You may think that the aim of practice is to get better every time. Why bother practicing at all if it is not going to improve your performance on the field?

Brain expert Tony Buzan disagrees.

After 30 years of research into how your brain develops skills he has worked out that in order to reach your goals it is invetable that you will fails somewhere along the line. It's how you deal with that failure that makes you a better cricketer.

Imagine you are practicing now. You are working on catching the ball over your shoulder a difficult skill. You may catch the first few and then drop one. Do you give up or do you work out why you dropped it and try again?

If you keep trying you are unknowingly implementing a mental technique that Buzan describes as TEFCAS.

TEFCAS can be applied to any skill you are practicing. So instead of giving up, thinking you have no talent or pretending you can't be bothered next time you fail try TEFCAS:

1. Trial. This is the skill you are attempting a power clean, a cover drive or a googly.
2. Event. This is the outcome of your attempt. It either works or it doesnt.
3. Feedback. This is how the Event feels. The touch, the balance, the sounds.
4. Check. Automatically you check the event and feedback to allow you to...
5. Adjust. Here you try and make up the difference. There may be several adjustments before you finally reach your goal.
6. Success. It helps to know what this success is likely to look like. So always plan your goals in advance.

It's a simple model that keeps you motivated to practice harder and with more focus.

It makes failure the new success.

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