Not Your Mother's Rose Colored Glasses
Our focus is on what is possible. Whether you're faced with overcoming a bad experience, needing a thought partner, dealing with performance nerves, anxiety, depression, abuse, trauma, mania, anger or simply trying to change bad habits, The Performance Enhancement Institute can help you with your mental preparation.
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What works not how did thing fail. - Build competencies not fix deficiencies.
- Prioritize strengths rather than weaknesses.
- Focus on solutions rather than problems.
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY INTERVENTIONS
Develop Gratefulness
Identify and write down three things you are grateful for today. Then ask "What did you do to make that happen?"
exploit strengths
Drive your time toward things that make you feel stronger (strengths), rather than weaker (weakness). Peter Drucker claimed "The task of leadership is to align strengths in a way that makes weaknesses irrelevant."
Savor experiences
Basking in praise, luxuriating in sensory experiences, thanksgiving in experiencing and engaging gratitude, marveling at the wonder of the experience.
create mindfulness
Actively live life in the present moment, awake to experience without judgment. Observing thoughts and feelings non-judgmentally.
develop & deploy loving kindness
Evoke friendliness toward self and others through meditation. Just like me, (s)he seeks peace and harmony. Just like me, (s)he has experienced pain and suffering. Just like me wants to feel respected and valued, may (s)he live life with ease.
Live life in balance
Identify the many things that give your life meaning and prioritize time and other resources to each of those elements.
Enhance optimism
When bad things happen find explanations that make the situation temporary rather than permanent, situational rather than personal, and specific rather than pervasive.
increase hardiness
Reframe threats as challenges, identify commitment rather than alienation, and know that you can control some things around you.
Write & deliver gratitude letter
Think of someone who was present for you at a critical time in your life. Write a letter and personally deliver and read it to them. Be specific and let them know how you were helped and shaped by that experience.
Establish goals
Imagine successfully navigating challenges to goal achievement, keeping approach vs avoidance goals, focusing on mastery and excellence rather than performance and outcome. Be aware that goals have time horizons. For example, your three month goals may be different than your three year or lifetime goals.
Smile
A wide toothy (Duchenne) smile recruiting the corners of the eyes can start a neurochemical event (production of oxytocin)that enhances feelings of appreciation and safety. The same body language and feelings are often mirrored by others.
Contemplate best self
Think of a time when you were at your absolute best. What, specifically, were you doing? How were you being? What strengths were you using? Write your thoughts and review them once a week.