Upgrade your thinking – upgrade your performance
Human behaviour is driven by our thoughts about situations far more than by situations themselves.
It’s our thoughts and resulting feelings that motivate action or in-action, productivity or procrastination.
If your thoughts are in resistance to your current situation and you feel bad, then make sure that you’re not at that point trying to find a solution. It’s likely that your un-resourceful state will only lead to more unproductive thinking and poor performance.
When you feel good, then optimal performance is effortless. When you feel bad, poor performance follows. Therefore, aim to avoid decision making or taking action while you are in a negative state. First change your state into a resourceful one, then take action.
I’m not an advocate of positive thinking, as most people who try thinking positive thoughts (including affirmations and visualizations) are actually affirming that they have some deeper down negative thoughts. It’s their internal negativity that determines their reality more than their superficial positive thoughts.
There are effective ways of changing your internal state by using simple NLP skills like the following:
- Identify a thought that causes you to feel bad (remember you’re the only one responsible for your state, so don’t put the blame on anyone else).
. - Imagine writing that thought on a flying disc with a black pen, then wizz it off into the distance.
. - Take 3 deep breaths and spin around 3 times.
. - Then see your flying disc coming back toward you – now with a new feel good thought on it in bright colours. Catch it and make the new thought yours.
Any kid can do that, so can you!
Play with your flying disc in creative ways and have fun with this skill until you’re thinking, feeling and performing resourcefully.
Written by Jevon Dangeli – Transpersonal Coach, MSc Transpersonal Psychology
