David Moyes Could Have Avoided the Axe

By Ruth Bayley

There can be few worse jobs or more publicly humiliating jobs than that of a football manager. Lauded on your arrival, at least by the media, and cheered on your departure.
So how can you make the job easier? How can you make the stresses less? How can you foster understanding between you, your players and the all-powerful board?
It used be said that goalkeepers were mad, though none that I have ever spoken to would admit to that, but at times you do have to question the sanity of a manager. So when you take such a job, how do you avoid the pitfalls?
After the initial euphoria of joining your new club has naturally ebbed away and you get on with the job at hand, the reality of the task starts to set in. Whatever the size of the club, day to day football management is all about:

• Bonding with your team, getting your new players to listen to you and work with you.
• Halting the natural reaction of the players to compare your actions and words to the previous manager.
• Getting wins, or at the very least, points.

So how do you change the culture created by the previous management?
You no doubt know, either from previous experience or watching others try, that meeting any resistance with a show of force, in the sense of, "I'm the new manager, you will do things my way", is a pointless and mentally tiring exercise.
Just as two magnets with the same polarity repel, so too will you and your players. So consider a different, positive route for yourself your coaching staff and your players. Take a moment to answer these questions honestly.

• How do you need to think and what to you need to visualise to move your team forward?
• What previous bad experiences have you had? Are you finding those memories pushing in?
• What experiences have your players had under the previous manager?
• What pressures have the board just heaped on your shoulders as they shook your hand?
• How do you usually handle the media?
• How would you prefer your personal secretary to act?
• What new procedures do you need to put in place to aid you and your team?
• Who is likely to meet these new plans with resistance?

When you have your answers you are now able to see what the main points are. Now you need a way to achieve your new goals and overcome any resistance, be it yours or others, as you set about getting your team into winning ways.
Visualising your Goals
Something few people know is that the mind doesn't know the difference between visualisation and truth. Let's take the most basic example to prove this point so that you can see how visualising the achievements of your and your players.
Imagine you are holding a lemon, see the vivid yellow colour, its shape and feel the dappled skin as you hold it in your hands. Now see yourself cutting the lemon in half, the juice spraying out as you do so. The sharp juice of the lemon filling the air. Now see yourself biting into the lemon tasting the bitterness.
What has happened to your mouth as you have visualised this process? Your mouth will have filled with saliva at the sharpness of the juice. As far as your brain is concerned, you just ate a lemon and all your senses acted accordingly merely on the thought of doing something. The brain can't distinguish between reality and imagination and so your brain becomes your greatest tool and asset.
Take a few minutes to visualise all the goals you wish to achieve coming true. Hear, see, feel and smell the reality of the pictures you are seeing. Feel into it; let your body feel the excitement generated by them coming true, the adulation of your team, fans, board and media. Find the time in your busy schedule to sit and do this exercise once a day, more if you can manage it. Each time start to activate the goals the coming to you by visualising, by using your emotional intelligence.
What about those bad experiences?
You always have the choice to decide what you think, and just like the magnets that repel when they meet their mate, thoughts can also repel or attract. Every thought you have attracts another, and more importantly, it pulls in to your physical experience the very thing that you are thinking about.
When you have had bad experiences in your career as a player or manager or in your personal life, those memories and feelings can all too easily start to push in to the present, if left unattended. Changing a bad thought for a good thought can work well, yet if it's a deep rooted belief or distressing emotional memory, you might be better using the phenomenal Emotional Freedom Techniques, or as it's better known, (EFT).
I cannot begin to explain in words how fantastic this tapping technique is at removing your emotional connection to a memory. I use it regularly and have used it with people to help remove their connection to a fear of failure, unburdening them from overwhelming stress or feelings of guilt. This technique knows no bounds to what it can help with, lack of form, lack of focus, phobias or even homesickness.
This technique is best done one to one as you'd be surprised where an issue can have its roots, and it will help you when you start to feel the pressure, or help your players overcome their natural resistance to new methods and raise team morale. You can find out more about EFT by clicking on the EFT tab above.
What about those who enjoy making obstacles?
There are always going to be people who start sentences with, 'We used to do it like this' or 'I don't think that will work' or even, 'What will others make of it?' Sometimes these people are in positions that you can't do much about, even if you'd like to you can't show them the door, though that doesn't mean you have to be a victim of their thoughts unless you let yourself.
If you can't stop them from this line of thinking, you need to know that you have the tools to stop it penetrating your mind. Use peoples negativity as a way of gauging your own opinion about yourself. If someone says something judgemental or restrictive and you feel yourself about to jump and respond, notice it. Their words have struck a nerve for a reason; somewhere you hold that belief about yourself. Consider using EFT to take that negative belief away or it will play over and over in your mind and body until it infects what you are thinking and doing.
If peoples negative words don't have a physical impact on you, but you would rather that they didn't try and intoxicate your space with bad vibes, imagine their words as a gift or an egg. You don't have to accept the gift or crack open the egg, you can just leave it unopened