Good morning, everyone and welcome to the Bed Head Chronicles. Today, I want to talk about how to best manage a situation of high stress, high stakes — a situation that could cause you to be truly anxious, fearful, scared shitless.
I’ll use a sporting analogy — imagine that you are in overtime and you have the last shot that’s going to win or lose the game. In that moment — these are the ways that you can sabotage yourself: thinking about “Oh my God. The last time I was in this situation, I missed it. Or thinking in the future, “What if I miss this? What if I lose the game?”
Being your most powerful place to be is in the moment and saying to yourself right now, what can I do to make this the best moment possible? You do not allow yourself to think of anything that happened in the past. You do not allow yourself to consider anything that may happen in the future. You focus on what can I do in this moment now to make this the best moment possible. This could be for a meeting that you’re in or a deal that you’re trying to make or a shot that you have to make to win the game. Whatever it is — being in the moment is where we are all most powerful.
I tell my athletes a story before the world championships one year in Kona, and I needed to relax because I was so amped up. It was a day before the race. So, I went to a yoga class; and I’m not somebody that is very good at yoga, is not flexible. And I’m in the class, and I’m thinking about what happened in last year’s race and what could potentially happen in this race, and every pose I was just falling all over the place. And then I thought to myself, “look, Siri. You came here to relax. Be in the moment.” And I was just fully focused on doing whatever pose they were having us do. Suddenly, I had perfect balance. I felt strong. I felt present, and I found the yogi inside of me.
I went and spoke to my athlete who ended up winning the race and I said, “Hey, there is no denying that when we are in the moment, we are our most powerful, our most capable of tapping into our utmost potential. So, in every moment — as in every moment possible, — sorry, I just woke up; Bed Head Chronicles — in as many moments as possible be your fully present. You cannont think about a mistake in the past. You can’t think about what could possibly happen in the future. Be present. Do the best that you can in this moment now. You will tap into your insights, your intelligence, your knowledge, your skills, your potential, your power.
