‘Accept The Responsibility’

Most sportsmen want to perform at the best and desire to win the game. Most top performers advocate to win the mind game first and this is reinforced by choosing to accept the responsibility. Standing up and be counted will go a long way to get the best out of you. Since, what you think has a big impact on how well you perform and thinking confidently leads to playing well and thinking negatively leads to playing poorly. Hence it is vital to understand your thought process and your ability to choose. As cricketer, when practicing and during game there are things happening on which you have little control, but you can control your reaction to it. The following four responsibilities could help to have strong mental game: Goal:- Having clearly defined goal gives you the direction in which forward momentum should be maintained. Your goal clarifies

1. Why you participate in your sport?
2. What type of cricketer you desire to be?
3. What you desire to accomplish in competition?
4. What would you like your reputation to be as cricketer?
5. How would you like to be remembered as cricketer?

The above will help you to put direction, intensity and purpose to your practice sessions and competitions. Focus on the process rather than the outcome:- Many talented cricketers fail simply because they are focusing on the outcome (like scoring 100 runs or picking 5 wickets) instead of the process of achieving the outcome goal. And they fail to understand that the outcome of what you are trying to achieve is outside of your control. Remember it’s vital that you must focus your energies on the process of the competition rather than the results of your efforts. Develop your mental skills:- Just as you need to develop your physical skills such as batting, bowling and fielding, you need to develop some key mental skills to become an effective cricketer. Learning mental skill such as relaxation, concentration, visualisation, positive self-talk, rituals, performance routines and daily goal setting. These skills will help to overcome tight situation when the game heats up. ‘Accept The Responsibility’ Learning never ends:- The day you begin to feel that you know every thing you progress stops. Make a commitment to learning something each day. It’s vital that you get into the habit of constructively evaluating each of your performances. Mentally replaying key movement s of your batting or bowling or fielding skill this would speed up your learning process. When evaluating performance even a bad performance could become a positive experience if you could draw a lesson or two from it. It’s extremely important to have quality practice sessions. Practices with purpose will make you a better cricketer. Practicing skill with intensity and purpose will build confidence to implement it in competition don’t expect a skill to simply show up in competition if you haven’t practiced it first. Most youngsters make the mistake of practicing only the physical side of the game but fail to devout time for the mental side of the game in practice, so important for their development. So you up and coming cricketers spend time to practice the mental side of the game which will enable you to handle the pressure during competition. Remember, to put the above in practice. It’s up to you to “Accept the Responsibility!”