How do you think the following quote from "The Fearless Mind" relates to performance?
p. 18 Controlling emotions provides an individual with the ability to think rationally and reasonably, increasing the ability to learn from life events and perpetuate growth; hence, emotional energy is needed to get things done. However, when there is an abundance of emotional energy, it can cause destructive behavior as well. When we lose control of our emotions, we aren’t thinking anymore; we are worrying. When we worry, our minds race, attending to events that occurred in the past and then jumping to events that might occur in the future.
I think a lot of what the author is talking about is that little voice in your head when you perform - the one that tells you "you just made a mistake!" or "you're going to mess up in the next section!" when you know you've practiced it a hundred times. Of course we're emotionally invested in our performance, and that's a good thing, until the point when we let our emotions overrule the thinking part of our brain or distract us.
ReplyDeleteI said this before in master class, I feel like our emotional energy comes from the thoughts we have, and these thoughts lead to our behavior. I think it's really amazing how powerful the human brain is, and how powerful our thoughts can be.
ReplyDeleteThe thoughts that we think can shape us into the people we become. If we're constantly thinking negatively, then it's really hard for us to progress and grow. If we linger on the mistakes that we've made, or the feeling of inadequacy that follows, then we stop allowing ourselves to learn from the mistake and become better.
I really believe that positive thought leads to improvement in results and in happiness in life. Though I think it is also important to constructively criticize yourself in order to improve.
But it's also really hard to control your thoughts. I think its important to remember that not every thought we think is true. So we should stop and think of the truth of our thoughts before we believe them.