The 12 Hidden Laws of Olympic Performance

Law One

A Top Performance is an Inspired Performance

“This was the most splendid team performance”
Lord Sebastian Coe, after winning the Olympic bid

No one gets to the top of their game on their own − not even competitors in solo sports! Behind every Olympic athlete, there’s a whole team of significant others; coaches, physios, trainers, nutritionists…the list goes on. Lord Sebastian Coe, Chair of the London 2012 Olympic Committee, knows a thing or two about team work and the inspiration that each and every one of us can find in other people. We are all connected, and in all areas of life, Olympic sport included, it’s an undeniable fact that top performances are inspired performances.

Seb Coe was inspired to become an athlete by watching athletes from his local area competing in the 1968 Mexico Olympics. John and Sheila Sherwood won bronze and silver medals that year, and all of the pupils in Coe’s school crowded round an old black and white television to watch them perform. Coe said, “By the time I got back to my classroom, I knew what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be.“ Of course, it was not only Coe’s dream to become an athlete, he made it his goal to become a champion athlete; a goal he passionately pursued and achieved by winning two gold and two silver medals in 1980 and 1984. In fact, he is the only man to have won 1500 metre gold twice.

Having been inspired by Olympic champions, Coe himself then became the Olympian who inspired another champion, Dame Kelly Holmes, who became a double gold medal winner in the 2004 Athens Olympics. That’s quite a ripple of influence, 1968 all the way through to 2004, but it’s a ripple that continues as Holmes continues to inspire today’s young athletes.

We can all be inspired and inspire. During his athletics career, Coe was coached by his father, Peter, his “greatest inspiration” and now in his political career, he is determined to inspire a nation, and the world, by achieving his dream of making the 2012 London Olympics, “the Games for everyone.” He hopes the Games will inspire people to challenge themselves to do things they might not have considered doing before, volunteering for example. “People inspired me in my sport when I was running cross-country; the people who were prepared to stand out on a course for six hours in sub-zero temperatures marshalling kids. Looking back, I would never have been able to do anything I have done without the volunteers.”

As part of the preparations for the 2012 London Olympics, an entire building will be dedicated to kitting out the Team GB athletes, and a special ceremony will be held to recognise the athletes becoming Olympians. It’s all part of director of sport Sir Clive Woodward’s master plan to inspire a “One Team GB” culture and team spirit across all 1300 members of the team − not just the 550 athletes but also all of the behind-the-scenes staff and volunteers. Behind every champion athlete, there’s a champion support team, and each individual in the team feels passionate about doing their best in their role to allow the team as a whole to achieve a best performance. When you find your passion, you find your inspiration, and you find your motivation to be a champion performer in whatever it is you do. Who or what inspires you?

Don is taking on individual clients in January for an individual, one year coaching programme based on his Amazon best selling book “The 12 Hidden Laws of Performance” email freyja@zonedinperformance.com if you think this is the programme for you in 2012.

‘Tis the Season

“There are three stages of a man’s life: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus”
- author unknown

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la do you love this time of year, or do you loathe it? Perhaps you’ve already got your decorations up and your “Santa Stop Here” sign out in the front garden, or perhaps you’re doing your best to ignore it all, hoping it’ll all just go away. Well, even if you are The Grinch personified, I bet you can still remember a time back in your childhood when this time of year was simply magical—go on, admit it!

If you’ve got kids, it’s not hard to remember the excitement of believing in Santa Claus, and even if you don’t have kids, it’s not really that hard to remember being one yourself, is it? Do you remember writing out your letter to Santa? I do. I don’t remember writing anything in particular, but I do remember the feeling of belief. I totally believed that if I had been “good” and made it onto Santa’s “nice” list, my efforts would be rewarded with that something that I really, really wanted.

So at what point in your life do you stop believing in Santa, and, at what point in your life do you stop believing that you can have what you want? Yes! If you’re not happy with your lot in life and you believe that you’re stuck with it, you’ve stopped believing that you can have what you want. Okay, before you get all “bah humbug” on me, I’m not suggesting that you should write out what it is you want and then sit back and wait for a jolly man in a red suit to deliver it to the foot of your bed! But, I am suggesting that you should think back to your childhood thought processes.

Take a look around you at the kids you know today. As Christmas approaches, they begin to think in terms of what they need to do-over and above what they normally do in order to receive what they want in return. It’s a simple trade—they do good things and they get good things in return! Now you might argue that life is not so simple once you’re all grown up, but I’m here to argue the point that it is. The only thing that changes between childhood and adulthood is belief.

You already know that positive thoughts lead to positive actions, and positive actions lead to positive outcomes. Well, think about it again now; when a child writes a letter to Santa, they are thinking positive thoughts about what they want, and they are thinking positively about the positive actions they can take to ensure that Santa brings them the things they want in return. And, when they hold up their side of the bargain, Santa delivers that’s the positive outcome!

You can do the very same now, today. If you’re not happy with your lot, switch your focus away from what you don’t want and write down what you do want. Look at your list and think positively about what you could do right now to move towards those things, then add the “magic” ingredient: belief. Believe that you can have what you want.

Positive thoughts are not just for Christmas, they’re for life!

Don is taking on individual clients in January for an individual, one year coaching programme based on his Amazon best selling book “The 12 Hidden Laws of Performance” email freyja@zonedinperformance.com if you think this is the programme for you in 2012.

Superstition, Self-Belief and Success

Football fans of a certain age might remember the comic book story of Billy’s Boots, a feature of Scorcher in the 1970s that continued to appear in various other “boys’ comics” for many years. The stories revolved around a young aspiring footballer called Billy Dane who was actually a pretty poor player until the day he found an ancient pair of football boots that had once belonged to a professional footballer known as Dead-Shot Keen. When Billy wore the boots, they appeared to have a magical mind of their own, allowing Billy to effectively follow in Dead-Shot’s footsteps and play superbly − scoring eight goals in one episode to bring his team back from the brink of defeat!

So, I hear you say, what has a daft story about a pair of “magic” boots got to do with the real world? Well, recent research suggests that amateur athletes who use a professional athlete’s equipment perform better − could this be scientific evidence that the magic in Billy’s Boots was real? The participants in the study were all keen amateur golfers and part of the experiment was to putt some balls. Half of the group were told that the putter they were using belonged to professional golfer Ben Curtis, the other half were not. Guess what? Even though both groups were in fact using the same bog standard putter, the group who believed it belonged to Curtis consistently sank more putts! It would appear that perceived success is contagious.

In all areas of life, what we believe to be real has a direct impact on our actual reality. Clearly, in sport, believing that a piece of equipment has been used by a successful professional can have a powerful ‘success placebo’ effect − demonstrating beautifully the “magical” power of our own beliefs. Half of the amateur golfers in the study believed they would putt successfully because they were using a successful golfer’s putter, and they did. The other half had no reason to believe their putting performance would be any different, and it wasn’t. But, here’s the thing, the only real difference between the two groups was simply belief. It wasn’t Curtis’ putter so we can safely rule out any magic of the Billy’s Boots variety, the improvements in performance were purely the result of believing that improvements were a real possibility.

Billy’s Boots might be a bit before your time but how about Buzz Lightyear? If you’re familiar with the Disney Pixar movie Toy Story, you’ll know that he’s an action figure who doesn’t believe he’s a toy; he thinks that everything it says about him on his packaging is real. He believes that he is a spaceman and that he can fly into space, so he does! Of course, as the story unfolds, Buzz comes to realise that he is in fact only a toy and that nothing he believed to be real actually is − he can’t really fly at all. Okay, he’s a fictional character and he’s a toy fictional character at that but there is a point to all of this! Before the movie is over, Buzz learns that not being able to believe in the blurb on his box doesn’t actually change anything, he can still “save the day“ by simply believing in himself.

So, yet again, I hear you say, what’s that got to do with the real world? Think about it for a moment; it was the amateur golfers’ belief in the “packaging” that inspired their improved putting performances. What would happen if they were asked to putt again after discovering the real facts? It’s only by believing that success is a real possibility that you can become successful. With self-belief, you have all the “magic” you need to make your way to infinity and beyond!

Related articles

• It Boils Down to Commitment! (donmacnaughton.org)
• High Performance Keys (donmacnaughton.org)

Copyright © 2009-2010. Don MacNaughton. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without written permission.

Create your Own Positive Vibe

“How Positive Thinking Affects How You Feel”

Sometimes you just get a feeling about something, right? A good feeling about something or a bad feeling about something; so what is that feeling? Let’s say you’re thinking about making a big change in your life but you’re hesitating because something is not sitting right and somehow it just doesn’t feel right. What causes that ‘gut feeling’ and where does it really come from?

Quantum Physics tells us that the universe and everything in it is a form of energy and all energy vibrates. This means that everything in the universe, including you, your thoughts and your emotions, creates its own unique vibration. The ‘feeling’ that you experience emanates from those vibrations. A ‘good feeling’ is created by the vibrations of positive energy and a ‘bad feeling’ is therefore created by the vibrations of negative energy, so the question now is, where does the energy that creates that gut feeling come from?

Have you ever walked into a room full of people and instantly felt unwelcome? Even without anything being said or without anyone outwardly being hostile, you still pick up on a “you’re not welcome” vibe. Familiar? What you’re picking up on is the negative energy being generated by the people in the room. You can’t see what they’re thinking, but you can feel it. The same can be said of finding yourself in a welcoming environment. No one needs to actually say or do anything, you simply pick up on the positive energy of the people around you – your gut feeling is that you’re in a good place.

So what if you’re the only one around, then where’s the negative energy coming from? The answer, of course, is you. Your thoughts create their own vibrations so if you’re thinking negatively, you are generating the negative energy that creates that bad feeling. By learning to think positively, you learn how to generate positive energy and you effectively learn to create your own positive vibe that you can take with you wherever you go – your very own built-in gut feeling that just by being you, you‘re in a good place!

Related articles

• The 12 Laws of Performance – Good Vibes (sportspsychology2.com)
• The 12 Laws of Performance – Can You Feel It? (donmacnaughton.org)

Copyright © 2009-2010. Don MacNaughton. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without written permission.

The 12 Laws of Performance – Law 1 Be Passionate, Be Inspired

Law Number One Is To Be Passionate

By dictionary definition, the word ‘inspire’ means ‘to fill with the urge or ability to do or feel something’, but what does it mean to you? Do you start each new day feeling inspired by life or are you someone who inspires others on a daily basis? Who or what inspires you and who or what do you inspire?

A great many people and things in life are described as inspirational, so what is it about them that makes them inspirational? For example, inspirational sports players inspire other people to get involved in sport and inspirational entrepreneurs inspire others to think about their own entrepreneurial potential – what is it about them that creates that effect? In the music world or in the creative arts, individuals are inspired to produce works of art through their experiences of the world around them, they find inspiration in what others may consider to be mundane, everyday things – what is it that allows them to find that inspiration? Of course, the work they produce then goes on to inspire others by provoking thoughts and emotions and through this, a cycle of inspiration develops. But, the question remains; what makes someone inspirational and where do those we see as inspirational get their inspiration from?

Every single one of us has the ability to inspire as well as be inspired. Inspirational people have found something in their lives that they feel passionate about and it’s that passion that inspires them and makes them inspirational. When you find your passion, when you find something you love in life, you find your inspiration and through your passion, you continue to inspire others.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”
- Howard Thurman

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Related articles

• The 12 Laws of Performance – A Passionate Business (zonedinperformance.com)
• The 12 Hidden Laws of Performance (sportspsychology2.com)
• Passion and the importance of people. (thedrealist.wordpress.com)

Copyright © 2009-2010. Don MacNaughton. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without written permission.