Friday, December 14, 2007

The Keys to Creating Powerful States for Peak Performance

At any point of time, you create your own states!
If you are feeling confident, then you are creating that confidence within yourself. If you are feeling depressed, you are creating your own depression. When you are motivated, you are creating that state of empowerment.
No one or nothing can affect or change your state unless you choose to allow yourself to get into that state.
Is this really true? Well, think about this. Why is it that two people can encounter the exact same event, but feel totally different about it?
One person may experience fear at having to speak in front of a large audience, while the other feels totally relaxed.
One person may feel totally motivated coming into the office, while the other feels bored & tired. One person may feel inspired and challenged when faced with an obstacle while another person feels demoralized.
So, you see, it is not what happens on the outside that affects a person's state, but what happens on the inside.
So how do we create our states? When we are feeling totally motivated, how do we create this state? When we are depressed, how do we create that depressing mood?
How we feel at any moment in time is determined by both of these Keys:
1. Our Physiology 2. Our Internal Re-presentation.
Your Physiology Affects Your State
The first thing that determines the state you are in is your physiology. Physiology means the condition and use of the physical body.
The condition of your body has a direct impact on how you feel. Do you feel different when your body is well rested and physically vibrant?
When your muscles are relaxed and your cells are bursting with energy, you are most likely to be in a peak state.
Conversely, after a night of tossing and turning with worry, having insufficient sleep, won't you feel your muscles aching and your joints being stiff?
You will easily get into states of tiredness, frustration and depression, non of these being very resourceful states.
This is why it is so important that our body is maintained in peak condition through both proper diet and exercise.
Highly successful individuals from Presidents to pop stars are consistently able to be in peak states because they keep themselves in peak physical condition through comprehensive exercise regimes.
Engaging in daily aerobic activities like swimming, running, cycling or jumping on the trampoline has an effect of oxygenating our body much more readily.
As oxygen and nutrients are carried into our bodies, our cells are nourished more effectively, giving us a lot more energy!
When our physical body is in a peak condition, we will find ourselves being in peak emotional states as well.
Your Internal Re-presentation Affects Your State.
The second factor that affects our state is your internal re-presentation. Your internal re-presentation is a fancy term meaning "How and What we think about."
What we perceive is not reality but an internal re-presentation of reality. It is how we internally re-present what is going on around us inside our mind.
This is why two people can encounter the same event, represent and feel very differently about this same event in their minds
Some of the key filters that determine what we delete, distort and generalize are our Beliefs, Values and Attitudes.
Because different people have different beliefs, values and attitudes, they delete, distort and generalize things very differently.
As a result, all of us experience a very different re-presentation of the world.
Some people have powerful beliefs, values and attitudes that allow them to constantly re-present things in a way placing them in an empowering state while others constantly re-present things in a way that puts them in a lousy, ineffective state.
Successful people are able to take charge and consciously direct their states from moment to moment. Unsuccessful people, on the other hand, find themselves constantly at the mercy of their (bad) habits and their environment.
By taking charge of our physiology and forming empowering internal representations, we have the keys that will allow us to be in constantly resourceful states enabling us to perform at our peak.

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