Upgraded Instant Replay

In volleyball you can play far better defense if you watch the hitter’s arm rather than the ball. When you do this, you can tell how hard they are hitting and where they are hitting before they ever hit the ball. If you watch the ball, you can only tell these things after the ball has already been hit.

However, I’ve been watching the ball for 30 + years. So, that habit is fairly ingrained.

Recently I started replaying the play in my mind right after it happened except that in the replay I watched the hitter’s arm instead of the ball.

Last night something clicked. I’ve never played defense that well before. I kept watching the hitter’s arm which got me to the right spot before the ball got there. This was so much easier and involved far less diving for the ball.

Why did this work? Because I trained my brain to do something different. A part of our brain cannot tell the difference between real and imagined (which is why visualization is such a powerful tool) and we learn through repetition. I created many repetitions of reading the hitter’s arm in my imagination.

Secondly, I was consistently kind to myself. I never beat up on myself for not watching the hitter’s arm or got discouraged. I just ran the modified replay in my head and felt good about myself.

We can use this strategy all over our lives – the sales call that didn’t go the way we wanted, the undesired behavior showing up again, getting our buttons pushed . . . many ways to use upgraded instant replay.

Much Love,

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