The Secret Ingredient of the Big Win
Bend has a reputation as an athletic town. If you’re not an athlete yourself, you surely have a friend that is praying for snow and hitting the slopes, or praying for spring to hit the mountain bike trails or the golf course. Bend folks are playing tennis and running and swimming. Our children are on the soccer fields and basketball courts and doing gymnastic stunts. We’re hiking and climbing and caving. We are indoors and outdoors and we prize being fit.
Some of us are just playing because we can. Others of us are serious competitors. We enjoy ourselves, but we want to score and win! If performance matters, we’re out there pushing our limits, mixing up the training schedule with cross-fit and weights and swimming…you name it. But there’s an overlooked element that can make all the difference in whether you stand out from the crowd. It’s the power of your mind. We’ve all had the experience of talking ourselves into being too tired to work out. That is the power of the mind working against us. Equally, when you can really see yourself improving your time or your performance, you can do it. This was recently proven in a dramatic way on the national stage.
The Cardinals won the World Series through conventional and unconventional means. Sure they excelled at their baseball skills, but they had an extra secret ingredient. Waiting in the dugout, they got their minds and energy into the game through a technique of tapping their energy meridians. Sports teams have been taking advantage of physical therapy and massage for a long time, but this success is a harbinger of the possibilities that exist for athletes who engage the power of the mind.
Locally, a competitive athlete, Dayna Taus, has had plenty of opportunity to notice the difference in performance when she had her mind in her game. She received her Masters in Sports Psychology to help other athletes get past their own edges. The movie “The Matrix” was a hit, in part, because it created an image of what our bodies can do that was way beyond what anyone thought possible. Maybe the movie is just science fiction, but then people also thought that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible until Roger Bannister showed it could be done. Who really knows what our bodies are capable of? What would your “upgrade” look like if you could believe yourself into a new level of achievement in your sport?
Dayna Taus is the newest member of Positive Life Connections, a company owned by Jane Meyers. She helps people open to their possibilities through yoga therapy and sports psychology. If you’re an athlete who cares about results, give her a call and let her help you explore your amazing outer limits!
Dayna Taus, www.DaynaTaus.com, 541-647-3050. Jane Meyers, Jane@janemeyers.com.
