Timothy Gallwey Quotes

American sports coach

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W. Timothy Gallwey (born 1938 in San Francisco) is an author who has written a series of books in which he has set forth a methodology for coaching and for the development of personal and professional excellence in a variety of fields that he calls "the Inner Game". Since he began writing in the 1970s, his books include The Inner Game of Tennis, The Inner Game of Golf, The Inner Game of Music (with Barry Green), Inner Skiing and The Inner Game of Work. Gallwey's seminal work is The Inner Game of Tennis, with more than one million copies in print.

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All who enter even a little into that state of being present will experience a calmness and a degree of ecstasy which they will want to repeat.

In a society that has become so oriented toward language as a way of representing truth, it is very possible to lose touch with your ability to feel and with it your ability to “remember” the shots themselves.

Focus is not achieved by staring hard at something. It is not trying to force focus, nor does it mean thinking hard about something. Natural focus occurs when the mind is interested. When this occurs, the mind is drawn irresistibly toward the object (or subject) of interest. It is effortless and relaxed, not tense and overly controlled.

A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN MY ATTEMPTS TO UNDERSTAND THE art of relaxed concentration came when, while teaching, I again began to notice what was taking place before my eyes.

It’s not about the win or the loss; if we’re here to experience, then we are free.

Cele trei componente stabile ale muncii lor: performanta, invatarea si bucuria. [...] Cele trei componente ale muncii sunt interdependente. Daca, in stradania de a avea performanta, componenta de invatare este ignorata, performanta va scadea inevitabil sau se va opri la un anumit nivel. La fel, daca bucuria lipseste din ecuatia muncii, atat invatarea, cat si eprformanta vor avea de suferit.

Fear, which is probably the biggest obstacle to any learning process, is a repressive force. It exists in the mind, and almost always it is based on something that might happen in the future, rather than what is happening now.

Not assuming you already know is a powerful principle of focus.

Perhaps the most indispensable tool for human beings in modern times is the ability to remain calm in the midst of rapid and unsettling changes.

Forget should’s and experience is.

We will become better learners and more independent thinkers.

Fighting the mind does not work. What works best is learning to focus it.

Anxiety is fear about what may happen in the future, and it occurs only when the mind is imagining what the future may bring. But when your attention is on the here and now, the actions which need to be done in the present have their best chance of being successfully accomplished, and as a result the future will become the best possible present. So

Somehow the anger had taken me beyond my own preconceived limitations; it took me beyond caution.

"When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is."