Archive for the ‘Performance’ Category

Many of us have been challenged professionally, especially in these stressful, harsh economic times. Some of us are forced to shift what we do for a living, while others have been able to take some time to consider what it is they really want to do professionally. No matter your situation, it might be a good time to align with the BIG WHY – why are you in your career in the first place?

Many automatically say it’s for the money or the benefits. And, while that certainly may be a part of the big career picture, there truly are other forces at work in our choices for our own lines of work. You can discover your career values (or any of your life’s values like health, personal development, fitness, home life, for that matter) by asking yourself what is truly important to you about your career. It’s a powerful question, and one that needs revisiting from time to time.

Try this: take a minute to sit down and write out at least 10 values that are important to you about your career. Once you’ve made that list, place them in the order of importance to you.

For example:
1. Helping people
2. Educating people
3. Beautiful surroundings
4. Freedom
5. Giving back

and so on…

Once you rank your values in the order of importance to you, start at the top of your list, and ask yourself what is important to you about that particular value. What are the activities or duties you have in your current work that are connected to that value?

For example, let’s work with helping people. What’s important to you about achieving this value in life? What do you get out of helping others? Do you currently help others in your job? In other areas of your life? How? When? Why is this rewarding to you? How does this feed who you really are?

Think about these answers carefully, but, remember, this is just a snapshot in time. It’s how you’re feeling about your life and activities like work and values today – it may shift some on another day, and that’s why it’s neat to create these lists multiple times. But, the answers are indeed revealing. Your core values should be consistent. And, if they aren’t present in your current work, maybe there’s some room for you to explore other options, other work or activities that align with what you say is most important to you in life.

Keep thinking and making lists of values. Review them to see where the patterns lie. Also, check for negative statements – while it’s important to know what you don’t want to do, what you don’t value, this type of list is helpful for moving forward. When you really see what you love to do, acknowledge what you most value, then you can make some steps to get more of such activities in your work (and personal!) life. Why compromise when you know what makes you happy? You’ll be able to chart out a path that is rich and meaningful to you that is rooted in your core values.

Many of my clients come to me to deal with their anxiety and fear and transform it into positive energy that feeds them rather than takes energy away from their lives. The causes for such heavy emotions are varied, of course, and I hear throughout my daily/weekly sessions that people are afraid of these emotions – and are doing everything in their power to avoid feeling fearful.

In my experience, avoidance is probably not the best strategy as typically the emotion you are trying to avoid comes back with a vengeance. Negative emotions can fester, too, which then can transform into fatigue or other severe health problems. Not the kind of transformation most of us seek.

There are many steps I teach my clients to take to resolve negative emotions in order to help them regulate their energy and give them their power back.

If you avoid your feelings, or are plagued by fear and anxiety, you can do something for yourself immediately. This isn’t a quick fix but a first step at help until you can get the appropriate assistance to guide you in resolving the root of your true problem.

Take Time Out
Sit comfortably. Begin breathing in through your nose, and out through the mouth with your exhale lasting approximately twice as long as your inhale. Count to yourself to guide this practice. Raise your head every so slightly. Look up and find a spot on the wall or some area or object you can focus on. Soften your breathing as you focus on this spot. Keep your eyes fixed on the spot or object and start spreading your awareness to the periphery. Notice while keeping your eyes fixed that you can also see to the sides of yourself. Now, consider the space above your head, then the space below your body. Keep expanding your awareness all the way out, reaching, stretching this awareness to encompass the room, your space, your world, the universe.

Keeping your breathing soft, notice how you feel. Now soften your thoughts. You can even imagine space….in….between….each….of….your….thoughts. You can also imagine breathing through your heart. Notice how good this feels. (It sounds weird, perhaps, but give it a go!)

Spending just a few moments practicing this technique can really diffuse a stressful situation. If you are having a hectic day, use this visualization to help you to regain control while you’re still in the situation, right when it makes a difference.

And, practice, practice, practice. Your mind and body love repetition! When you make this exercise part of your regular practice it will work better, and become an automatic response geared to help you through stressful, fearful situations.

When we talk about states of being, we mean an emotion or feeling (happiness, sadness) that is held within us biochemically, via our individual internal electrical neural networks. When we experience emotions, the longest a strong urge can coast (biochemically) within our systems is a mere 90 seconds. In order for that feeling to last longer, someone is throwing logs on the fire! (hint: YOU).

In other words, according to the quantum zeno effect, paying attention to any specific neural connection keeps the associated circuitry open, dynamic, and alive. If you’re feeling severe anger for more than 90 seconds, then it is your own mind that is causing that emotion to last longer – not the emotion itself. In order for a state to persist, it has to be re-engaged or the nervous system has to be reminded to keep firing the same circuitry over and over again. This is done through making pictures or providing self talk or external stimulations from our environment. The stronger the feeling, the greater the number of circuits simultaneously fired.

I’ve blogged about the quantum zeno effect earlier this spring (and will keep doing so as this interesting and important topic is worth repeating). Remember that rapid, frequently repeated observations stabilize a system and slow the rate of change or decay. Fewer, less frequent observations destabilize a system and increase the rate of change or decay (anti zeno effect). The more you think about something, the longer you choose to not let go of a negative emotion or thought, the more hard-wired it will be in your system. Who wants that to happen?

How does this relate to being in the zone? Well, to get to that higher state (or relaxation, primarily) you need to be aware of what your mind is really focused on. Different information hangs out at different brain wave frequencies.

Gamma (my personal favorite!) 25-70 Hz:
Gamma waves are correlated with synchrony of far-reaching neural networks which creates integrative and more highly ordered cognitive and affective functions. They are instrumental in neural synchrony of processes like attention, working, memory, learning, and conscious perception. Gamma brain waves are evident during AHA! moments which are truly therapeutic moments lasting 200-300 milliseconds but that offer enlightenment for longer periods of time.

Beta 13-24 Hz:
Beta waves are correlated with a focusing of attention and perception coupled with active expression. These waves are evident during simple problem solving, arithmetic activities, and reality testing which each require making finer distinctions and communication through language. Because attention is focused, beta waves can also be correlated with many unwanted states that can hinder performance.

Alpha 8-12 Hz:
Alpha waves are correlated with states of relaxed alertness or more common flow states.They are evident during creative activities which can involve expression or reflection. In alpha, there is a widening of perception and relaxing of boundaries which allows for greater recognition of patterns, themes, and large frames of organization which can extend beyond language.

Theta 4-z Hz:
Theta waves are correlated with deeper states of reflection, contemplation, and sleep. They are evident during mystical experiences like out of body experiences, lucid dreaming, and deeper states of mediation. There is a further increase in the widening of perception and relaxing of boundaries which allows recognition of much longer cycles and larger patterns which are usually beyond language.

Delta 1-3 Hz:
Delta waves are correlated with only sleep for most people. They are evident during stages two and four sleep (physical restoration) where there is usually no conscious activity. In cases where consciousness is active, there is a further increase of experience of wholeness and boundlessness.

Have you guessed where the brain wave activity is when you’re in the zone? Can you guess where the brain wave activity is when change is most probable, possible?

The zone is a state of focused awareness or energized focus. A person is fully immersed in a feeling of focus or a single-minded immersion in performing or learning. It’s accessed through alpha or high alpha wave states. Athletes get into an expanded alpha or focused alpha state quickly. Monks get there during meditation.

But, how do you get there?

Try this basic practice. (I have my clients do this most every time they come in for a visit.)
* Take a nice deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Make the exhale last twice as long as the inhale.
* Look straight up for a few seconds. Try to see the top of your own head.
* Return your eyes to normal (look straight ahead). Now, soften your gaze and try to access your peripheral vision.
* Soften your thoughts.
* Now, do what you have to do…You are in the zone.

You can practice this any time you can be still for a few moments – not, however, while driving, running, moving. Just sit still for a moment during your day and practice this. Then, get out there and perform optimally.

For many of us, basic needs were not met when we were children. For many, still, our basic needs are not being met as adults. In order to evolve and self actualize, to unlock our true potential, we’ve probably got to do some serious inner work.

Remember that Maslow believed that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self actualized being. If we were all taught to recognize our potential from our earliest years, we could achieve just about anything. The following list provides some keys to unlocking potential in us all, and speaks to the educator in all of us.

1. Teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves, and to hear their inner feelings and internal voices.
2. Teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. Help people discover their vocation for life, their calling, fate, or destiny. (This is especially focused on finding the right career and right mate.)
4. Teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life. If people are open to seeing the good in all sorts of situations, life can certainly be viewed as worth living.
5. We must accept people as they are, and help them learn their inner nature.
6. Help assist others in securing their basic needs. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. Refresh true consciousness by teaching people to appreciate beauty and other positive forces in nature and in life.
8. It takes control to improve quality of life in all areas. (Controls and boundaries are helpful to achieving goals, while complete abandon in this regard might not necessarily help evolution.)
9. Teach people to transcend trifling issues. Assist them in approaching serious problems in life including suffering, pain, death, injustice.
10. Become a good chooser. Practice making good choices.

Think what a fabulous planet (world, community, home) we could create if we were all focused on unleashing our true human potential!

We all have an inner guidance that is greater than our conscious mind. In watching the Olympics it is obvious that some of the athletes have been trained to tap into this power. Some have headphones on right up to their race – what do you think they are listening to?

I always teach the athletes I work with to access the part of their mind that is beyond the conscious mind. This means to tap into their subconscious or unconscious mind. To best illustrate this, you might think of a computer or ipod with all of the amazing capabilities they both have. The face of the computer is the conscious mind and all the programs and capabilities the computer has is the subconscious or unconscious mind. Wouldn’t it be valuable to learn how to operate your subconscious mind to peak performance levels? That subconscious mind is running your body, after all. We all have and are born with this ‘hardware’ but usually it is our parents, teachers, friends, who add to or build our software. These software programs may or may not be working for you; few of us know how to use them. I teach my clients how to switch to the program they want to use when they are competing (or in other areas in life that doesn’t have extreme competition).

State of mind control is the most important talent to develop. We each have an inner switch (like a light switch) that allows us to turn on the confidence or turn off the negative chatter. There are many modalities I teach to allow my clients to be able to consistently accomplish this power. Think of the implications here – how these skills could improve performance or how these skills might improve your life.

My CD called Power Circle presents a state of mind switch that is easy to listen to and easy to follow for learning to retrain your brain to be confident. This is one technique that everyone can easily accomplish with a little effort!

There has been a lot of news lately about local and national sports figures making mistakes, poor decisions, and public apologies (just like the rest of us!). The pressure to maintain a positive image, to serve as a role model, and to perform has never been greater, it seems.

Almost every athlete I see is anxious, experiencing a fair amount of anxiety or fear about performance in their sport. By the time these athletes reach age 14, 15, 16, they have developed an actual pattern for their anxiety. It’s an ingrained, automatic response, which becomes more and more intense as the years move on. Some of my clients even argue that they need their anxiety to perform! These patterns can – and should – be broken so optimum performance levels truly can be achieved.

I have developed many different programs using NLP (neuro-linguistics, guided imagery, and trauma therapy) to help all types of athletes handle their stress, and alter their states of mind. Managing stress is possible and stress management techniques can be applied to most high-performance situations.

To train yourself to get into a desired state of calm, the CD Stay Focused is a treat. It allows you to learn how to go into and stay in peripheral vision, which allows your nervous system to actually experience calm. Listening repeatedly to this program helps you to learn how to get calm rather quickly. Stay Calm is a guided imagery program that helps you to learn to go from sympathetic nervous system to parasympathetic nervous system.

Get calm, stay calm, and improve your performance today!