Yes, I Can! by Robin Nixon

Some sports require skill and accuracy more than speed and stamina. These include activities such as archery, pool and snooker, darts, shooting, or mental sports such as quizzes, card games and so on.

You also need to be accurate in team sports where passing the ball without it being intercepted is critical, or when scoring a goal in football or a hoop in basketball, and so on.

Nowadays there’s hardly a professional sport that doesn’t incorporate visualization in some way or another in the training process, so why not take a leaf out of their book and use it for your own purposes, and those of your local soccer or baseball team too, for example?

Why use visualization?

Time and time again it has been demonstrated that by also visualizing participating in a sport you can increase your results as much as (or even more than) through practice alone. Of course you must also physically practice your sport, but when you visualize too you will improve your skills at a far greater rate.

Whether you actively compete in a team sport such as football, basketball or baseball, an individual sport such as tennis, golf or athletics, or simply enjoy a game of pool or darts in your local pub or bar, or even participate in quiz nights (a form of mental sport), this article has visualization exercises you can use to increase your ability and performance.

To help psyche yourself up for greater accuracy, imagine that you are throwing darts at a dartboard (as shown in the figure at the head of this article) and in your mind’s eye see yourself throwing them ever closer to the bullseye.

Visualize throwing darts

Start by aiming at anywhere on the board and see the dart land in an outer segment. Then throw more and more with each subsequent dart landing closer to the center, until you get one into the outer of the two bullseye rings. Keep on throwing like this, noting the weight of the dart in your hand, the feel of your arm and the action of your wrist as you throw, and hit the center bullseye over and again.

Now that your eye is in, try going round the board hitting sections of your choice. For example, aim for all the larger outer sections in order from 1 to 20, then the inner ones, and then do the same for all the small sections on the circumference (the double point areas), followed by the smaller ones further in (treble point areas).

If you have access to a dartboard try practicing throwing darts for real first and see how you do. Then perform the visualization exercises, take a brief rest, and try throwing darts again for real. You should see an improvement after even only one visualization session. And over time, by visualizing as well as practicing, your aim will steadily improve.

You can also try this technique in the following scenarios:

• If you have access to an archery board and related equipment you can try this exercise with those.
• Take a soccer ball and practice shooting goals from varying distances both in real life and as a visualization.
• Practice this exercise at your local bowling alley with minimal modification.
• Do the same with golf and many other sports.

Visualize scoring the winning goal

If you like to participate in team sports, another great visualization exercise is to imagine yourself scoring the winning goal. This can be in a soccer or American football match, in basketball or hockey, or any team sport with a ball and a goal. Simply visualize the last couple of minutes of a game in which the scores are level and then see yourself being passed a golden opportunity by a team member.

Now seize the day and make sure you don’t fumble. Receive the passed ball and kick it into the back of the net, or pitch the basketball into the hoop, or whack the hockey puck into the back of the net. Then hear the final whistle or bell sound as your team all run up to you to congratulate you. Your goal has helped your team to victory.

Of course, you may not play in a goal scoring position in your team, or may even be a goal keeper. In which case modify the exercise to a case in which you make the perfect pass to a team member who then scores that winning goal. Or you could save a goal in a penalty shoot-out, and lead your team to victory that way.

The key to achieving sporting success through visualization is to practice as much mentally as you do physically. The physical exercising will enhance your body and improve muscle memory and technique. The mental exercising will enhance your coordination and build the neural pathways you need in your brain for accuracy and skill.

This article is excerpted from my book Creative Visualization For Dummies, available now in the UK in paperback and on Kindle, and worldwide on Kindle now, and paperback very soon.

Recently I’ve been once again investigating social networking sites such as Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Google+, and it seems to me that the reason I never really used them that much before is the sheer amount of ‘noise’ that enters your streams. Every time I have got started I’ve been flooded with far too much information – and everyone seems to be trying to sell you something.

But it recently occured to me that by not participating I’ve been missing out on reading all the interesting things many people might have to say, and have not been meeting people I should have come across years ago, and with whom I could have had many interesting, thought-provoking, meaningful, or just plain fun conversations.

So I’m starting to take the plunge and search all these networks for key words and phrases I’m interested in such as “creativity”, “visualization”, “motivation”, and so on. Then if I find just one post by someone that looks at all interesting (and even if all their other posts don’t appeal to me) I am following them anyway. Also, sometimes I come across a post where someone says something like “I can’t get the motivation together,” and I will follow them – it gives them an extra follower, and if they follow back it just may be that one day I’ll post something that helps them.

So what I’ve learned is that you can’t expect all the posts in your news feeds or streams to be fascinating, or even half of them, or even ten percent. Instead you must take the time to treat these streams like a mine and you have to go digging to find the good stuff. And that’s what I’m now doing. I suppose this must be what those people with hundreds of thousands of reciprocal followers have already learned – treat the streams as if you are a prospector sifting them for particles of gold.

And there’s some gold there for sure, so when I find it I pass it on with a retweet or the equivalent – I don’t mind that I didn’t think up that nugget, and I’m more than happy to pass on good ideas, great insights, or posts that otherwise engage me – in my view the author deserves the recognition.

So now, where I would previously carefully evaluate every friend request, I’m not afraid of following anyone, because I know that everyone has something interesting to say, and there’s no knowing where or when they’ll say it. But if I’m not following a person when they say it, then I’ll miss it. And people grow and develop too, so posting one thing I like, hugely increases the chance that you’ll post another, and I want to be there for it.

There again, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t already started trimming my follows, because there are, unfortunately, lots of spammers out there, and if all I see from someone is marketing I take the risk that I might miss them saying something great (because I doubt they ever will until they get off their marketing high horse), and so I unfollow. But I still give the benefit of the doubt first. When someone follows me now I’m always courteous and follow back – and it stays that way unless I get spammed.

Anyway, that’s my new approach to participating in social media, and already I have learned several new things, met many new people, and found a number of great websites I never came across before. In fact, spending that extra hour or so every day to sift the streams and dig the mines is proving to be fun, not a chore.

If you have a lot of friends and people you follow or who follow you, I’d be pleased to hear your strategies for managing the data flow, so please leave a comment below.

Some people speak and act from the heart and as a result they are exceptionally warm and friendly to be with. It comes naturally to them to express their love for their family and friends, other people and yes, even themselves.

Many of us find this difficult for a several reasons. During our upbringing maybe expressing emotions was frowned upon. We may have feelings of insecurity that hold us back. Or perhaps we may be depressed and find it hard to concentrate on loving people, and loving life.

Whatever the reason, I suspect that lots of us feel we don’t express our inner feelings of love as much as we ought to, and if that sounds like you too then there’s a great visualization you can perform that really gets you psyched up, and keen to show a greater interest in other people, as follows:

• Picture yourself standing with your arms outstretched, in the middle of a huge grassy field with towns and cities all around you. Now imagine you are slowly growing until you are a hundred feet tall, the height of a large communications tower. Feel how strong and powerful you are as you now begin transmissions – the program you are broadcasting is nothing but pure love.
• Feel the power shoot out from your heart and up and down your spine, tingling throughout your body before it then pulses out from you in waves of love enveloping everywhere in all directions for dozens of miles. Feel the energy move up from your heart to between your shoulder blades, where it creates shivers (as if you are getting a shoulder massage), before it shoots to the back of your head and vibrates away behind you.
• Now see the golden energy beaming in waves from your wide-spread finger tips, writhing and wriggling over the horizon, with the beams themselves shooting more energy down to the land below, like a sort of lightning.
• Slowly look around you with your powerful eyes as they beam pure love and joy to wherever they gaze, and know that your energy is being received by everyone within a radius of many miles.
• As you transmit the power of love, feel more welling up from you heart, where there is a reservoir of more than you could ever need, with more being created all the time. If you are religious now is also a great time to offer up prayers for all these people. Ask God to look after them and for their lives to be enriched.
• Try to hold this vision for a few minutes if you can, all the time thinking nothing but wishing love, peace, goodwill and boundless energy for everyone and everything around you. When you have finished slowly turn the beams of energy off, gently power down, shrink back to your normal size and return to your place in reality.

By practicing this visualization you increase your capacity to love and show love, and that of your unconscious mind too. Remember that your unconscious is active 24 hours a day watching over you and helping you to have as enjoyable life as possible. Visualizations such as this (which the unconscious easily understands) help it keep your spirits up, and subtly develop your way of thinking so that you become more comfortable expressing your emotions.

If you practice this visualization regularly you will find that whatever previously held you back from showing your love will diminish, and you’ll be amazed by how well your relationships flourish from now on.

With well over 500 different phobias listed at phobialist.com you might think that human beings must be a highly neurotic species, and maybe you’d be right! We certainly have a knack for getting into a to-do over the seemingly smallest of things. If you have any phobias you would like to rid yourself of there’s a technique you can use to instantly draw on inner help whenever you become anxious. It involves assigning emotions and feelings to parts of your body (which I call positivity points) which you then touch in order to recall them. For example, try the following:

• Touch your right pointing finger to the base of the pointing finger on your left hand, and think of something that gives you a great sense of calm. It could be a piece of music, a location such as a church, or the wilderness, or anywhere like that. Remain focused on this feeling for a while and at the same time notice your finger touching the positivity point.
• Now clear your mind and touch your pointing finger to the base of the second finger on your left hand while you think of a situation in which you feel totally in control and fully competent. Perhaps the place is preparing a meal in the kitchen, or maybe programming or typing in front of a computer, driving at the wheel of a car, or chairing a meeting. Whatever you choose, all the time stay aware of your finger touching the positivity point.
• Once again clear your thoughts then touch the base of your third finger. This time when you do so, think about a time when you were at your most creative. Perhaps you once wrote a poem, a song or a piece of music of which you are proud. Or maybe you won a cooking or photography contest. Then again perhaps you were in the zone while sketching. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a creative person, you are. Humans are creative beings, so just think of something you like to do and are good at. And keep concentrating on it for a few moments while feeling your finger touching the positivity point.
• Finally clear your mind once more and touch the base of your little finger as you recall something or someone that makes you smile. It could be a joke you recently heard, a television show you enjoy, a particular comedian, or simply spending time with friends. Or you may find that participating in a sport or activity brings on a smile, or playing a musical instrument does it for you. Again, concentrate on whatever easily comes to mind while also noticing how your finger is touching the positivity point.

After a while clear your mind a final time and then spend a few minutes touching each of your positivity points and recalling the feeling that each brings, in the case of this exercise, it will be an easily recallable mnemonic: The four Cs of Calmness, Control, Creativity, and Comedy. Repeat until the emotional links for each point are strongly formed.

Once you are practiced at recalling these feelings on demand by touching your positivity points, you have a tool you can use whenever you are presented with a fear or phobia. Simply touch the correct point for the feeling you want to feel, and it will replace your usual fear or phobia.

Over time, if you deliberately choose to use this technique to overcome your fears, you will then desensitize yourself and be far more comfortable in what may have previously been intolerable situations.