Playing 'in the Zone' in Football / Soccer |
Any time you make a play on the soccer / football field that feels easy, effortless and perfect, feeling almost as if you can do nothing wrong... in that very moment, you are playing 'in the Zone'.
This is the mental state that creates the absolute pinnacle of performance for every player, allowing them to reach their highest levels of potential on the field.
I often think of playing in the Zone as kind of like living the dream when you are on the field - because when you perform at an incredibe level, it often it feels kind of surreal, or un-real - almost as if you were in one of those dreams where everything goes absolutely perfectly for you. But instead, that dream is actually real - you really are playing amazing soccer, right there on the field. Living that dream - while in the middle of a big game. That is the Zone.
So your next thought is "I WANT this!.." - which means your next question is: what IS the Zone, what causes it, and how to do GET it?
When you play your peak level, it means that your body's controls have been handed over to the most powerful inner computer within you, your subconscious. Within your subconscious there is a memorized record of every single moment of your training history, ball skills, experience, strategy, everything - and knows exactly how to implement them all perfectly, at any time.
In fact, the only reason why you are not in the Zone all the time is that the conscious mind simply refuses to allow the subconscious to take control, most of the time.
It only trusts itself to do the job and prefers to run the performance itself - and due to its wild thoughts and generally negative outlook, it generally does a fairly poor job on field. This is also because it cannot direct your body with the same expertise - as it does not have access to the massive files of soccer information your subconscious stores within the archives of its memory bank.
So the Zone is not a mental state that can be forced - because forcing it automatically brings the weaker conscious mind into play, and forces control of your performance from the subconscious.
It is more likely to happen when you play intuitively and instinctively, allowing your inner senses to do as they know best (which have access to all your training and strategy) - and suddenly you may realise you are playing at an amazing level on autopilot with very little conscious chattering of thought.
For your mental training needs, check out Mind Training for Soccer here on our site.
 |
