Most of us know that we can perform at a higher level. We know we can be better. We've become frustrated with under performing. The most significant challenges we usually face are the mental ones and not the physical ones. We know that we sometimes sabotage and limit ourselves. We also suspect that there are ways in which we unconsciously sabotage ourselves because we don't know what we don't know. The key challenge is that we don't know how to stop sabotaging ourselves. Intellectual knowledge is helpful, but isn't sufficient to make deep changes. We've tried everything we know and it isn't enough. We need something deeper and more powerful.
There's a deeper way of knowing and a deeper self-knowledge that we find when we develop a meditation practice. We find our center where we are in touch with our deep wisdom and passion. When we live, train, and compete from our center, we find more clarity about our strengths and weaknesses. We learn that the barriers that appear to be holding us back are actually invitations to develop, change, improve, and tap into the deep strength that we find inside in order to follow through on what will help us more forward as athletes and people.
When many of us think of the concept of "awakening," we primarily think of a spiritual awakening. This book includes that idea but expands on it. This book expands the concept of awakening to make it holistic, personal, and more powerful. Awakening applies to every aspect of our lives as athletes and people. We learn to integrate our athletic life with the rest of our life. We learn to live and perform in ways that are free and constantly developing.
Awakening is intensely personal. Because you are unique, no one can legitimately tell you how your awakened life should look. This book gives you the tools to awaken yourself in ways that make sense to you. This book is about performing athletically at your highest levels and having a wonderful life in addition.
There's a crucial difference between reading about our mental game and improving our mental game. Having knowledge is useful, but it usually isn't sufficient to cause significant change. We need to apply our essential knowledge to make important changes and develop ourself so that we can be the athletes we desire to be. This book gives you a powerful way of bridging the gap between knowledge and effective action.
For many athletes, performing "in the zone" is an unpredictable event. They don't know when or why it happens. After we have learned to meditate effectively, we recognize that the experiences that we have while meditating are similar to our experiences of performing in the zone. That's because performing in the zone is a meditative state. We can learn to perform in the zone more often by learning to meditate in the right ways. When we learn to meditate, we learn to manage ourself in ways that are conducive to optimal performance.
This book assumes that you don't have experience with meditation. This form of meditation might be different than you think. This form of meditation is simple to learn and practice. Each of the meditations in the book has some thoughts for your reflection and has a unique affirmation at the end, which you use for your meditation. You mindfully read the reflection and then meditate on the affirmation. With this book, you have a program for developing your mental approach to sports in as little as 15 minutes per day.
About the Author: William Chandon, Ph.D., is a mental performance coach who teaches athletes and coaches how to reach their potential. For over thirty years, he has had a passion for understanding how the mind works. To try to change the circumstances of our lives without changing the thinking that lead to the circumstances is a formula for continually recreating the past. Dr. Chandon teaches that meditation is a powerful way of changing our deep thinking. He has practiced meditation for over thirty years. He has a doctoral degree in human and organizational development.
He wrote Mind Games: Daily Meditations for Great Golf; Mind Games: Meditations for Great Putting; Mind Games: Daily Meditations for Great Athletes; Meditation for Active People; Mind Games: Meditation for Inspired Golfers; Mind Games: Meditation for Inspired Athletes; Mind Games: Meditations for Great Coaches; and Awakening: Meditation for Active People. You can reach Dr. Chandon or find our more at www.williamchandon.com.
