Mental Practice IV

The Mental Practice book series evolved out of Dr. Chandon's experience coaching athletes. He found that athletes develop in their mental games in predictable stages. The speed of their development depends on how vigorously they apply themselves in their mental practices, physical practices and competitions. When motivated athletes are open to learning, practicing the right things in the right sequences and in the right ways, they rapidly progress.

The Mental Practice series reflects the ideas of progressive development modeled by the martial arts. Mental Practice books I-VII have different color covers to signify that they are modeled after martial arts development and the wearing of different color belts. The different color belts in the martial arts indicate mastery levels of the students and teachers.

The Mental Practice book covers are yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown and black. As you develop in your mastery of each book, you earn that color "belt" in Mental Practice. You'll find that as you progress through the books, you'll be challenged to use your imaginative and creative abilities more. Imagination and creativity are key components of a well-developed mental practice.

This book includes the "Sanctuary" which is a powerful tool to use in your mental practices. Your sanctuary will help you use your imagination in vivid and powerful ways. This book includes a chapter on how to design your sanctuary in detail.

You'll also have a chapter on mental practice retreats. Retreats are a way for people to step out of their normal routines and dedicate some time and energy to something specific that they want to learn, improve or deepen. There's no end to the amount of learning, improvement or deepening that we can do with our mental game. We can always improve. This chapter takes a retreat like focus on some key issues that all athletes face. The main purpose of this chapter is to get you thinking about how to apply multiple mental practices to significant objectives that you want to accomplish.

The most significant barriers to success, breakthroughs and the fulfillment of our potential are ourselves. Life and sports serve us an unending number of challenges. How we respond to our internal and external challenges is the essential part of whether we ultimately succeed or fail. The key isn't whether we have success or failures. What matters most is how we choose to understand them, learn from them, and keep moving forward. Life and sports can subtly erode our confidence, skill and motivation unless we are actively working to build them.

Now you have a simple and effective way of mentally practicing. You have a way of discovering and correcting the ways in which you are limiting or sabotaging yourself. You can start to mentally practice in as little as 15 minutes per day.

The individual mental practices are grouped by topics.

• Mental Toughness
• Developing Mental Skills
• Being a Champion
• Handling Challenges
• Planning for Success
• Being Healthy
• Training Well
• Confidence and Motivation
• Being a Leader
• Being a Free Spirit
• Designing Your Sanctuary
• Mental Practice Retreats

Each mental practice has some reflections for you to consider and unique "Power Words" after the reflections. Power words are a simple sentence, phrase or individual words that you use to engage your imagination and help you focus as you mentally practice, physically train and compete.

See how good you can be.