The most important ingredient for success is
conditioning your mind to reduce the time needed to improve and reinforce your
skills in various areas.
It can involve areas as diverse as golf to pistol
shooting. This conditioning involves you, who have had less success at this
point but determination and the basic skills, assuming internal models that as
close as possible to those which the more successful person has developed
through their greater training and experience.
You still need the knowledge to do the task; handle the
gun or aim your golf ball, and the physical capacity to support your actions
but, using this technique can markedly reduce the time needed to improve the
results that you get.
You are, in effect, using the expert’s recipe (internal
model) to produce a better result than you could get with the one that you have
built up inside your own mind and muscles at this point.
You will probably not equal their results during the
training process, but your rate of improvement will be more rapid from that
time onward. You may also need to train yourself to accept that the rate of
improvement is really possible. Many of our limitations are imposed by our own
poor self-beliefs.
Sometimes that mental limitation is reinforced by our
parents and our peers, too.
So, we model the methods of those who are getting the
results that we desire. Then, we produce a mental image of us doing the task
more successfully than ever before. This might be from a viewpoint inside your
own body or as a movie where you are watching yourself doing it.
Some people are more comfortable with one method or the
other but you should try each method and not just stay with the first one that
you try all the time. Using one method will be better for you with some
activities, while you’ll get better results with the other in different
situations.
A particular method will not always be the best for
everyone that is engaged in the same activity because our circumstances, belief
systems and ability vary greatly. So, if one type of mental image does not help
you much for some task that you are trying to improve your results with, clear
your mind and create the other type of movie (internal or external view).
Of course, you will find that the benefit you get from
these techniques will improve as you use them a few more times and become more
confident about their effectiveness.
If you don’t get the sort of results that you expect
with both types of mental reinforcement, you may need to study the expert more
closely; your modelling may not be based on sufficiently accurate and detailed
information of the expert’s approach and techniques.
Use Positives to Reduce
Negative Influences
Another powerful technique that will accelerate your
path to success is to consistently fill your mind with positive thoughts - and
reject or, at least, reduce the impact of negative influences that may be
around you.
When a particular problem is pressing on you to the
point that it’s affecting your work or personal life, it can help to write out
the problem and all the possible outcomes. Some people can do this just as a
mental exercise, but others find that they can focus better by writing it all
down.
Now, consider the worst outcome and how important would
the impact of it really be?
People that go through this exercise often realise that
they have assigned greater importance to the matter and brought more suffering
on themselves than necessary because the most feared outcome may be much less
likely and its impact not as critical as they had feared. If that is true for
the matter you are dwelling on, then just crumple the paper and dispose of it.
If
the matter is truly serious, the exercise of writing it down will help you to
see the best options that you can use to deal with it, so that you can take
action.
And, after all, taking action when you have worked out
the different possibilities first, is the best way to handle any problem.
Anchor Yourself in the Good
Times
There are many strategies that help people improve their
lives and relationships. One such strategy is Anchoring which helps reproduce
your most pleasurable and successful actions and combat the effects of any
negative conditioning which you have stored within yourself.
When you achieve a particularly good result with
something (such as a golf stroke), or feel particularly good at a social
gathering (enjoying a joke with friends or after a really nice meal), anchor
the feeling that is in your mind so that you can quickly recall it at other
times when you may be finding it hard to stay motivated or upbeat.
You just need to do something that you don’t do as part
of your normal routine and associate the action with the pleasure you are
feeling at that moment. You might, for instance, touch your right shoulder with
your left hand or, less obviously, touch the thumb and a particular finger of
the same hand together.
Do it a few times while the good
feeling is still fresh - that helps your new anchor’ to get a firm hold in your
subconscious mind.
