motivation training
Being motivated, focused and also relaxed in stressful situations: Use the mental tricks of top athletes - every day!
Motivation through mental exercises
Professional athletes show us how to focus on the point exactly how you might even perform well despite bad day shape.
Photo: Thinkstock
The focus is no longer just on physical training. With the help of mental exercises, top athletes are increasingly pushing their motivation and activating their dormant energy reserves. Use these insights for yourself! Discover the most effective strategies of sports psychology for your everyday life, for more success and sovereignty in job and leisure.
1. Define the goal clearly
Each of us has already decided something ("From now on is more sports / less sweet food / order brought into the desk chaos!") - And has failed miserably with the good intentions. Athletes always work with clear goals to keep their motivation high.
Because even they are not superman, just like us with temporary reluctance and lack of motivation. Sports psychologists use the so-called SMART rule when motivating their athletes. Thus, the intended result should be specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and timed. In other words, one formulates a precise, comprehensible goal that presents an appropriate challenge and that can be measured by means of time or distance specifications.
The trick for everyday life: You want to do regular sports next year? According to the SMART Rule, your goal could be: "I want to jog for 30 minutes three times a week in the next three months." These specific requirements can be checked wonderfully and are therefore much easier to comply with than general phrases such. B. "I want to do more sport in 2011".
2. Cheer on yourself
Usually, viewers take on the role of inspiring their sports idols in competitions by clapping, chanting or banners. However, you can also apply this principle yourself by choosing an uplifting motto or slogan that one mentions in the spirit - similar to a mantra in meditation.
Such sentences can z. For example, "I know my technique, " "I feel safe and strong, " or "Yes, I can do it!". Sigurd Baumann, professor of sports education at the University of Bamberg, points out how important a positive formulation is. Anyone who says, "I'm not afraid of the challenge, " his subconscious mind automatically turns to the term "fear." Better: "I really trust the challenge."
The trick for everyday life: In stressful job situations such as a presentation to a larger audience or a salary negotiation with the authoritarian superiors, this tip works great. "If I go back to my heart and find out how the situation will work out for me, how well I feel afterwards, I can be much more relaxed, " says sports psychologist Marion Sulprizio.
3. Turn on the inner headlight
Comprehensive training, proper nutrition, sufficient recovery: The perfect competition preparation is complex, because you can sometimes lose the view of the essential quite times. With the exercise "The inner headlight" then can set wonderful priorities, explains the psychologist Dr. med. Gaby Bußmann.
She looks after numerous competitive athletes who respond excellently to this exercise: Imagine that there is a headlight in the head. The light beam can illuminate everything that is important in bright light and leave everything outside in the dark. For tasks that require full concentration, this "inner spotlight" is focused on the current priority.
If two or three aspects are important at the same time, the light beam is scattered further, the attention is distributed. Once a task has been completed, the headlamp is mentally lowered again, saving energy in a figurative sense until the next deployment.
The trick for everyday life: As soon as you get bogged down in details and find yourself in chaos, for example when organizing documents, this strategy is used. The mental spot will help you with the structured sorting from important to unimportant.
4. Activate new energy
Too little recovery allowed, the batteries are empty? Especially performance-oriented athletes know the feeling of excessive demands and tiredness. Then, instead of blood, lead seems to flow through the body, every requirement becomes an effort. "Often you have to admit then that the regeneration was too short and in recent times has demanded too much, " said the sports psychologist Marion Sulprizio.
"However, there are good opportunities to mobilize reserves in the short term if you want to get fit for a training session." Listening to music with a driving rhythm, such as the "Rocky" soundtrack, moving dynamically to the beat - this is how you can achieve positive vibrations build. Also Sigurd Baumann advises in his book "Psychology in Sport" to activate by fast movements, such as with jumps, torso turns and arm circles.
"Psychology in Sport" by Sigurd Baumann (Meyer & Meyer, around 23 Euro) order here at Amazon.de >>
The trick for everyday life: Charge your batteries by moving when the power curve drops! Instead of strong coffee, physical activity - eg. For example, five minutes in the washroom - it eliminates fatigue, improves blood circulation and makes you feel more receptive again. Even better, you can motivate yourself if you listen to music during the exercises.
5. Call attention
To be top-concentrated at the right moment, to be able to retrieve a long practiced movement sequence precisely - with the thoughts in the here and now to remain professional athletes hard. Gaby Bußmann then recommends mindfulness exercises: "For example, you can consciously feel how the shoe covers your foot."
Very attentive to the contact of the skin to the surrounding shoe cover capture or alternatively focus on another point of contact between the skin and a part of clothing or a piece of jewelry. Is the material on the skin soft or hard, cool or warm? Does one hear a noise when moving, such as the rustling of cloth or the crunching of leather? This search for traces with all your senses acts as an inner pause button and reliably bundles all your attention.
The trick for everyday life: In all situations in which you catch yourself in the mental wandering, you can focus on the here and now again: for example, at a party with super mood, in which you come back again and again the dreaded dentist appointment next week. To put yourself back in the present, the sense sharpening can be used great: What tastes of the cocktail, how does the bass from the speakers in the stomach?
6. seal bulkheads
Have you ever wondered why some tennis players hang a towel over their heads in the breaks on the sidelines? "This is a great way to dose the flood of information from outside and create a low-stimulus environment to center yourself, " says Marion Sulprizio.
Such small escapes work concretely, as the athlete collects alone in his cabin or as in the towel example, by looking for a variant that ensures despite foreclosure environment for foreclosure. Sigurd Baumann also mentions a visualization that can help with the inner retreat. Namely, the idea of being calm and controlled on a traffic island, while the traffic flows around the outside but does not interfere with your personal condition.
The trick for everyday life: This exercise helps, if you have the feeling, the emotional control to lose, for example, because the partner has a fit of rage and you feel unfairly treated. A short spatial demarcation, when you go out the door and take a deep breath, can then help to find the inner balance again.
7. Effectively reduce pressure
Personal wishes that fulfill the hopes of the coach and the expectations of the fans: For athletes it is inevitable, day by day with a certain nervous pressure cope. That's why relaxation techniques play an important role in their everyday lives. "Especially helpful are then techniques that are neither tedious to learn nor cumbersome in the execution, such. For example, the relaxation of lightning ", says Gaby Bußmann.
In doing so, the athlete sits or stands comfortably, but upright and imagines that he is a puppet whose limbs are attached to twine. Head, arms and hands, legs and feet are held in the notion of the threads.
Now imagine how somebody cuts all the threads suddenly and simultaneously, so that all parts of the body that were held before hang lightly down. In addition you exhale. The entire musculature should feel relaxed from head to toe after this exercise.
The trick for everyday life: Let go in between times and times: If everyday life is annoying and you feel tense, for example, in the morning stop-and-go traffic at the red light or in a short minute between appointments in the office.
8. Find the appropriate symbol
A goalkeeper who equates himself with a jumping panther, a sprinter who thinks of a taut feather before take - off, or a sportsman who finds the necessary rest by identifying himself with a rock. Sigurd Baumann describes such symbolizations as an effective way of doing so perfect your own performance.
And finding symbols can be applied to a wide variety of needs. Who wants to get a grip on excitement, imagines a quiet river, who needs drive, takes a jumping deer as a role model.
The trick for everyday life: Create your own individual iconic image and transfer it to your current situation. Call it in periods of fatigue or over-excitement, eg. For example, in the case of a family illness (the helpful symbol could be a rooted tree), during a strenuous procession or job change (a symbol of change such as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly would be conceivable).
9. Let breath flow
Especially when we are excited or tense, we tend to breathe faster and shallower than usual. The participants of important sports events are no different than someone who has to pass a decisive interview. The problem is that the body is less well supplied with oxygen, which can lead to fatigue and poor concentration. In order to get into a calmer mode, often simple exercises help you to focus on a deep breathing.
Gaby Bußmann recommends the following technique: "You can do this exercise lying down, sitting or standing. Take a minute, two minutes, close your eyes. Then breathe as calmly and deeply as possible - through the nose, let the breath out slowly through the mouth. "With each exhalation, one imagines very intensively how all the tension flows out of the body. The exhalation should take a little longer than the inhalation.
The trick for everyday life: take a deep breath! And every time you get the impression that you are "out of breath" and shallower than usual. This can be the case in many overtime hours through a career promotion or in a relationship crisis with exhausting discussions. The simple, but very effective exercise always helps in between, to draw new strength.
10. Use force of pictures
Often it is not enough to go into a competition physically well prepared. Self-doubts or fears of failure sometimes cause a blockage and the athlete is in spite of physical top shape unable to fully recall his performance. "A picture is worth a thousand words - this wisdom can be used to strengthen self-confidence, " says Gaby Bußmann.
Viewing previous photos that depict a successful moment in the athlete's life has been proven. Recordings of successful competitions and award ceremonies make clear: "In the past you have already been able to present yourself in top form, you have all the prerequisites to be successful again today!" This is how you get into a positive basic mood, the posture Tightens automatically.
The trick for everyday life: If you do not dare to do a task, for example in a new professional environment, in which you first have to get used to, you will wake up memories of positive experiences! The motivating moments need not necessarily reflect the content of the current situation - even if you look at beautiful shots of your family or from your last vacation, this can convey inner strength or relativize stress.
11. Use rituals and mascots
I'm sure you remember Jogi Löw's blue cashmere sweater, which eventually became a guaranteed winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, because the national coach had worn it in several successful matches. Classic case of superstition, as it occurs in many athletes. "There are athletes who have to jump on the right leg three times before the race or compete with just a certain pair of shoes, " confirms Marion Sulprizio.
Gaby Bußmann also knows such habits: "Some athletes can only get their performance by wearing the competition outfits. They also put off their everyday personalities with their normal clothing. "Basically, both experts consider such practices to be beneficial, as they convey security. However, it should not be too complicated to carry out the rituals, such as a large team of dedicated escorts who must be on hand.
The trick for everyday life: If you leave the usual comfort zone and, for example, for the first time on a long journey alone, your favorite sweater, the familiar perfume or a diary can provide security: From such small, positively occupied objects, you can draw much strength.
12. Stay curious
Although professional athletes do not know a typical eight-hour day on the office chair. Nevertheless, they also have to protect themselves from routine in the daily routine. "It has been shown that you can feel acutely stressed by under-stress or boredom, with all known symptoms such as migraine or gastrointestinal discomfort. One speaks of the "Bore out" syndrome, "says Marion Sulprizio.
The best counter strategy: always looking for variety, not resting on the proven. "For athletes, this can mean varying an exercise in pace or load, or using the other leg when jumping off, and using the other arm when throwing." A new training partner or device changes are also possibilities of variation.
The trick for everyday life: bring variety into all the daily routines that feel like routine, be it the usual way to work or the standard breakfast with toast and coffee. Go to the job but train, sometimes bike, sometimes car, look for new routes. And how about cereal, scrambled eggs, bagels or croissants, tea, cocoa or freshly squeezed orange juice? Your imagination is in demand every day.
experts
Dr. Gaby Bußmann (l.), Graduate psychologist, works in the field of competitive sports, including for the Olympic training center in Westphalia. She is a member of the Federal Institute for Sports Science and Sport Psychology (www.bisp-sportpsychologie.de).
Marion Sulprizio, graduate psychologist, research associate at the German Sport University in Cologne with a focus on health coaching and stress management. Together with colleagues, she looks after an internet platform (www.mentaltalent.de).
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