In every area of life positive priming is very helpful. It is particularly powerful in sports.
I’m a lucky person, in that there are many times in my work where I feel deeply fulfilled by people doing great things with tools I teach them… I was training in DC recently, when Lou came up to tell me a story of how he’d used positive priming since a previous course he’d taken with me. It was brilliantly done! Here is his story…
“My daughter Emily is a competitive figure skater. She’s very talented technically. Yet the area she struggles with is “musicality”–emotionally expressing the music and her passion during her performances. She was getting really down from getting this feedback from coaches and others. They’d tell her, “Express! Show emotion!”. But like most people, this is not an easy thing for her to do on command. She was even beginning to lose some of her enthusiasm for the sport!
I thought about the positive priming I learned from you and suggested to Emily that she create an imaginary story that goes along with the moves and the music to her next performance. She was inspired! She created a story in which exciting things happened during exciting music, and sad things happened during sad music, etc. She even created an imaginary cat friend (coincidentally) named Bob to make it more emotionally engaging. When skating, now she’d play her story (“inner movie“) in her head as she skated and she then expressed the right emotions and energy authentically and in great timing.
She got great feedback from her coach, and really enjoys competing again! Oh, and Emily won a medal at the next competition she was in!”
Well, dear reader, where can you use positive priming to ignite your passion and performance?
These wise insights capture beautifully what I often teach. What gives us the most power and insight is the right blend of optimism while facing the hard truths as well.
