Image by Jose Francisco Morales
Practice Right Before Competition is Just a Warm-Up
I just had another golfer confuse his warm-up on the driving range with his actual tournament play, so I thought I’d write about this.
It’s something I’ve heard from my athletes over and over again in different sports — they think how they do in the practice right before they compete is an indication of how they’ll actually perform in the tournament, game, or competition.
Wrong!
The practice is just a way to warm-up your body, get loose, move around, take some swings, hit some pucks or stop some shots, throw balls, run, jump, make some dives, etc., (fill in the blank with what you do as an athlete) right before your performance.
Practice right before competition is just a warm-up and nothing more.
How that warm-up goes is absolutely no indication of how you will do once you start the tournament, game or competition.
You can do terrible and perform beautifully.
You can do great and perform poorly.
You can have a great warm-up and perform beautifully.
And, you can have a terrible one and perform poorly.
I know you’ve had all of these scenarios happen and yet, I’ll bet your mind only pays attention to the times you have a terrible warm-up and you perform poorly.
You’ve completely discounted the other three scenarios!
I have two suggestions for you to remedy this:
- Start calling your practice right before competition a “warm-up” rather than a practice. This will help your conscious mind see it for what it is — a way to get your body ready to go out and compete.
- I’ve created a tapping protocol to help you release your worries about having a poor warm-up. Tap this as often as necessary.
Let me know what happens for you once you’ve tapped this protocol and you start thinking of your practice right before a competition as just a warm-up and nothing more!