My coaching team at the IVY Squash Academy recently sent me this to share with the players and I thought it would be a great to share with you as my first post on the website.

This is fairly universally applicable and I must tell you that this simple process has worked for me numerous times in areas ranging from Squash to even improvement in my life.

If you want to achieve something how do you systematically go about it? 

How do you get from where you are now – from here, this present moment –

to there, where you want to go. What is the process? 

There are 5 steps

1. First, you’ve got to figure out the ‘there’

Think about the ideal scenario. You’ve got to know what you want.
Start with the end in mind. Creating an ideal, goal, or vision is just
making constructive use of your imagination. You construct a future
in your mind before it ever occurs. Don’t get trapped by your present
reality – what you have or how effective you are at the moment.
People who are immersed in a present reality often think they ‘know the
truth’ about it. But they don’t.

2. Engage in constructive self-talk

Constructive self-talk is smart talk. It is the continual dialogue you have
with yourself. It is also the raw material from which you manufacture
your own self image. Your subconscious believes what you tell yourself
and then makes sure you act according to your beliefs. Language has
power over behaviour. If you control your self-talk, you can use your
subconscious to help you achieve your goals. You move toward,
and become like, that which you think about. Your present thoughts
determine your future. What you repeatedly tell yourself with your
own self-talk determines your beliefs and self image, which affects your
behaviour. Unless you change your stored beliefs by changing your self-
talk, you won’t alter your behaviour. Your future will look a lot like your
past.

Relive your successes. You need to feel good about yourself to get
from ‘here’ to ‘there’. You need to feel happy with yourself and find
increasing joy in your daily work as you achieve what you want to
achieve. To reinforce your success, you might write a list of 10 of your
most prominent achievements and reflect on this for a moment each
day. This would help you build on your past accomplishments.

3. Use your creative imagination to set and imprint goals

One way to use your forethought – your ability to think ahead- is to
set GOALS. Goal setting is a deliberate attempt to define the quality
standards that will guide you into the future. You must have a target,
a picture of what you want. If you don’t give yourself a goal for the
future, you’ll recreate the one you’ve got. So tomorrow won’t look any
different from today. Goal setting done correctly, causes growth and
development. It’s expanding the limits, expanding the environment,
developing new standards to release your inhibitive, restrictive
behaviour. When you clearly set a goal for yourself, you’re declaring
that some things are more significant than others. You’re defining
what’s important to you.

4. Start taking action, and use feedback to correct course

Don’t wait for the big time- the big time is where you are at the
moment. You don’t wait until you develop before you take action. You
take action on the level you’re living presently. Just start where you
are. Don’t wait until you’re good and ready before you take action. Take
action now because you’ll get better as you go. Get feedback and make
adjustments.

 5. Create a team of people around you

You recognize that some things can’t be done alone. And so you seek
the company of soulmates who have similar ideals. As you create a team
of such people around you, including your immediate family, you then
experience the power of synergy. Your work will begin to have greater
significance and influence.     

Nothing too complicated, but it does require you to sit down and clearly outline what you want to achieve and go out and ACT.

Please feel free to get back to me with your thoughts comments etc

Have a fantastic day!