via Loren Fogelman:
Can an athlete think too much? Well, yes and no. It depends on the time and place. Talk to any athlete whose under-performing. They will admit too many thoughts interfere with sports performance.
During high pressure moments of a competition, racing thoughts, critical thoughts or too many thoughts become a distraction. Thinking slows down response time. During those high pressure moments clutch players are not distracted by their own thoughts. Immediate, decisive action requires a quick response.
Whether you call it an inner sense, gut feeling, hunch, intuition, ESP it does not matter. They are one and the same. Even if you don’t believe in a sixth sense, you have one. You might as well develop it so you can use it to your advantage during crunch time.
The traditional approach to working through a challenge is to train harder, get stronger or build power. Many athletes don’t recognize the valuable resource already within them. It never occurs to them that they can tap into those abilities. What is the reason you don’t go with your intuition or those gut feelings? You never thought about it, you don’t believe in those things or do you tune it out?
Success driven athletes use whatever resources are available to them. It doesn’t matter whether it is a traditional approach to high performance, or not. Highly driven athletes are more interested in stepping out of the box of what is acceptable and pushing the envelope. Creativity and the willingness to take a risk are characteristics of winning athletes in all sports.
Combining physical training, ongoing education along with personal experiences, and intuition to foresee how things might play out is a valuable combination.
Intuition is not based upon linear, logical thinking. It is a subconscious process. It’s similar to viewing the situation from a bird’s eye view instead of a path. The focus is on the outcome, not on the steps to get there. It is a momentary gut feeling instead of a logical choice. Think about it too long and you are likely to talk yourself out of it since it lacks logic.
Athlete’s committed to high performance embrace the concept of deliberate practice. What does that mean? The plan is to continue improving your current skill set along with stretching your range of skills.
