The Power Of Auto-Suggestion Over Fear And Anxiety

More and more professional athletes these days are understanding the benefits of tapping into their subconscious mind. Look at Ray Lewis, an all-star line backer in football. Every pre-game he repeatedly uses auto-suggestion in an unbelievably convincing way. He does this to ramp up his team-mates so that they get into a peak state before the football game starts. It's not just once in a while, he does it during the intros, the warm up, during the game, and after the game. The man has conditioned himself and his teammates to become completely fearless; it's incredible to watch.

What about Muhammad Ali? He created so much fear in his opponents and had an amazing record not because he was the hardest puncher, but because he continuously installed his subconscious mind with auto-suggestion continuously in a way that was scary! Some of the suggestions he used over and over again were: "I'm gonna show you how great I am," and "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Auto suggestion, if used correctly, becomes our reality, and there's plenty of proof to support it! I remember my former doubles partner from Quebec named Francois, who I nicknamed "war." He had a decent overall tennis game and was one of the toughest and most intense junior tennis players I had ever met in my life. He became a Canadian National Junior champion by intimidating his opponents (including me) with sheer intensity and willpower. On one occasion, I remember we were 30 minutes away from taking the court for our junior doubles final match. I heard a screaming coming from the boys locker room, so I went in to see what the issue was. There was this 14-year-old boy screaming into the mirror over and over again: "ALLEZ FRANCOIS, ALLEZ FRANCOIS!"

Now, I didn't know much French, but I knew that allez meant "come on" in an encouraging way in French. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "Are you OK?" He looked at me and with a huge smile. "Not yet!" We eventually won our doubles match and the junior doubles title in Canada. That day, I learned one of Francois's secrets to being such a tough competitor: auto-suggestion. It wasn't just the word Allez; later on in our junior tennis days he would say all sorts of sentences in French over and over again into the mirror, and since I would be scared for my life if I was in the room with him I would quickly exit and let him be.

The path to my own full recovery from life-altering anxiety is best explained again through one of Muhammad Ali's great quotes: "It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it's the pebble in your shoe." The pebble in my shoe was fear, so the best thing you can do if you suffer from phobias, anxiety, panic attacks or any other fear related mental difficulty is to add auto-suggestion into your daily life, and if put into action consistently with great emotion behind them you just might start convincing yourself that what you're affirming really is the truth!