NATURAL BORN BOWLER WINNING If you want to win a bowls match then you've got to understand the process which we all have to go through in order to win a match. It sounds so simple because the first player to get to twenty-one points wins the match. But? And it's a very big but because what do you do when you get to twenty points and you only need one and you keep missing easy shots to get the point that will win you the match and your opponent is slowly but surely catching up with your lead and you start to choke what then?. What then? And, you suddenly press the panic button and you end up losing the match. And you don't understand how that could happen because you were winning so easily and scoring so freely. The sun was shining, you felt relaxed and you were bowling well and it was quite obvious to anybody watching you were by far the best player, and you lost. Why? Well, first and foremost you only got twenty points and you needed twenty-one points. But the difference between twenty and twenty-one points can be an absolute mile. It can be so difficult to win a close match. And you have to have gone through that situation to understand what you have to do it right now in order to get over the line, and it's a mental thing but it's very straightforward. You have to focus. In other words, you have to shut out all those negative thoughts that have been going through your brain and you have to learn the art of concentration. You have to do what you were doing at the start of the match and you have to start doing it again. That's called visualization, and that's all about focusing your mind on the positive side of your game and shutting out the negative. In other words, getting back to the positive side of your game, because it's not rocket science, it's just common sense and if you can learn to do that then you might just find that you start turning those hard-fought losses into winning gains. There are very few players who are able to win every match because that's not possible. But you can certainly win more than you can lose and that being consistent. Doing the simple things well but doing the difficult thing better than the rest and that's the winning mentality.