The Inner Game

People fear 3 things, Fear of Success, Fear of Failure and Fear of Change.

In order to be successful, we must play our inner game if we want to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent us from accessing our full potential”. Tim’s formula for success looks like this: Performance = potential-interference, P=p-i. According to this formula, performance can be enhanced either by growing “p” potential or by decreasing “i,” interference.

via » If this is My Life, How Come I’m Not in Charge Here?.

Tags: change, failure, interference, potential, success

And we talked about Tennis, since I was suffering from some neck pain related to my competitive tennis play.

And in a eureka moment, he said, “And there’s that guy who wrote that book about tennis.”

My eyes lit up. “Timothy Gallwey.”"That might be it.”"You mean The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallway?”

“That sounds right.”Holy Cow! He had hit me square in the heart. Not only had The Inner Game of Tennis formed a HUGE part of my youth, and my understanding of tennis as an exploration of self, but more recently I had gotten in touch with Timothy Gallwey, in order to support the publication of his new book, The Inner Game of Stress.

“YES!” I said. “The concepts of the Inner Game have been part of my life for a long time. I think they’ve guided me more often than I know. I mean, I learned them when I was about 14 or 15.”"Well, there you go.”"I was trying to learn about tennis, and this “self 1″ and “self 2″ concept was a bit over the top. BUT… It worked.”"That’;s what I’m saying. I think you have your training. And it’s something you’ve been working at passionately for years.”"Yeah, since I was about 10.”"And you still love it.”So we talked about tennis and Timothy Gallway for a bit and I said something about the tennis racquet being sort of like a sword. And the game being fairly analogous to a duel. And in telling him about my game, I was describing my serve as a powerful weapon.

“The first cut,” he said.In principle, the serve is a single motion and attack, when executed effectively puts the opponent on the defensive. In my game it is my single strongest weapon. Nothing gives me more confidence than to have my opponents complement my serve at the end of a match. At the completion of a doubles match, hearing “We just couldn’t get a handle on your serve tonight,” is truly the highest complement one can receive in tennis. In addition to the WIN, that is.

I’ll go fish out my Gallwey book. And both my friend and I made a point to go seek out the new book The Inner Game of Stress.

Now I think I’d better go hit some tennis balls before the weekend rain starts again.

via The First Cut: Applying The Way of the Sword to Life and Tennis | uber.la.

Tags: Inner Game of Tennis, mental approach, success, Tim Gallwey

STOP THE WAR GOIN ON INSIDE EVERY PERSON’S MIND!!!!

Timothy Gallwey in is book “Inner Game of Tennis” described the war. He identified the “Self 1″, the logical, judgemental, mathematical, verbal, competitive, time orientation LEFT BRAIN hemisphere that constantly battles against the “Self 2″, the creative, spontaneous, intuitive, emotional, orientation in space, and in charge of life support RIGHT BRAIN hemisphere.

via Tennis Super-learning Program Stretching Is Important Part | Healing Sports Injuries.

Tags: awareness, inner game, Innergame, mental approach, potential

Fine’s interest in sports psychology led him to explore Tim Gallwey’s Inner Game concept, and ultimately into a long-time friendship and collaboration with Alexander and Whitmore, co-creators of the GROW model.

The three worked together for three years in the early 1980s—without monetary success, Fine ruefully recalls—before developing the model that has had such a lasting impact on the world of athletic and corporate coaching.

GROWing From the InsideOut Shortly after Fine and his collaborators developed the GROW model, the partners went their separate ways, with each of the partners utilizing his own approach to the model. Since then, Fine has steadily refined and built upon the original model.

via ::: Digital IQ Magazine :::.

Tags: Alan Fine, Alexander, GROW, Tim Gallwey, Whitmore

Inner Sports

Tim Gallwey in his best selling book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, showed how visualization can be much more effective than verbal instruction. As a tennis Pro, he became aware that each pupil’s mind seemed to contain two entities. A Self 1 who observed and commented on the play, and a Self 2 who actually did the playing.

Before a shot Self 1 would issue alI sorts of commands such as “keep your eyes on the ball”, “bend your knees”, “follow through”.

Then, after the shot, would come a verbal analysis – usually critical. When asked why they did this, most players would respond, “I am just talking to myself”.

Gallwey rationalized that “I” and “myself” had to be two separate entities, otherwise no conversation would take place. He developed the theory that Self 2 would be better taught by nonverbal means, and that the “relationship” between Self 1 and Self 2 must be improved to optimize performance. Indeed he observed that an athlete’s peak performance usually occurred when the verbal Self 1 was almost totally set aside. Players on a “hot streak” almost never analyzed what they were doing -they were immersed in the physical action and played instinctively and unconsciously. As soon as they tried to exercise conscious control, they lost their fluidity.

Gallwey, therefore, taught his players to engage, or distract, the verbal Self 1 during play, by describing external events. They would say “bounce” when the ball bounced, or “hit” when it struck the racket. They alternatively would be told to say the words of a song. These distractions, left brain activities, allowed the right brain and limbic system to control the physical play and make all the highly complex intuitive calculations that are involved in assessing ball speed, direction and angle of bounce.

The importance of not over-analysing and of not verbalising an essentially non-verbal activity, was further re-inforced when `Inner Skiing’ was introduced. Small children, it was noticed, could learn to ski well in a day. Adults learn (or are taught) to depend more and more on verbal analysis and to trust intuition less and less.

The inadequacy of the verbal hemisphere controlling the subtle but essentially physical movements of skiing, is made all too obvious when you observe the jerky movements made by people who are clearly rehearsing their instructors words in their minds. The fluent skier very often cannot even describe how he or she does it – yet obviously knows on a non-verbal level. Consequently increasing emphasis has been put on teaching skiing in nonverbal ways – and the positive results can be dramatic.

via The Power Of Your Imagination.

Tags: fluidity, instinctively, optimize, unconsciously, verbal instruction, visualization

Tim Gallwey, a former captain of the Harvard tennis team, wrote a series of books in which he described his findings that performance error resulted primarily from “doubt, tension and lapses of concentration.” We are at our most effective and creative in the moment. The moment is what we can impact.

via Why good golfers make good managers – Executive Travel Magazine.

Tags: Golf, influence, Inner Game of Golf, Innergame, Motivation, potential, Tim Gallwey

Nic Askew has been making a series of beautiful short films that he calls Soul Biographies, each film features Nic's guitar music in the background and a poignant message from the featured subject of the film.

Nic decided to re-release this old clip “At the feet of a wise man” about Tim Gallwey's transcendent experiences when he met with a 13 year old boy from India who offered him the key to self knowledge.

I share it both in recognition of Nics work and for the wisdom it contains

Martin Dewhurst

via At the feet of a wise man – Ecademy.

Tags: awareness, inspiration, Motivation, Sense, The Inner Game

“In every human endeavor there are two arenas of engagement: the outer and the inner,” says Tim Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Work. “The outer game is played on an external arena to overcome external obstacles. The inner game takes place within the mind and is played to overcome the self-imposed obstacles.”

via CEO 2-9-10.

Tags: coaching, Performance, sports psychology

“There is no need to fight old habits. Start new ones. It is the resisting of an old habit that puts you in that trench. Starting a new pattern is easy when done with childlike disregard for imagined difficulties. You can prove this to yourself by your own experience.”- W. Timothy Gallwey.

via Muslim Youth for Truth: “My friends made me do it.” How to deal with peer pressure and getting the courage to finally say NO..

Tags: awareness, influence, inspiration, mental approach, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey

Inner game is what enables you to act. Nothing less, nothing more.

The Longer Answer

Timothy Gallwey first coined the term ‘inner game’ in his book The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. He wrote that “every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game”; where the outer game is fought against another opponent and the inner game is fought against your own inner doubts and fears.

via What is Inner Game?.

Tags: awareness, empowering guide, influence, inner game, inner game of work, potential, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey