The Peak Performance Expert

In my last post I wrote about the importance of preparation to ensure feeling and being composed in high stakes situations.  I specifically wrote about how to mange your body’s response to a percived threat.  Today, I’ll touch on mental preparation.

Let’s say you have a big meeting or presentation coming up.  You have to either present your ideas at the meeting or give a talk to a group.  Of course you will jot down your ideas and create an outline or a script.  And, of course you will (or you should!) rehearse (out loud) what you’re going to say.  You will attempt to memorize your key points so you don’t have to refer to your notes (or you should!).

Here’s a technique that helps you learn and retain new material and that will train your mind and body to respond in the way you wish.  It’s helpful to use this for a variety of high pressure situations including preparing for a test, rehearsing a talk, or practicing an athletic move such as putting in golf.

  STUDY/REHEARSAL/PRACTICE ROUTINE 

1.       Begin with relaxation exercise (Can be simply exhaling slowly several times)

2.       Once relaxed, connect with Ideal State (This is how you want to feel, act, be in the actual performance situation)

3.       Say CUE word/phrase to yourself (Cue word is your trigger - a word that connects to Ideal Performance State)

4.       Once firmly in “positive space” begin to study/rehearse/practice

5.        As soon as you notice you are leaving positive space, STOP EVERYTHING, then re-connect with positive space.

6.        Once firmly in positive space again, repeat CUE word/phrase and resume your work.

7.        Study/rehearse/practice ONLY in positive space.

8.        Important to strengthen association between positive space and study/rehearsal/practice.

9.        At time of test/performance, exhale slowly three times and repeat CUE word/phrase to get back into positive space.

By using this technique, you are essentially training your mind and body to respond in the way you wish. You are only “performing” (i.e., practicing) when you are in your ideal state so when you are in the actual performance situation, that is the state you will be in.  If you find yourself diverting from your ideal state during performance, say your cue word to yourself to reconnect with your ideal performance state.

As major-league baseball moves relentlessly towards playoff season, we all have the opportunity to see which team can survive the pressure.  The ability to stay poised and self-assured, even in high stakes situations is a valuable quality.  How well do you perform in high pressure, competitive situations?

The first step in improving your composure is self-awareness.  So you can ask yourself, when have you lost your composure?  What happened?  And also, when are you the most composed?

One way to ensure composure in high stakes situations is to be adequately prepared for those events.  Mental preparation is truly the key to success.  In preparing for a big talk or an important meeting, you might focus exclusively on the content and the organization of what you’re going to say and neglect the mental preparation.  This is a big mistake.

In oder to maintain composure, it’s useful to know how to control your body and control your thinking.  In today’s blog I’ll talk a bit about steps you can take to control your body’s response to stressful situations.

When we perceive something as threatening our body responds in particular ways.  Typically, your heart rate increases, your respiratory rate increases, and your muscles tense up as you prepare to run or fight.  This is fine if you are in fact going to run or fight.  However, usually, these responses undermine your performance. 

A quick way to reduce the negative impact of this is to focus on your breathing.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, don’t try to take a big deep breath, if you are in a stressful situation and you’re already tense, it can be very difficult to take in a nice deep breath.  You’re much better off focusing on your out-breath.  So exhale as slowly as you can, and notice how you begin to relax.  Now you can train your body and your mind to respond in any way you wish.  So why not train your body and mind to respond in a way that allows you to perform at an optimal level even in those high stakes situations.

Here’s one technique that I teach, and it’s called the Self Calming technique:

Find a quiet spot, sit upright,  and close your eyes.  Just notice the rise and fall of your breath for a moments.  And now exhale slowly, as slowly as you can, three times.  You might say to yourself, “With each out-breath I’m relaxing more and more.  As you relax, put your hand on your chest and notice the warmth from your hand spreading over your chest soothing you and calming you.  Continue to focus on your out-breath, telling yourself with each out-breath you’re relaxing more and more.  Be aware of the warmth from your hand as it contributes to your relaxation.  And you can say to yourself that in the future, whenever you’re in a stressful situation, all you have to do is exhale slowly three times, and put your hand on your chest in order to reconnect with these positive feelings of calm and relaxation.

If you practice this technique several times, it can be helpful to you in the heat of the moment.  So in a high-stakes performance situation, you can simply exhale slowly three times or even once and surreptitiously put your hand on your chest to reconnect to these positive feelings of calm and relaxation.

So this is just one example of a technique that you can incorporate in preparing for a high pressure, high stakes situation.

We in Red Sox Nation are looking forward to the return of power slugger, David Ortiz, this weekend.  Big Papi, who was on the disabled list due to a torn tendon sheath in his left wrist, will be on hand to help the Sox play their arch rivals - the Yankees - at Fenway.

It’s not unusual for athletes to get injured and get rehab but what most athletes do during rehab is quite different from what mere mortals might do.  Typically, while athletes are on the disabled list they continue their practice routines.  Now that may surprise you.  How can they do that if they’re laid up?  Well, they do it mentally!

Yep, that’s right, injured athletes spend time visualizing themselves going through their practice routines.  They don’t just think about it, they set aside quiet time and visualize themselves and feel themselves going through every aspect of their practice routines. And they do this over and over until they feel they’ve gotten a good workout. Research shows that those athletes who engage in rehab visualization return to the game in a much better status and are able to get back up to speed much more quickly than those who do not employ visualization.

How can this be?  The brain cannot distinguish the difference between an imagined and an actual performance situation; to the brain it is all performance.  Plus, each time the athlete sees him or herself pitching the ball or shooting the arrow, neural pathways are deepened and strengthened.

One study was conducted with a skier who was connected to various electrodes which measured what muscles were used at what time while he was skiing down a slalom course.  The researchers then had the skier come to a lab where they again stuck electrodes all over him only this time he was asked to close his eyes and imagine himself going down that same course.  He was told not to move his body, only visualize.  Well, the exact same muscles fired at the exact same time during both situations, albeit at a much reduced rate in the lab situation but we see the power of visualization.

This works for non-athletes as well.  A famous Asian concert pianist was imprisoned as a political dissident for years.  Each day she would visualize herself playing the piano.  Finally she was released from prison and was asked to perform in a concert.  She did so within days of being released and performed flawlessly.  The audience was amazed…how did she do it, not having been near a piano in years!  She gently told them, “Ah, but I have.  I’ve been playing these pieces for hours each day over the years.” Indeed she had.