Meditation has become a very general term for some people.
It could just mean someone wants to be alone, or sit quietly, think about something, or just relax.
Professional meditators have fixed rules and routines regarding their specific type of meditation.
The one common element with them is the length of time it takes to learn how to meditate correctly, usually many years.
If you know exactly how to use a form of meditation for motivation, then that is great, and don't need any guidance.
For the rest of us, we could use the term loosely, and say we are going to meditate, as long as we include deep relaxation and visualisation in the criteria.
These are the two essential factors for getting motivated, and even more so, for staying motivated.
Being relaxed means deeply, not just sitting down listening to favourite music or t.
v.
shows.
This will only get you down to Alpha level relaxation, which is not effective for self programming type visualisation.
You need to get into at least Theta, and even better, Delta.
Both are very deep relaxation states, and necessary to activate deep memory processing, firstly Theta, and then into Delta.
A good example is when I heard a football player being interviewed on camera during half time.
He said he was disoriented and played badly because he couldn't remember a thing the coach told him before the match.
All the instructions he was given probably didn't go below his Beta level, which is the conscious, superficial level.
Being highly stressed and tense, he simply could not get the coach's information into his deep memory, so he forgot it as soon as he walked out the door.
This is largely the coaching fault for not conveying the instructions when all players are relaxed.
This should have been done much earlier, and then all the coach needed to do just before the match, was to do a short recall briefing.
The players should have remembered it easily, because they already had it stored in their deep memory.
The same for when they are on the field during the game, all the strategies should come naturally, without any effort or stress.
One expert in this sports memory training is Dr Ashley Craig, professor of Neuropsychology.
He described his visualisation/memory strategy to me, and it was exactly as I would have done it.
Dr Craig was fortunate to be given a Government grant of $40k on one occasion, to research this area of football mental memory.
He based himself at the Panthers clubhouse for this exercise.
He worked closely with the players and their coach, and trained them how to visualise the required game skills and tactics, when they were relaxed - to programme it into their deep memory.
After only a few weeks the team went from bottom of the competition ladder, to second top! Another example he gave me was how Roger Federer visualised himself hitting aces, for a whole hour before a tennis match.
One hour is way too long, because you can still do it effectively, in just a few minutes, but anyway it works for him.
Effective visualisation is the key for motivation, so we won't use the term meditation, in case of confusion.