Welcome.
Today we're going to use our imaginations to help prepare you for something that you're facing in the future.
We often use our imaginations to imagine the catastrophe or problems that might arise.
Today we're going to do something that high-performance athletes do when they are preparing for a game.
This is something that you can do if you're facing a talk you're going to give or an important meeting or even a date that you're gonna go on or really anything where the stakes feel kind of high and you want to be sure you do a good job and maybe you're feeling a lot of anxiety about that.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna prepare you for having things go well by doing a mental rehearsal of the upcoming event.
So go ahead and take a deep breath in and gently close your eyes getting comfortable in your seat.
I want you to imagine the scene of the situation that you're going into in which you need to perform well.
Imagine the room,
Imagine the people that will be there,
Imagine the space,
The sights,
Sounds,
Smells.
And now identify what your role is in this scene.
What are you here to do?
What is your primary role and your responsibility in this situation?
And now think about a personal strength that will help you in this situation.
What is the strength that you bring to the situation?
Don't focus on the weaknesses or the fears.
Think about things that you're very good at.
The strengths that you are bringing to the situation which is why you're here.
Think about your performance objectives.
If this situation was going to go really well,
What would that look like?
How would you step up in your responsibilities?
What would you say?
What would you do?
How would you handle it if you were gonna feel very savvy,
If you were like on your best day and things were going really well?
Maybe someone throws a challenge at you but you know exactly how to respond.
Imagine maybe your favorite character from television or film or someone that you know,
Who you admire,
That tends to handle things really well.
Imagine what they would do and then pick up some of that swagger and handle the situation just as well.
Put your own spin on it.
When you're doing things and it's going really well,
How are other people responding?
What does it feel like in your body when you are handling things really well?
Are there specific things that you're doing that work really well in this situation?
Rely on all the information that you have about the situation.
Think about all of the things that you did to prepare for the situation.
So we're in the future now looking back.
Everything that you are planning to do to prepare for the situation,
You will already have done.
How does that feel to have prepared so very well?
Now think about the situation,
The event being over and you leave feeling very good about how you've done.
Can you identify a positive feeling from a successful performance?
Really summon that emotion,
The confidence,
The security,
The glow of having done a good job,
The self-respect from having prepared so well.
You may want to run through this exercise several times.
Every time you start having anxiety,
Imagine yourself handling things really well.
And keep picturing that.
Maybe there's a challenge that comes up but you handle it really well.
Again and again and again,
Like an athlete who has very well rehearsed all of their moves and responds intuitively in response to what the other players do.
This is something that you can do.
You've got this.
You really do.
Give yourself a little bit of cheerleading.
I've got this.
I can imagine it going well.
I can see how well this could potentially go.
This isn't like a Pollyanna exercise.
It's not naive.
You will prepare and you'll do all the things you need to do to prepare so that you get the outcome that you want.
But feeling the feeling of what preparedness feels like,
That will help motivate you to do everything you need to do so you can walk into that room feeling very confident,
Feeling very secure about your abilities,
Feeling very much in tune with your strengths.
This is how we use our imagination to create the future that we want,
To create experiences that we want.
This is a very particular kind of preparedness.
Thank you so much for practicing with me today.
