KARACHI, Aug 25: Former Pakistan international cricketer and psychoanalyst Moin-ul-Atiq conducted a three-day motivational programme for under-19 cricketers at the regional academies of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in Karachi and Hyderabad recently.

The activity named ‘Sports Psychology Sessions’ by the PCB and also attended by some coaches and video analysts, was aimed at developing confident psychological attitude in budding players so that they could incorporate and employ that constructive approach in the game.

In Karachi, 30 players from across Karachi and Quetta participated in the session while 23 young aspirants from Hyderabad and Multan featured in the Hyderabad academy session. The programme in both the cities was kept uniform.

“The fundamental purpose behind arranging this activity is to help these youngsters seek long-term success in their professional endeavours,” Moin said while talking to Dawn on Thursday.

Elaborating on the exercise, Moin, Masters in Sports Management who has conducted several motivational programmes during the last few years, said it was divided into three segments spanning three days, adding the first day lecture focused on developing positive mental attitude, regardless of the circumstances, among young cricketers.

“This was based on the principle that success depends 80 per cent on one’s attitude, and only around 20 per cent on aptitude,” he underlined. “In my lecture the participants were urged to shun negative and pessimistic attitude while inculcating clarity of thoughts in mind to confront the on-field challenges with full confidence and self-belief.”

The participants were then involved in a (hypothetical) case study featuring two cricketers — ‘A’ and ‘B’ — belonging to the same team.

While ‘A’ continued to think about his ordinary past performances, a clear sign of negative attitude, failed miserably in the match, ‘B’, forgetting the history, played with a positive and refreshed set of thoughts, faced the situation with determination and accordingly met success, Moin explained.

The young players were also shown the pictures and video clips of legendary skipper Imran Khan whose resolute stance steered his side to victory in the 1992 World Cup.

“The second day of the programme revolved around ‘power of goal-setting’ which is the sum total of good planning and good execution. A goal, which can be categorised into sub-goals, situational goals, mid-term goals and even off-season goals, should be SMART, which stands for ‘Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable and Timeable,” Moin elucidated. “And while good planning must include clarity, successful execution contains positive action, visualisation and determination.”

Moin told the programme participants the example of Pakistan’s squash icon Jahangir Khan who used to visualise his goals before a match during his glorious playing days.

On the third and final day, a contest featuring the programme participants divided into three teams was organised (both in Karachi and Hyderabad sections) under the supervision of Moin, to put theory into practice. The teams which applied all the instructions given to them during the lectures naturally came out as winners at both venues.