What is the pathway to soccer success?
What is the attribute that separates a few from the masses?
The pathway to soccer success lies in developing the right kind of ATTITUDE.
Success in anything…inherently and inescapably involves a certain attitude.
Think about this…
What would happen to your child if they started to think differently?
Started to think empowering thoughts?
Started to control their emotions and mental state?
Started to view themselves as important?
Started to view the game as an exciting opportunity that could potentially open a number of different doors?
The world of neuro linguistics offers a communication model based on presuppositions.
Presuppositions are beliefs…they are not necessarily true, but produce resourceful states. (Beliefs are usually self-fulfilling)
Today I want to introduce you to a presupposition that reigns supreme in the world of Neuro Linguistics and Meta Coaching.
“The Map is not the Territory”
This presupposition originates from the work of Alfred Korzybski in “Science and Sanity.”
Time to put on our thinking caps…we’re entering the matrix.
Read the presupposition again.
“The Map is not the Territory”
Before we move on, what do you make of this?
People represent the world internally to create their own personal and subjective reality we call maps. We respond mainly to our internal experience, which becomes our map of reality, not the external reality.
As we use our senses to map the world, we create our representations.
What goes on inside our head regarding an event is not the event, but only our perception of the event.
Kids Soccer
If 20 parents watched a match, all 20 parents would leave the game with a different perception of the game.
The event…
The match…
The Rules…
The Ball…
Have not changed…
However…
Neurologically it is impossible for us to absorb all of the game.
It cannot be done…
We…as humans can only process 7 bits of information. Most parents watch their own child…they try and stay calm, diplomatic…but who are they trying to kid…they’re watching their child. Forget the team, where’s my child?
How much of the game can you capture while your focus is on your child?
The Movie Mind
Lets try a little exercise…
I want you to remember your first home… Can you see it? Can you remember the look of the front door?
As you recall your first home, you can visualise it in your minds eye. In the world of NLP, we call this the movie mind.
When we recall things or play out our thought in our internal movies (mind), we tend to leave lots of things out.
When your child scores, do you expect the other parents to feel the same joy?
What about the opposition?
Are they expected to feel the same?
Do you feel the same in defeat as you do in victory?
Do you honestly think that every person in this world has the same map of reality?
What is reality?
We never live in reality… or the event. We live in our head, with our thoughts.
Try this on for size…
“Your child has stopped chasing the ball”
“Your child wants to quit the game”
Your map (reality) becomes one of disappointment…frustrations…borderline anger. All these states are self-initiated. This is how you’ve mapped the territory. You’ve started to associate emotions to the game of soccer, not necessarily your child.
Lets take a look at things from the child’s point of view.
“You don’t love me because you’re always yelling at me at soccer”
“I don’t think I’m doing well at Soccer because my dad never encourages me”
The Time Bomb
Whenever we link an emotion to an event without awareness, we’re creating a time bomb.
Thinking that our experiences or beliefs are real is the basis of all failures and conflict. Religion, politics, culture just to name a few.
But here’s the moment…
We are not our experiences.
Let that sink in…”We are not our experiences”
And that’s the MAGIC!
What we think and feel is always our choice.
Think about a situation long ago when you were traumatised…hurt or betrayed.
It could be anything…
I bet that must of hurt.
The only way this pain or hurt remains alive is in our mind. Through the movies we play in our mind.
This is the reason so many people play the victim. Play the victim for years even after the event. They continue to replay the event in their minds eye and associate themselves to the event.
But remember this, past events are just that, past events… gone, kaput finito!
If your child is starting to hate soccer…
If your child feels sad, frustrated or scared, chances are their living in their thoughts, their movie mind and not in reality.
Here’s something I’ve pinched from “Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi”
“The traumatic feelings of today are functions of our thoughts, not reality.”
The Map is not the Territory
It’s as simple as that…
It’s profound once you grasp the concept.
Just remember this next time you’re being disappointed by your child’s attempt to play soccer.
The problem is never your child…
Never the experience…
Never the past…
The problem is always the thinking process…and the movie minds these produce.
So lets go back to my original questions…
What would happen to your children if they started to THINK differently?
Started to control their mental states?
Started to view themselves as important?
Started to view the game as an exciting opportunity?
As we start to explore our thoughts and the differences in perceived reality, we start to dissolve limitations…we stop blaming others…we stop identifying with events.
…And we start to make empowering maps of the world.
So next time you’re watching your child play, remember the following;
Change your THOUGHTS.
Change the Mental Movies in your MIND
Change you LIFE!
Your child deserves it…
“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars”
Hi
I am currently a soccer coach working with kids ages 8-10
This is a very good article it helps me a lot to understand important basis of the child’s cognitive process regarding to soccer well done I hope we can get in contact beacause I wan to learn more about the topic
Thanks