Mirroring is a common practice in hypnosis and falls under NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming). As far as I’m concerned, mirroring is about copying something or somebody as precisely and specifically as possible. That involves more than you think.

Let’s say you want to improve at golf. You could watch your favourite golfer on TV and really take notice of what it is they do physically to become great and play their best shots. You can spend hours trying to recreate their movements and still not get the same result.

That’s because what makes them great isn’t just how they hold their body or their club.  It’s not just in their swing. The language they use, their self-talk, and even the core beliefs they hold of themselves impact their every shot. What do they visualize as they prepare? What are they saying to themselves as they pull back their swing? To truly mirror you’re favourite golfer you’d have to do much more than mimic their physical actions. You need to mirror their thoughts and feelings as well.

So mirroring is essentially copying the best bits from the best people. It’s mimicking what they do internally, as well as externally. Everything that golfer you watch thinks and says and does culminates in the shot they take. I use an element of mirroring in my Great Golf hypnosis download (and CD), as well as in most sports hypnosis recordings, and some of the performance enhancing sessions. It’s done often in a quite indirect way so that you might not even notice it during your hypnosis, but you can be sure that it’s using tried and tested mirroring techniques.

Hypnosis allows us to visualize ourselves doing, thinking, and behaving in ways in which we aspire. By seeing ourselves in that place, by thinking the thoughts and feeling the motivations of what it is we want to accomplish, our unconscious mind begins to accept this picture as an actuality. We become capable in our waking state of what we see and feel in hypnosis. If there is a sport or activity that you want to improve in, consider using hypnosis to help you achieve your goals. Not only will your performance get better, but you’ll also get all the benefits of stress reduction that creative relaxation has to offer.