So, you want to succeed at something difficult this week?

Find your "happy place" and from that place deal with your problem. You need to swing, between states, that is.

This activity is much more than positive thinking or even visualization. It's the change of state between positive and negative, it's practicing it until you are very good at it. It's a swing. You've got to learn how to swing back and forth. Positive to negative and back again - and again.

So, take presentations, for example.
I'm teaching a four-hour course on presenting on Friday and one of our exercises will be just this: the swing.
Here's how it goes: you visualize yourself, giving a powerful presentation. You sand like it, you move like it and you feel yourself breathing calmly, smiling.
And, whoops! You've gotten lost in the middle of the presentation. What to do? Come from that "happy place" and breathe, remember your one main point, find yourself, breathe, and start from there. Nobody's perfect, after all. And the more you practice the less you will get caught losing your place. As a friend said yesterday, practice prevents slide presentation karaoke (just reading what's on the slides), and all those "ahs" and "ums".

Or take a music recital
My son had his first piano recital a few weeks ago. Practice does help to make perfect, but that swing from anxiety to visualization of the perfect performance, to reality of making a mistake or two in the concert, to swinging back to the happy place and moving on is the key to successfully finishing the piece, especially if you have never played in front of anyone before.

Or maybe you've been the recipient of hard news and difficult facts lately.
I have. I have friends and family who are very ill, maybe you do, too. Also, I went to a museum last week where the exhibit was stolen art, stolen from Jewish families in WWII. The stories behind the art are very difficult. Very tragic. The recent stories of opportunism regarding children and adults held in the US in prisons run by private companies (earning money off of tragedy) makes me sick, as well.

So, I move back to my happy place, walking the dog, reading books (and believe me, I am reading a few), and visiting with friends. Work also helps, whether it's teaching, coaching or something else.

So, practice your swing and you will become resilient and more successful. Interested in more, just give me a shout!

Have a great time practicing your swing,
Patricia Jehle