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When you are in the midst of change, before new habits have taken hold,
use the "just for today" approach.
"Just for today, I will become challenged when problems present themselves
and become a great problem-solver."
"Just for today, I will love the battle. I can create my own state of enjoyment.
I will accept the hand that is dealt me."
"Just for today, I will exercise, eat and train right.
Self-discipline will bring the confidence."
"Just for today, I will take charge of how I feel.
I am not at the mercy of my emotions."
"Just for today, I will purposefully set aside some time to relax and simply let go. Relaxation is the essential part of training."
"Just for today, I will have a plan to follow.
The plan will keep me focused and organized."
"Just for today, I will stop saying "If I had time...".
If I want time, I will take it or create it."
"Just for today, I will find humor in my mistakes.
When I can smile inside, I am in control."
"Just for today, I will do things the best I can.. I will be satisfied with what I have done."
"Just for today, I will do the ordinary things in my training extraordinarily well."
"Just for today, I will choose to believe that I can make a difference
and that I am in control of my world."
"Just for today, the choice is mine."
Emotions and Feelings
Disempowering emotions generally indicate long-term stress/recovery imbalance -- in other words, unfulfilled needs for recovery. Among these are: Fear, anger, helplessness, guilt, fatigue, loneliness, insecurity, confusion, exhaustion, inadequacy, depression, and feelings of ineptitude.
Negative feelings generally indicate short-term stress/recovery imbalance -- usually unfilled bodily needs. Among these are: Hunger, thirst, fatigue, discouragement, lack of energy, and weakness.
Recovery emotions generally indicate that recovery is taking place. Among these are: Relaxation, calmness, rest, tranquility, peace, and quiet.
Empowering emotions generally indicate stress/recovery balance, and health. Among these are: Excitement, passion, determination, spirit, challenge, energy, confidence, challenge, motivation, drive, resolution, happiness and enthusiasm.
We can control our emotional state at any given time; we do not have to be at the mercy of our feelings and emotions. To gain control, take the following steps:
1. Listen to the negative feeling.
2. Take the message.
3. Interpret the message; determine what needs are not being met.
4. Commit to meeting the unfulfilled need as quickly & constructively as possible.
5. Return to an emotionally-positive empowering state by seizing control with positive thoughts, images and feelings.
Pure positive energy in the form of fun is the single best measure of the balance of stress and recovery in your life. As the amount of negative stress in your life increases, your sense of fun and joy tends to decrease. Fun means excitement and arousal (energy expenditure) without physical or psychological pain (negative stress). The more you love an activity and continue to have fun doing it, the more you lower your risk of overtraining. When the fun stops, pay attention; pain is probably not far behind.
Strategies for Learning Tough Thinking
Start acknowledging that what you think has a crucial impact on how you feel. Practice recalling at will the face of a loved one, something humorous, and the feeling of past Ideal Performance states. Start your body chemistry moving in the direction you choose by directing your thoughts in that direction. The more you practice, the better you become. Take responsibility for what and how you think. When a negative thought appears, don't entertain it. Turn it around. Turn it inside out. Replace it. You have to take your foot off the brakes before you step on the gas. Start thinking more flexibly. Drop "I hate..."; say "My options are …”. Drop "I can't... "; say "I'm working on ....". Start thinking more responsively. When a negative emotion (a feeling of an unmet need) shows up, decide instantly if it has to be dealt with immediately, then commit to doing something about it at your first reasonable opportunity. Devise a plan, and put it into effect. Start thinking more energetically. In negative, stressful and difficult situations, think, say and act: "I love it." "Is this great, or what?" "I'm going to have some fun with this one." Use every negative situation as an opportunity to practice your mood-switching skills. Start thinking more resiliently. "I can handle this. I'm tough. I’ll bounce back." Start thinking more humorously. Think nutty, goofy, silly thoughts. Collect the best ones; intensity them with repetition. Laugh at yourself, not others. Banish sarcasm. Laughter is great relief/recovery; it puts you in emotional control. Be disciplined in the way you review your mistakes and failures. Avoid punishing yourself; extract their lessons and move on in a positive way. Be more disciplined about the way you think about crisis & adversity. Find the positive meaning, consider what change must be made, and move in that direction. Ask yourself how you can grow and become stronger because of it. Get back to basics during tough times. Re-establish your priorities. Take action based on your core values. Use positive visualization to change negative emotional states into positive ones. When you can't immediately fulfill a strong need, visualize in detail how you intend to do this. For example, if you're hungry, imagine eating a good snack. Feel the momentary relief, then refocus positively.
Mental Toughness
Mental toughening starts in the brain and moves outward to the body. We think in words and images (visualization). We have almost total control over both. The key to mental toughening is to develop your ability to visualize positive images by loading them with positive emotion. We can remember and mentally intensify scenes in which we performed superlatively. We can remember and intensify the emotions we felt when we performed superlatively.
Getting tough mentally means learning when, how and what to think and visualize to get the desired effect emotionally. This means that you have acquired skills in thinking, believing and visualizing which enable you to: 1) readily access empowering emotions; 2) quickly change from a negative emotional state to a positive one; 3) cope emotionally with mistakes or failures; 4) trigger an Ideal Performance State at will; and 5) cope with adversity & crisis.
Mental toughness means that, under pressure, you can continue to think constructively,
non-defensively, positively, realistically, with calmness and clarity.
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