The Mental Game

JoeW said:
Sorry for the poor wording Joey. The subconscious and the unconscious are different. You can easily access the subconscious by retrieving past memories. The unconscious is not easily brought to mind and contains other components.

To learn to "talk" with the unconscious read Leslie LeCron's "Self Hypnotism: The technique and its use in daily living." This text was published in 1964 so you would have to get it from abe.com or some similar place. LeCron's work is little recognized but aside from Erickson's work there is not much better.
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Joe, do you think neuro-linguistic programming occurs in "self-talk"? I'm intrigued by the concept that pitfalls exist in certain kinds of self-talk, because telling yourself "I'll be fine if I don't hit the ball really hard" verbally contains the instruction "hit the ball really hard."

I youtube'd a bunch of videos by Derren Brown who's a magician of sorts who does various tricks involving NLP and power of suggestion. It's interesting that using encoded phrases can give direct commands to people without them noticing. He does a trick on a subway train where he begins a conversation with someone by asking what stop they're going to, and then gives a brief spiel which ends in "...funny how things can just slip out of your mind, such as where you left your glasses or a train stop; thinking about it now, can you tell me again which stop you're getting off at? They totally can't remember, and stammer until he tells them "it's okay, I think you'll find if you pause that you really can remember", and then they do remember.

Do you think embedded phrases, like "stop thinking about it now" in the example above, are a pitfall of self-talk such as "Don't hurry the stroke" or "Be sure not to hit very low and pull the ball in the side pocket"?

-Andrew
 
NLP does not enjoy the respect of traditional academic disciplines because there is little empirical evidence to support its claims. In my opinion, and it is not a reflection of what the discipline would say, I suspect that much of NLP is based on an understanding of the principles of hypnosis. There are several ways to induce a light trance and several ways to suggest to the mind that it is "good" to function in one or another way. The lasting effects of these treatments depend upon several things.

Self talk is useful to the extent that it is simple and clearly related to a goal. Confusing statements with negative and positive messages are generally reduced to simple statements that may or not be acknowledged and used by unconscious processes. The simplification will depend on what the unconscious perceives as the more important goal. This goal may or not be consistent with what one is thinking about at the time as indicated in your statements above. The unconscious would reduce, perhaps as you indcate, the statement to a simple request.

Self talk should not be used for multi-part tasks because it is confusing. Complex tasks should be reduced to a statement such as "make this shot."

I think the better way to use self talk is preceding a match with positive affirmations that help to induce a state of mind. Then one needs to refrain from self talk and attempt to use whatever emotional definitions one typically uses to win. For some people anger helps, for others a positive state of mind is best.

In general, during a match, one should keep it simple with easily recognized objectives and goals. "One in the side," on the break shot. "Two in the corner pocket." "CB to center table for the three." Etc. The intent is to refrain from any sort of possible mixed messages. The unconscious is usually quite literal and takes the real meaning of what we intend. All too often people think they can fake themselves out and this is not usually possible. We can say things like I want to be in a good mood and use music and or that good mood walk to get in this state. We cannot do this if, in the back of our mind, we wonder if our girlfriend is really flirting with that guy at the bar.

BTW note that "Two in the corner." Is not the same as, "Two in the corner pocket." That is one example of how literal the unconscious can be.
 
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JoeW said:
NLP does not enjoy the respect of traditional academic disciplines because there is little empirical evidence to support its claims. In my opinion, and it is not a reflection of what the discipline would say, I suspect that much of NLP is based on an understanding of the principles of hypnosis. There are several ways to induce a light trance and several ways to suggest to the mind that it is "good" to function in one or another way. The lasting effects of these treatments depend upon several things.

Self talk is useful to the extent that it is simple and clearly related to a goal. Confusing statements with negative and positive messages are generally reduced to simple statements that may or not be acknowledged and used by unconscious processes. The simplification will depend on what the unconscious perceives as the more important goal. This goal may or not be consistent with what one is thinking about at the time as indicated in your statements above. The unconscious would reduce, perhaps as you indcate, the statement to a simple request.

Self talk should not be used for multi-part tasks because it is confusing. Complex tasks should be reduced to a statement such as "make this shot."

I think the better way to use self talk is preceding a match with positive affirmations that help to induce a state of mind. Then one needs to refrain from self talk and attempt to use whatever emotional definitions one typically uses to win. For some people anger helps, for others a positive state of mind is best.

In general, during a match, one should keep it simple with easily recognized objectives and goals. "One in the side," on the break shot. "Two in the corner pocket." "CB to center table for the three." Etc. The intent is to refrain from any sort of possible mixed messages. The unconscious is usually quite literal and takes the real meaning of what we intend. All too often people think they can fake themselves out and this is not usually possible. We can say things like I want to be in a good mood and use music and or that good mood walk to get in this state. We cannot do this if, in the back of our mind, we wonder if our girlfriend is really flirting with that guy at the bar.

BTW note that "Two in the corner." Is not the same as, "Two in the corner pocket." That is one example of how literal the unconscious can be.
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You are a very intresting person!, thanks for the insight.


David Harcrow
 
JoeW said:
NLP does not enjoy the respect of traditional academic disciplines because there is little empirical evidence to support its claims. In my opinion, and it is not a reflection of what the discipline would say, I suspect that much of NLP is based on an understanding of the principles of hypnosis. There are several ways to induce a light trance and several ways to suggest to the mind that it is "good" to function in one or another way. The lasting effects of these treatments depend upon several things.

Self talk is useful to the extent that it is simple and clearly related to a goal. Confusing statements with negative and positive messages are generally reduced to simple statements that may or not be acknowledged and used by unconscious processes. The simplification will depend on what the unconscious perceives as the more important goal. This goal may or not be consistent with what one is thinking about at the time as indicated in your statements above. The unconscious would reduce, perhaps as you indcate, the statement to a simple request.

Self talk should not be used for multi-part tasks because it is confusing. Complex tasks should be reduced to a statement such as "make this shot."

I think the better way to use self talk is preceding a match with positive affirmations that help to induce a state of mind. Then one needs to refrain from self talk and attempt to use whatever emotional definitions one typically uses to win. For some people anger helps, for others a positive state of mind is best.

In general, during a match, one should keep it simple with easily recognized objectives and goals. "One in the side," on the break shot. "Two in the corner pocket." "CB to center table for the three." Etc. The intent is to refrain from any sort of possible mixed messages. The unconscious is usually quite literal and takes the real meaning of what we intend. All too often people think they can fake themselves out and this is not usually possible. We can say things like I want to be in a good mood and use music and or that good mood walk to get in this state. We cannot do this if, in the back of our mind, we wonder if our girlfriend is really flirting with that guy at the bar.

BTW note that "Two in the corner." Is not the same as, "Two in the corner pocket." That is one example of how literal the unconscious can be.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clear explanation! I'm going to try this ultra-simplistic version of self-talk next time I'm on a pool table, to see if the simple commands help engage my unconscious in the correct direction.

Rep coming your way.

-Andrew
 
If there is a trick, it is that you must be sincere with yourself. That is you have to mean what you say and really want it to happen.

One of the problems here is that at times our unconscious is not pleased with some prior behavior we engaged in and over the next few hours or days we may be in a funk and not know why. At these times the unconscious, something like a little kid, gets even and doesn't care if we win or lose. In fact, it may make sure we lose. The way around this, if there is one, is to be honest and on good terms with who we really are before we go play pool. If you find that you are, "just in a bad mood," playing pool probably won't help until we address the underlying problem.

When you think that you don't know what the thing is that is bugging you just sit down for a few minutes and let the problem kind of bubble up in your mind. If you listen to yourself you will get an image, a glimpse of a memory, or something similar. Now all you have to do is deal with it like you should have in the first place. If the unconscious knows that you are trying to get along it will show you what is bugging it.

When you are on good terms with yourself, you can play your best with simple requests for help. Working with the unconscious is tricky for those who try to jam it, it simply doesn't work.
 
Once in a league match I was not thinking about anything just passing the balls for racking and my opponent said "I hope you are not planning to run a third rack on me in a row now?" I said what? She said "You just ran out two racks on me and I hope I get to play the next game".
I was totally unaware that I did that, did not know what was the score or where I shot my last ball or what was the layout of the table. Nothing, like if I was not there...
 
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