Business: Crisis: Emotional Threat or Challenge
Emotions lie at the heart of how you respond to crises. They are the starting point for all of the reactions that we have toward a crisis. They are also be the first obstacle to establishing a positive response to a crisis. That is why it is essential to understand the role that emotions play in how we react with the goal being to gain control of and use our emotions in constructive ways when confronted by crises. Emotions when confronted with a crisis are the initial reaction from the fight-or-flight response which has been wired into us since we first became homo sapiens (and, in fact, long before we began to walk upright). These feelings have served as the first alert and first responder to people and situations that humans perceived as being a threat to their survival. These emotions were experienced by our ancestors, as they are by us now, as a wake-up call that danger lurks close by. We experience crisis emotions in ways that guarantee that we pay attention to them and heed their warning. Crisis emotions are immediate. Any delays in recognizing or acting on these feelings could have meant certain death for our ancestors. Crisis emotions are visceral, meaning we feel them in every cell of our physical being. They are overwhelming because our bodies want to ensure that our minds don’t miss or confuse the messages they are sending us. And crisis emotions are always negative. Why, you ask? Think of it this way. Positive emotions aren’t in a hurry; there is no need to feel joy or love or pride immediately. But there is a definite urgency to negative emotions; they are communicating to us that we are in danger and we need to know now. If we don’t get negative emotions fast, we’re dead (or so some primitive part of the brain believes)! How you respond emotionally to a crisis starts with how you look at it. I have found that a simple distinction lies at the heart of whether you react positively or negatively: Do you perceive the crisis as a threat or a challenge? Whether you view crises as a threat or a challenge sets into motion a diametrically opposed cascade of emotions, thoughts, and behavior that result in either a constructive or harmful response to crises.
Read MoreSports: Inside the Minds of the World’s Best Athletes
In my last post, I described some competitive lessons you must learn from the world’s best athletes to play your best in Prime Time, which I defined as being the biggest game of your life against the toughest field under the most difficult conditions. This week, I will delve into the minds of some of the world’s best athletes and uncover the mental lessons you must also learn to play your best and achieve your goals. These mental lessons are especially important as you head into the most important games of the season, such as March Madness. 1. Believe in your ability. One thing that separates the best athletes in the world from the rest of us is that they have a deep and resilient belief in their ability to play their best. Even when they’re not playing well, instead of going to the “dark side” (i.e., going from being their best ally to their worst enemy) they never lose faith in themselves and continue to be on their own side. For everyone else, developing confidence in your ability is one of the biggest challenges you face. Many athletes don’t have that deeply ingrained belief in their capabilities. I see this often in games. For example, a basketball player misses a few shots early in a game. He then begins to doubt himself and, instead of taking the open shot, passes the ball to a teammate. It’s a mistake for the player in the last example to give up just because he hasn’t started the game well. The mental lesson you can learn from world’s best athletes is that no matter how you start off or how many mistakes you make, you can still get back in the game (literally and metaphorically) and have a good game, but only if you stay positive stay motivated to play your best the remainder of the game. Building confidence in your game is no different than for the world’s best athletes. It takes thousands of hits, shots, spikes, runs, and rides, a positive attitude, meticulous preparation, support from others, and, of course, success. But, for every athlete, from the bottom to the top, it starts with a commitment to believe in yourself no matter how bad it gets. This belief will serve you especially well in Prime Time. You may believe that you can play well under normal circumstances. You have probably put in a lot of time at practice that supports your belief. But the question is whether you can play that well in the most important game of your life against the toughest field of competitors you have ever faced? The lesson you can learn from the best athletes in the world is to develop such a belief in your play that you truly know that you can play your best when you absolutely need to. This belief in your play gives you the confidence to go for it in Prime Time.
Read MoreSki Racing: Mental Lessons from the World Cup
In my last post, I described the competitive lessons you must learn from World Cup racers to ski your best in Prime Time, which I defined as being the biggest race of your life against the toughest field under the most difficult conditions. This week, I will detail the mental lessons you must also learn […]
Read MoreSports: Competitive Lessons from the World’s Best Athletes
I define Prime Time as the most important game of your life in which you’ll be up against your toughest opponents and competing under the most difficult conditions. Prime Time is what sports are all about. It’s the reason why you work so hard on all aspects of your sport. And Prime Time is probably the reason why you’re reading my article. Prime Time is that moment that defines you as an athlete. It shows you and others how skilled you are, how well conditioned you are, and, most importantly, how strong you are mentally. All of my work in the psychology of sport is directed toward your achieving Prime Sport, playing at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions, in Prime Time. This notion of Prime Time emerged from my work with one young athlete who was making a difficult, though successful, transition from high-level junior competition to professional sports. What became clear to both of us was that the world’s best athletes hold little resemblance to lower-level athletes. Sure, they compete in the same sport and go through the same motions. But what enables them to be at that rarified level goes beyond just exceptional physical ability. The best athletes in the world don’t just do things better, they do things differently, particularly those things that occur between their ears. These lessons that we learned together helped this athlete overcome the challenges of professional sports and enabled him to progress up the world rankings. They also taught me lessons that athletes at all levels could use to raise their level of play and achieve their highest level of sports success. These lessons are divided into categories: competitive and mental (I’ll discuss the mental lessons next week). <a href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>"> Read More...</a>
Read MoreSki Racing: Competitive Lessons from the World Cup
Prime Time, the race that is the most important and has greatest competition, toughest terrain, and most difficult conditions, is what ski racing is all about. It’s the reason why you work so hard on all aspects of your skiing. Prime Time is the reason you’re reading my column. Prime Time is that moment that […]
Read MoreSports: 5 Ps for the Big Game
The greatest challenge that athletes have is to play their best when it really counts. Regardless of the level of competition, whether a state championship, nationals, the Olympics, or World Series, every athlete needs to rise to the occasion of the big game (I will use ‘game’ to denote any sports competition including those that […]
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