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Another trick for dealing with persistent worries. This one is
based on visualisation. It's named after one of the better known
variants (more below), but your 'box' doesn't
have to be black.
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Settle down and relax. |
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Imagine yourself sitting
in a room, at a desk, looking out of the window at a pleasant
landscape. |
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Imagine a writing pad
in fornt of you, and a pen. |
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Just to the side, or
behind you, there's a safe, solid box, with a handle and a heavy,
well-oiled lock, with a key. The lid is open, and the box is
empty. |
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Imagine picking up the
pen, and writing down any worry that may intrude. Any kind;
from a niggling concern about your bow tuning to your mid-life
crisis. |
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Imagine taking that
piece of paper, folding it, and placing it in the box. |
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Repeat for any other
concern. |
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When all your problems
are in the box, close the lid securely, and turn the key. |
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Rest a little before
leaving the room and coming back to the real world. |
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iWhat you just did was to put your worries quite deliberately aside
for a while. They haven't gone away, but they aren't going to pop
out of that box until you go back there and open it.
When you've completed your shooting, find some time to go back to
the room, re-open the box and check your problems out again. This
is important; if you just try to forget about them, they will eventually
come home to roost, and if they can escape from the box , you'll
cease to believe in the box (I know this sounds weird, but it's
the way this stuff works!). So go back and sort them out.
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Variants on this method |
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Do it for real |
One archer I know didn't
imagine this. He just took a small notepad to shoots, wrote
down anything that bothered him and left it in his tent until
after the shoot. |
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Use the list for real |
If you've got a list,
check over the list after the shoot and plan a way to deal with
the problems on it. This is particularly powerful if you have
a written list; not only do you learn that putting a problem
aside is OK, but you don;t have to worry about remembering to
deal with it - you've got it on the list! A surprising number
of day to day worries are just 'I mustn't forget to...' |
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Burn irrelevant worries |
Add a hearth fire to
the visualisation and chuck any daft worries into it. |
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Use your own images |
Personal images work
better; use them! |
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Use a short version
on the line |
Once you've practiced,
you can probably work out a way to adapt the method for quick
worry sidelining; mentally put a sudden concern in your quiver
pocket or something for sorting out later. |
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When it works |
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Black box techniques take a little time; use one as part
of a mental warm-up routine or even the day before.
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Visualisation has to
be practiced to be effective. If you use the technique as described
here, spend time beforehand filling in details of your mental
'room' to make it real. |
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When it doesn't |
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Pushing problems aside without eventally dealing them just
teaches you that the problem hasn't really gone.
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