5 Ways To Improve Spurs Immeasurably

It is completely untrue that you can not learn mental toughness and therefore selling and buying new players in the hope they will be better mentally than the last lot is not always the best answer.

Why do athletes seek out mental coaches to enhance their performance?

Because it works, All sport is mainly a mental battle. Your body does what the mind tells it to do, it reacts to situations as the brain has trained it to do.

If you haven't trained your brain to remain calm, then you are training yourself to panic and the result of that lack of training is mistakes.

Jose Mourinho says we have to cut out the individual mistakes, well we can only do that by improving them mentally because a mistake comes either from a bad mental decision or from fatigue causing a bad mental decision or implementation.

What is the point therefore in ignoring that element that can make the difference, simply because that isn't the way it has been done in the past?

Those who actually work on their mental game are given themselves a huge advantage over the rest.

Becoming confident and being able to focus is no different than learning the fundamental physical skills any athlete learns for a sport. You simply have to work a few mental drills and over time your mental strength will become automatic, just like any other skill.

These are my top five mental drills that any athlete should work on if they want to achieve a competitive advantage.

You can do these drills anywhere and at any time.

Number 5 might be the most important.

1. Visualization (Imagery)

Not everyone is visual but that's OK, it isn't essential to be a visual learner in order to get the benefits. 

How could you do undertake mental imagery?

First, sit comfortably upright with a straight back in an upright position and if it has arms, rest them on it but pull your elbows back. Do not cross your legs.

Secondly. close your eyes to block out the sensations and distractions of everyday life. That will allow you to look inward into your own imagery world.

Thirdly is relaxed breathing, breath evenly and regularly, in through the nose and exhale slowly out the mouth.

The first cognitive benefit of visualization is to plan, prepare and practice. What do you want to achieve, imagine yourself doing so. Experience the joy, experience overcoming adversity, imagine what you would do to turn things around.

Jack Nicklaus was one of the greatest golfers of his generation. In his book, he said he would never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in his head.



Basketball studies have shown that mental imagery was almost as important as physical practice with upper-level players.

For lower-level players, practice was far more important because more professional players have better movement techniques and thus are in better positions to perform the technical skills.

That helps to explain why the man in the street thinks these things are rubbish because they don't have the fitness or technique for them to make a difference.

Football is archaic in these matters and hangs onto the way things have always been done. Sports science came into other sports before it came into football, such as assessing a player physically and knowing when he needs to be dropped to rest tp prevent injury, rather than running someone into the ground.

The game has to develop into more of a squad game than it is to maintain standards which means having a bigger squad of players at the same level and thus bigger transfer budgets and bigger wage bill

That involves bringing more money in so having an even more successful business off the field to finance it all with sugar daddies no longer allowed if you are competing in European competition.

Getting back to the exercise though, if you don't do this enough it won't work and many simply can't be bothered to put in the work because mental training still has a 'mumbo jumbo' stigma attached to it. 

You must not be vague in what they want to achieve when you visualize.

2. Get The Present

Ok, now this is totally underrated but it is an easy skill to master.

Multiple times a day, focus your attention on what your five senses are taking in to get into the present moment.

Why do you want to do this? Why is it so important?

Because fear cannot exist in the present moment unless you are faced with some physical danger, right here, right now at that point. Fear is the biggest enemy in sports.

The easiest way to explain this is to give you a simple exercise to undertake.

Look around you and focus on 5 things of beauty, be it a flower, a building, something artistic, something natural, the colours, textures



Next focus on four sensations in your body and nothing else, totally immerse yourself in those feelings.

Then focus on three things you hear. The wind, the ticking of a clock, your breathing a far off conversation, the sound of traffic, the rustle of a tree. It doesn't matter what it is, just choose three and spend time totally immersed in each one in turn.

Now focus on two smells. Again they can be any smell, perfume, cooking, fresh air, cut grass, anything.

Finally choose an object, close your eyes and feel what is telling you. Better still, close your eyes and have someone give you an object, be it something from inside or outside and describe it to yourself through touch, every curve, grain, feature.

Not only are you heightening your senses but you are helping your focus and growing your ability to stay in the moment and thus free of fear.

If you suffer from anxiety this exercise might help you.

3. Affermation

Mental tool number three is using affermations. 

Create a sentence or a few words or even just one word, that you repeat often to yourself, multiple times a day.

Highly successful entrepreneurs use this technique. The highest-paid business consultant in Canada uses this technique.

There is a complete science behind this that has demonstrated that it works.

Every day, when you are going to bed or waking up, your brain goes through a zone of Theta neutrality.

Theta is the same brain state as the first 7 years of your life when you subconscious brain is recording and not playing.

The every day repetition of putting on earphones and playing a program of behaviour that you want to procreate in your life will then manifest that experience.

Make it something that means something to you about your ability to compete at your best.

Your confidence for example, "I never give up" or "I work harder than anyone else".

Say this to yourself dozens of times a day until you believe it wholeheartedly.

Believing something wholeheartedly is one of the big keys to success as when you do you find extra energy to put in, you gain more creativity, you find answers to your problems. 

Your belief drives you on, it dispels doubt, there is no room for it if you wholeheartedly believe in something.

Let me explain why.

There is a difference between being interested in achieving something and being committed to achieving something.

If you are interested in something you will do what is convenient for you to do to try and achieve it and you won't achieve it. You'll do what is easy and what everyone else does.

That is what Tottenham are doing with the training of players. Thus the only other solution is to outspend and out pay the wages of others. That method is the fans only solution.

However, if you make the decision to be committed then you can achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. 

Why?

Because you will learn what you need to learn, you'll rehearse what you need to rehearse, you'll practice what you need to practice, you do everything that is needed to be done to achieve it.

The people who are committed don't have excuses, the people interested do.

Committed people relentlessly give up all the excuses for their life being the way it is. They stop blaming other people, they stop blaming their circumstances, they stop blaming the economy, they stop blaming the politicians, they stop blaming their lack of knowledge, they stop blaming their boss.

What they do do though, is to focus all their attention on how they WILL achieve what they want to achieve and their subconscious brain will help them figure out the way to do it.

It is vital that every player is committed and if the club could open their eyes to the possibility of training the brain, then we could have the success we crave within the budget we have available.

4. Letting Go

Mental skill number four is letting go. 

Undesirable things happen to us every day so make it a conscious practice to reduce the time between when those bad things happen and when we can move on.

You want to make it a habit to verbally forgive yourself when you make the mistakes that cause those undesirable moments.

Sport is about who handles making mistakes the best. 

How good are the Spurs players about handling mistakes? 

Does it affect them, does it affect the team?

How does each player react to a mistake by another or even a pass they don't receive when they feel they should?

You'll see a player hold a hand up, yep I have made a mistake. What is he actually doing?

Well, he is defusing other players. You can't complain to someone who has already offered an apology, you don't feel good about it.

Now he might be saying to himself he made a mistake and to put it behind him, but are the other players or are they letting it fester?

Do the crowd let go? No.

Does Twitter let go? No.

Fans tend to stay in a bad place and introduce negativity into the equation, the very thing that works against success.

You need to build resiliency with this practice.

5. Focus

Tool number five is focus. Practice your ability to focus multiple times a day.

Pick something to stare at and time yourself for how long you can focus on that one thing without any other thoughts creeping into your mind.

You see, the ability to focus is like a muscle that gets stronger. When you use weight training you get stronger and stronger, better and better.

You are physically improving but are you mentally improving to go with it?

Your brain is another muscle that need a workout.

When a thought enters your head, refocus on the object. It won't take long before your focus improves. You can find time to focus and do this exercise at various points during the day.

Make it a daily habit. Now if you can do that and see improved results then why isn't a footballer on £140,000 a week able to use the same technique to improve his intense focus, so crucial at that point in front of goal, like Serfe Aurier against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup tie?

Do you think with intense focus he could have scored or set someone up to score?

Do you think focusing on the task and technique at that vital moment would have made a difference? You are damn right it would, so why isn't it being trained?

Do you think we would have lost points from winning positions so often if we had greater focus on what we were doing?

Why then are we leaving it to chance that players learn or develop, they are all internationals, not kids just out of the academy lacking the technical skills?

Why isn't it common practice, why are Spurs not doing it?

Answer, because it isn't what has been done before.

That last drill will have a huge impact and it is so simple to do.

As I keep saying, Spurs need to innovate in this area, not ad-hoc, not once a season, not when a player feels he needs help, but as an essential part of weekly training.

We want young players wanting to come to the club knowing we can make them better players because of our innovative approach.