We all face challenges in our lives. Situations that challenge our resources and skills naturally instigate self doubt and fear. The intensity of these feelings can vary depending on our baseline of anxiety and on the level of difficulty inherent to the situation we are facing. When the anxiety is high, it can hijack us and interfere with our ability to cope and succeed. The following is a strategy from performance psychology that has proven effective.

1. Take some time to describe the situation you are facing and be sure to specify what will be so challenging for you. Specify the emotions and behaviors that you predict will arise as problematic to your performance. For example, I might notice how I tend to fidget when I am feeling anxious, my voice might waiver and I may begin to say too much.

2. Decide ahead of time how you would like to try to contain these problematic emotions and behaviors. You might decide to use your breath to calm your fear and intentionally hold your hands in a certain posture that will inhibit the tendency to fidget. You can refer to some of our mindfulness exercises to help you with this.

3. Then decide how you would ideally wish to carry yourself in this situation. Imagine the facial expression you would like to have, the posture, the tone of voice, the behaviors and the content of what you would like to say. Be specific about as many of these areas as you can and then write them into a script for yourself much like a screenwriter would write the part for an actor in a play or a movie.

4. Now imagine the scene of this script playing over repeatedly in your mind. Be sure to image yourself in the situation (not you watching the situation). Rehearse this in your mind as often as you can.

We now have many studies that substantiate how imaginal practice fires the same neurons as real time practice. Neurons that fire together will wire together creating neural pathways in the brain that support skill development. Imaginal practice has proven as effective or almost as effective at skill building as real time practice. A caveat to those of you who suffer from perfectionism: be mindful of your expectations for this exercise. The situation you are rehearsing in your imagination may not go exactly as scripted. Your tone might waiver from what you planned, you might not get to say everything you wanted to and you might forget some bits altogether. Keep trying this anyway. Imaginal practice will increasingly enhance your ability to approximate your objectives.

If you or someone you know would like more support to reach your potential, give us a call at Westmount Psychological Services 514 223 5327.

Written by: Shawna Atkins, Ph.D., OPQ.