Despite the title, this is not a political post. No matter where you stand in the political landscape, there are lessons to be learned as we move through this political season!
Here is what I have learned: If you tell a story long enough and with enough emotion, people will believe it!
I just the good part of two weeks in a hospital room with my dad…and TV with ads. Lots of ads. And it’s the wrong time of the year to not have a fast-forward button. We were subject to one political ad after another…and all of them told stories…over and over and over!
And guess what, people believe these 30-second spots. Why? Partly because they want to…they are looking to confirm their established beliefs. But mainly because the narratives have been shared so many times, we start to believe them!
What does this have to do with performance? EVERYTHING!
This is about you…and me…and how we see ourselves…and what we are willing to believe, no matter who says it!
If we believe a story when it is told over and over, whether it is about an opposing candidate, a culture, a group of people or a bedtime story, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BELIEVE THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES…OR THOSE OTHERS TELL US ABOUT WHO WE ARE?
The more I think about the impact of propaganda…that being spewed today and stories that have changed the world in the past, it makes me even more committed to helping performers understand the power of their own stories…and the power of the ones in my own head!
Our self-narrative, the stories we repeat to ourselves, have a huge influence on our confidence, behaviors, outlook and our performance. Our brains are wired to look for patterns…to create cohesion in the world around us. The stories we tell help us make sense of our experiences, our environment and our opportunities.
Like the stories we believe about our political candidates, our narratives and become self-fulfilling, too…or we will choose the narratives that fit our beliefs about ourselves, just like we choose the narratives we believe about politics or cultures, etc.
We’ve talked about the Reticular Activating System, the RAS, before. It serves as a filter and pulls out stuff that aligns with our beliefs and expectations. Once we decide who we are or how we perform, the RAS conveniently filters out any details, factual or not, that contradict our narrative (does this sound familiar as you scroll through your social media feed?).
For better or worse, this filtering means that once we internalize a belief we are predisposed to finding evidence that supports it…and it becomes our focus! Think you’re too slow to defend that guy? You’ll find plenty of evidence to support it…and overlook anything to the contrary…including past performances that prove your belief to be shaky if not downright wrong!
The stories we tell matter! They become the framework through which we see EVERYTHING else.
The RAS, as helpful as it is in filtering out the millions of pieces of stimuli that fly past us each day, helps us gather the information to confirm our beliefs. Then our neuroscientist friends tell us that we are wired, too, for what they call confirmation bias. This theory states that we are much more likely to absorb information aligning with what we already believe.
Whether it is your brain’s filter or your need to tamp down our cognitive dissonance with our confirmation bias tendencies, breaking out of limiting self-narratives is VERY challenging!
It seems as if political marketers understand our brains well, doesn’t it?
We need to understand them too, so we can ensure we are creating and listening to stories that help us move forward!
What stories do you believe about yourself and your performance? Which ones do you repeat over and over, like the political ads on TV? Are they based on fact? Are they useful?
I talked last week with a team about our “inner ad campaign” as Trevor Moawad puts it in It Takes What It Takes. He, too says, "If you talk about something enough, it becomes true," so the ads we feed ourselves need to be about what we want, what we can do and what we will do.
It’s about thinking differently than the world wants us to and differently than we do instinctively.
The stories we tell ourselves don’t need to be all rainbows and butterflies, but they can’t be focused on what went wrong or what might go wrong either!
A great way to build a new story or add to one full of past experiences is to do what the Army does and use an After Action Review. What was our intended result? What was our actual result? What caused or contributed to it? What do we need to do the same? What do we need to do differently? What did we learn?
Take this information and repeat it and we are moving in the right direction.
Here’s the truth of it. No matter how long you have told yourself the story of this or that, they aren’t set in stone. Our brain can rewire! It’s called neuroplasticity and it allows for new internal narratives to emerge!
It’s as simple as evaluating instead of judging (using the AAR), assessing your process regardless of the outcome (which you don’t control), mentally rehearsing a favorable outcome, emotion or performance instead of listening to a fear-filled narrative of what might happen or talking about what you want instead of what you are trying to avoid.
It’s about managing your story…your ad campaign and repeating stories that you NEED to believe to be better, not the ones you should let ride off into the post-election sunset!
We believe what we hear…we believe the emotions those stories evoke. We know this is true, no matter who we are. You may not fall for all of it, but you fall for enough to change your behavior…and you fall for your own stories more than anyone else’s!
Which ones do you need to rewrite and which ones do you need to repeat? Then, how will you ensure that the ones you write in the future will enhance your performance?
You have the tools…now it’s time to use them to change your narrative and your performance!
Manage the moments and your stories!
Julie
P.S. Let’s get tools to those you lead. Contact me to find out how!
Send me a text at 234-206-0946 or an email at juliej@ssbperformance.com and schedule a call to see how we can enhance your program’s mental approach!
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
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