f we decided to go for a beer together and on being asked by the bartender
what I wanted I was to reply “I don‟t want a bottle of Bud please?”What do you think he‟d say? More to the point, what do you think you‟d say?
I suspect there would be some strange glances between you and the person
behind the bar before one of you would say something like “Yeh ok, but that still
leaves 721 different drinks for you to choose from, so which DO you want”
Not only is your mind not great at distinguishing between fact and fiction it‟s also
not that brilliant at determining negatives, especially when under pressure.
It‟s the reason I can use the tired coaching cliche „Don‟t think about a pink
elephant‟ relaxed in the knowledge that you now have a cute pink elephant
wondering around in your upper paddock.
If I use don‟t at the beginning of a sentence you first have to process what it is I
don‟t want you to do before you can avoid it. Therefore, you have to generate
the pink elephant visualization before you can know what it is I don‟t want you
thinking about.
With me so far?
It‟s the reason why schools came to the conclusion some years ago that giving
positive commands to kids works better than negative ones. In other words,
telling kids not to run in the corridor was far less effective than telling them to
walk.
The problem is though that when under duress we often tell ourselves what we
don‟t want.
“I don‟t want to panic, I don‟t want to panic”
Each time that happens the brain has to explain to itself what panicking is and it
exacerbates the process.
Give yourself positive commands and advice such as:
“I‟d like to be fully relaxed now”
“I want to breathe deeply and slowly”