Any Sports Psychologist will tell
you that the basics of controlling your mind in sport are the 5 C's:
Commitment | Composure
| Concentration |
Confidence | Consistency
I certainly found that looking at these areas had a big effect on the way
I played...
Commitment
Not only is commitment a vital part of being successful in badminton, but
having high levels of commitment makes it a lot easier to get there as well.
One of the fundamental, core attributes of a successful player is that
they have made a decision.
They have made the decision to put everything into achieving their
goal
(we talk a lot about the power of goal-setting in the
Badminton Secrets
Newsletter by the way).
Everything worth achieving in life is going to come with a price; the
price of sacrificing free time, the price of hard work, the price of
frustration when it all goes wrong.
But with a solid commitment to yourself that you are going to stay with
it, the bad times just won't stand a chance.
Composure
Can there be a more frustrating game than badminton?
How many times have you just completely lost it on court due to a bad
shot or miss, and then never been able to get it back again?
Composure is vital if you are to play your best game - keeping in that
optimum mental state with no distractions or stresses affecting you.
I certainly found that lots of the exercises that you will see later made
keeping composure during a game that much easier.
In fact at one point I was appearing so calm on court that one of the
other players thought that I didn't care about winning!
Concentration
I certainly found that concentration was one of the hardest things to
control, but also one that got a lot better with practice.
It is focussing on each point as it comes, and stopping the distractions
from previous points, bad calls and future worries that are the fundamentals
to good concentration.
Once you have high levels of concentration, you will find that your game
flows a lot smoother.
The blocks that are subconsciously causing you to make mistakes won't
affect you as much and playing will seem almost effortless.
One of the free gifts that you get from the
Newsletter is an old book
called 'The Power Of Concentration' that gives unique insights into how to
get that focus that you need.
Confidence
We all know that when we are winning we are confident, and when we are
losing we're not so confident.
Why is that?
Confidence is merely a state of mind, so why shouldn't we be able to
summon it at will, regardless of what is going on around us?
The answer to that question is the reason that confidence is my favourite
of the 5 C's - because you CAN control it, and it's often a lot easier than
people imagine.
Once you realise that confidence doesn't have to be a factor of what is
happening outside you, you are set free to concentrate on trying to always
be in a confident state.
When you are confident, certain things are happening in your brain and
your body.
And the ability to change that can have a big difference in your
badminton, more specifically affect your...
Consistency
Looking at your badminton game as a whole, there are few things that will
make more of a difference to how successful you are than consistency.
Consistency means maintaining a high level of play over a long period of
time.
Much of that comes with preparation (which we will be looking at a lot!),
and much comes from concentration too.
I certainly found this to be an important factor to how good my results
were if nothing else.
I would put my everything into the start of a game and play absolutely
brilliantly, but then get complacent, lose that consistency, and thus lose
the game.
When I realised that it was more important to keep a consistently good
level of play going throughout the game, rather than trying flat out to win
the first few points, I found it easier to win games.
After all, you can only win one point at a time!
