William Shakespeare (1564-1616) in

Shakespeare’s heroine, Helena, utters these words to herself as she creates a plan to capture the heart of Count Bertram who considers her beneath him in social rank.

The quote caught my attention when I was in NLP Practitioner training.  NLP (Neuro-Linguistics Programming) is a powerful methodology for uncovering the structure of subjective experience; it helps us model excellence and draw on more of our inner resources to enhance our personal and professional effectiveness.  Helena’s words exemplified one of the fundamental premises of both NLP and coaching: the idea that we all have, or can develop, the inner resources we need to realize our potential and achieve our goals.

At first I was skeptical about the idea that we already have “all the resources we need” to solve our problems and to improve our effectiveness.  However, as I learned more, I came to realize that if we act as if this is true, whether we believe it or not, it is more likely to become true.  The principle is this: the suspension of disbelief actually opens the mind’s door for other possibilities to enter and take hold.  The reason it works is that the human brain doesn’t distinguish between real experience and imagined experience – it just files the information it receives, regardless of whether it comes from our senses or our thoughts.

How our brains play this “inner game” was famously applied over twenty years ago to the teaching and coaching of sports by Timothy Gallwey, the creator/author of “Inner Tennis”.  He was soon joined by Sir John Whitmore, considered by many to be the father of developmental coaching.  Gallwey and Whitmore eventually translated this new approach into a philosophy and methodologies that are used by today’s corporate coaches to enhance individual business performance.

I recently came across a vivid illustration of how the brain creates new files from real and imagined experience. Psychologists from the University of Chicago divided basketball players into three groups.  One group practiced foul shots for a month.  A second group spent the month imagining shooting foul shots.  The third group did nothing.  After 30 days the group that had been practicing with a basketball had improved 24%.  The group that had done nothing showed no improvement.  The group that had only imagined making foul shots improved an impressive 23%!

How could this be?  As far as their brains knew, both groups that had practiced – whether real or imagined – had thrown foul shots every day.  Furthermore, the group that had practiced mentally had become more confident because their brains had never experienced a missed shot.  The group that had practiced with basketballs didn’t gain as much confidence because their brains had experienced both hits and misses.  In an elegant self-reinforcing loop, success builds self-confidence which, in turn, increases the chances for success.

By Candace Thompson from her e-zine "Still Learning", inspired by quotes and named after Goya's inscription on his self portrait at age 80.