Working Smarter - Mental Tune-ups for Work

Neil Voorsanger

To fine-tune your excellence for work and for life, I encourage you to begin and end each workday with these mental warm-ups (about 15-20 minutes). The exercises are listed below; the instructions and explanations are in the section that follows.

If you faithfully perform these warm-ups you will avoid emotional meltdowns, become job tough, surpass your best, and may even overcome the competitors and lowlifes who torment you.

MENTAL WARM-UPS, THE EXERCISES

MORNING (10 minutes)
1. Fine-tune: Your emotions
Say “My fear is . . . (answer)”
Say “My shame is . . . (answer)”
Say “My success is . . . (answer)”
Say “My power is . . . (answer)”
Say “My courage is . . . (answer)”

2. Fine-tune: Chances for success
“By the end of the day I will have succeeded at . . . (complete list).”

EVENING (10 minutes)
3. Fine-tune: Your brain
Yoga breathing as you watch TV.

4. Fine-tune: Your dreams
As you set your head on the pillow, end your day with:
“I am grateful for . . . (answer)”
“My happiness is . . . (answer)”
“I, (your name), create my future.”

INSTRUCTIONS:

Exercise #1 – Fine-tuning your emotions
This exercise will help you balance your emotions and gain a sense of feeling whole. You will start each workday with a clear head, a true perspective of how you can achieve. I adapted this exercise from my New York acting teacher, Jerry Brody, a graduate of the Actor’s Studio. Each step of the exercise releases a blocked emotion, clearing the emotional sludge of the day/week. For me, these exercises were better than any $200 therapy session.

Instructions: (1) Start with Question 1 and ask yourself, “My fear is . . . ?” and wait for the answer; (2) speak the answer aloud (typically a short phrase); (3) repeat the question, getting a new answer; (4) continue repeating the question until you hear no more internal answers; (5) then go on to the Question 2 and repeat the steps; then for the remaining questions.

Example: Question 1, “My fear is . . ,” a sample of your answers might be:
“My fear is . . failure.”
“My fear is . . going broke.”
“My fear is . . I will choke.”
“My fear is . . I don’t have talent.”
“My fear is . . people will laugh at me.”
“My fear is . . I’m not loved.”
“My fear is . . (nothing comes up) . . . go on to the next question.

Caution:
(1) A brief answer suffices because your goal is to surface as many answers as possible.
(2) Only start this exercise if you can complete all five questions. For every problem you have, (question 1), over time your solution will be found in the answers to 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Exercise #2 – Fine-tuning chances for success
When we think of success most us think activity not accomplishment. For example, a salesperson will say, I will succeed today by calling 100 prospects (activity). By the end of the day 100 prospects will be called, to what outcome? This should be stated: I will gain acceptance for ten appointments (accomplishment). Always state a task as the outcome you want, not the activity.
Start each day listing all your accomplishments for the day. Whether or not you complete them is not as important as your mind-set, accomplishment. Please remember that every grand scheme is the sum of a 1,000 daily successes, not one grand success.

Exercise #3 – Fine-tuning my brain
This 1,500 year-old yoga exercise alternates breathing through one nostril and then the other nostril (by pressing one side of your nose, then the other). By performing this exercise you balance the hemispheres of your brain to gain the full advantages of both hemispheres.
If you have time to reach the count of 100 (right nostril<> left nostril), you will find: (a) you are profoundly relaxed, (b) your thinking is now both tactical and strategic, (c) your speaking/writing has improved 50%, and (d) as an unintended byproduct, you look better.

Exercise #4: Fine-tuning my dreams
These exercises are intended to give you one last chance to fine-tune your mental state before you fall asleep.
Say, “I am grateful for . . . (answer)” and list the things for which you are grateful. Your answers will prove why you are special, give you a chance to thank the persons and forces that shaped your life, and help you to remain humble.
Say, “My happiness is (answer)”, a glorious exercise to say all the things that make you happy. Your answers will focus your subconscious on the goals of your life, the personal happiness you want.
As you drift off to sleep say ten times, “I, (your name), create my own future.” This exercise forces you to cut loose all the dependencies that you imagine you cannot do without, to become a self-sufficient adult. Very scary stuff but if you stick with it, your payoff will be that you will create your future.

© 2007. Neil Voorsanger. All Rights Reserved.