we have to be aware of. Self One, is the name given to the conscious ego-mind. Self Two, is you and your potential (your natural capabilities). Think of them as two separate people.

To explain this using an example: Self One is the inner dialogue that is constantly going on in your head – “OK, Justin, hold your follow through on your shot.” Self Two is the part of you that executes that act of “following through on your shot.” Here is where we run into trouble—when consciously Self One is telling Self Two to perform the act, the conscious mind interferes with the execution of the task.

When we are consciously communicating from Self One to Self Two, we are not acting in the moment. After we are taught a skill, Self Two instinctively knows what to do. This is our unconscious mind, our nervous system taking over, reacting to whatever it is that we are doing. When our internal mind (Self One) is communicating to Self Two, it causes us to overthink and overanalyze the situation. If we fail in what we’re attempting to do, we just placed an enormous amount of stress and tension on ourselves, causing our results to be less than we hoped.

THE BIG TAKEAWAYS:

Tennis players aren’t just playing an outer game.

If Tennis players are playing an inner game in an attempt to balance their conscious and unconscious.

Execution is born from letting your unconscious mind take control.

To execute the moves you need to win, you must let go of judgment and allow your mind and body do what it knows best.

You must believe in your unconscious mind’s capability.

You cannot continue to manage every little aspect of yourself and expect to see good results. It takes too much energy and effort, resulting in poor performance.

Don’t fight your thoughts; teach them where to go.

Just like in tennis, you cannot consistently focus on the future of the ball; you have to focus on where the ball is presently.

The best teacher is life itself.

The fear of messing up prevents us from doing in the first place. We must put those expectations of ourselves aside to learn from our experiences truly.