Live the Dream!

"We prepared very well for this game and the world has seen that we deserved to win.  We controlled the game superbly" (Lionel Messi, Champions League Final 2011 Barcelona (3) vs. Manchester United (1)).  "I'm living a dream I never want to wake from" (Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid)."I am one of these players that doesn't look too much at the opposition and [instead] concentrates about what we need to do" Lionel Messi.  

The secret to success is to find your own style, your personal flow and to play the game moment by moment.  When you have a disappointment or a flux in your emotions, e.g. anxiety, Transflow Proformance shows you how to refocus and return to your flow/zone, so to move onto the next moment completely immersed in your own game and your own level of excellence.  

Drug Testing:

What Not to Take!

Emotional Intensity and Performance

Each athlete/individual has his/her own optimal emotional intensity (high, moderate, or low) (Hannin, 1980, 1986).  The key to successful outcomes in difficult situations such as business seminars or meeting or sporting events, is in the  effective management of one's emotions.  If emotions become to intense, one can 'choke', and thus underperform.  Transflow Proformance works with each individuals styles of dealing with emotions and ability to manage intensity levels.

Transflow Proformance:

• assists the the individual within the boundaries of his/her emotional capacity 

• respects that each athlete has a 'recipe' for management of emotions pre-event.  (It is in working with an individual's own recipe and enhancing his/her strategies that improvements can be had in assisting optimum in-competition performance)  

• assists the individual to develops an in-depth awareness of their personal emotional states

• provides instruction on how to manage emotional states and release emotions quickly and effectively while remaining in flow.

Anxiety and Performance

Anxiety has been repeatedly shown to impair motor performance (e.g. Eysenck, 1996).  

1. When this becomes extreme during competition it can lead to 'choking' or 'folding'.  
2. Situations where a player feels under pressure causes an increase in anxiety and a greater level of self-consciousness during performance (e.g. field of play, business seminars, etc.).  
3. The more self-conscious an athlete becomes, the more he/she will try to control previously automatic movements and behaviours during competition.  In trying to control previously automatic movements, the fluency of the performance is disrupted (Masters, 1992).  
4. A person trying to control actions during competition takes longer to act as the brain takes stepwise paths to carrying out a task.  Performance is slowed, and the risk of error increases at each step of the consciously controlled process.  
5. Errors are the plight of sports performance.  As such, it is paramount to that the anxiety issue needs to be addressed to assist in reducing the risk of errors during competition.  

Transflow Proformance:

• Takes the individual out of the zone of pressure and self-consciousness
• Reduces anxiety levels
• Places the person into the zone of peak performance

Having Fun

What about play?  Sometimes the things we regard as play are scrutinised and controlled to such a degree that we lose sense of the reason we began to partake in a particular sport.  When the scrutiny becomes too intense, the athlete may begin to lose his/her enjoyment of sport and begin to feel the pressures of having to be perfect or else.  

What if we were to consider for one moment that perfection does not exist?  Well, take a look around - perfection is not found in nature, we are in essence a part of nature, because we occupy the same environment as all other creatures - so perfection does not for us, and may never be attainable.  If this is the case, what happens when you drop a ball while in competition or trip, slip or fall?  What you do at that moment determines how you will perform in the next few moments.  The choice is yours.  You may pick yourself off the ground and start all over again, having left that incident behind, and then return to your flow, or you may become annoyed or frustrated with yourself and drop out of your flow/zone for another 15-20 minutes with the accompanying deterioration in performance.  

When you began playing a game, why did you do it and why did you decide on that particular game.  To reach a place of fulfillment and to improve your performance you will need to remember why you began to play in the first place.  The reason may be that you did so, because it was fun.  Your own personal play history is unique to you, so think about it for a moment.  Your passions and your inner drive have their basis in your play history.  Find those and you find your flow.  What is the clearest playful memory you hold.  Go back to that place in your mind and identify your thoughts and your feelings.  Play is a transformative force that places you in an altered state of consciousness, that place when you are in flow.  When you strip everything else away and find yourself and your motives and enjoyment, you will regain your passions and your flow/zone and will return to peak performance.

Pressure!

People are different in how they respond to pressure placed on them by others (e.g. coaches, bosses).  For some it is a necessary motivating factor, and it is the drive that without which they would under-perform.  However, for others it has the opposite effect.  

There are those who are self-motivated and who constantly seek to improve their skills.  These individuals often put pressure on themselves to achieve.  When pressure is added to this type of person, the result is an under-performance, with a higher level of frustration and ultimately disillusionment.  

There is a balance that can be reached.  Motivate the person who needs that motivation, but discuss what you need from the individual who places a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed.  

That individual will apply his/her own style of motivation and will perform to their highest level when left to their own devices.  The key to obtaining the most from players or employees is about understanding them, knowing their motivations and working with their innate characteristics.  

Afraid to Make a Mistake

Systems (e.g. education) focus all too often on mistakes in an attempt to erradicate these.  However, when there is a consistent focus on mistakes, this will stifle creativity, increase stress levels, and the fear of making mistakes.  

There is an obvious purpose in looking at how one can improve from mistakes, but this needs to be in balance with an appreciation of gains made and moments of creative brilliance.  When there is a balance, a sports or business person is less likely to fear making a mistake, is more likely to play to their strengths and is less afraid to take a risk.  

Too much emphasis on mistakes can cause players and employees to lose confidence in their ability, which presents as a dip in performance.  When this drop in performance levels presents itself, it is often the response of coaching staff and employers to focus more intently on mistakes made and the negative side of performances.  There is a huge risk here.  

People who begin to lose belief in themselves are likely to drop their heads during a game, and games that may have been won or even drawn are lost by narrow margins in sport.  The same can occur in the business setting.  To stop the rot requires a commitment by both coaching staff and players, employers and employees,  to pull together and raise their game by focussing on positive aspects of performance, and encouraging one another to achieve to the best of their ability.  

There is often a need for support from an outside professional to guide individuals out of the place they find themselves and move all personnel in the direction of believing in themselves and their abilities once more.  Transflow Proformance provides this service to sport and business groups.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Emotional intelligence is the 'ability to monitor one's own and other's emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions' Salovey and Mayer (1990).

Emotional Intelligence is about:

Perceiving Emotions: this can take the form of accurately interpreting non-verbal signs, such as body language and facial expressions.

Thoughts on Emotions:  this involves using the emotional keys to think of a way to best approach the current situation.

Understanding Emotions: the observer interprets the cause of the emotion and what it might mean.

Managing Emotions: effectively regulating one's own emotions, responding appropriately to those emotions, and to the emotions of others.

If an individual is self-aware then he/she is in a better position to be able to discern whether he/she needs to put personal emotions aside in order to focus on the emotional or more pertinent needs of the team.  When a person has a high level of emotional intelligence he/she is able to read the emotional nuances of team members and to act in a way that will enhance those team members performance.  It is the emotionally intelligent leader that has the greatest positive impact on the team members with whom he/she works.  An emotionally intelligent leader is able to interpret the situation quickly and adapt to the needs of the group effectively.  

Some people believe that emotional intelligence is an innate characteristic that cannot be taught.  However, more people believe that individuals can be taught emotional intelligence to enhance their own leadership abilities.  

The Fear of Success

To succeed means to be seen, and to feel exposed.  For some this generates feelings of anxiety. "If people knew the real me, then they would not like me", or "if people knew who I really was, then they'd find out I am a fake".  These same individuals perceptions of themselves may be very different to how others see them.  There is a very strong possibility that they are good people who, by reason of their poor sense of themselves, strive to excel in their sport or business life.  Yet, despite this, they view themselves as lacking.  When fear of success begins to dominate, a person is likely to sabbotage their success, by under performing during competition, or by engaging in acts of indiscipline.  

Roos Van Geffen spent six months building a collection of desires and fears from the public on the streets of London and Netherlands and discovered the following:

Every fear carries an element of desire,
The fear to die is the desire to live,
The fear of heights is the desire of the body to throw itself down,
The fear to lose is the desire to preserve,
Give away all you have, and the fear disappears
Roos Van Geffen

The fear of success comes with the desire to succeed.  The battle between fear and desire is so great that one will always win out.  When fear wins, the person sabbotages their own success.  However, when fear loses, that same person begins to achieve their hearts desire.  Transflow Proformance gives those who feel crippled by the possibility of success or who hold themselves back from reaching the next level of their career a chance for one moment to be all they can be.  Each moment follows another until that person truly owns their success and enjoys every moment of life.