7 ways to mentally prepare yourself for a high performance activity

Are you preparing to give a public speech, interview for a job, write exams or to attend a championship?

No matter the field you have to make sure you will give your 100%.

I understand that the stakes are high and you have mixed feelings.

On the one hand you are excited of the potential positive outcome on the other hand you are afraid of a feasible fail in such an important task.

Let’s see 7 ways to make the most out of it….

1) Visualisation

The first way to start preparing yourself for this activity is by visualizing the positive outcome. Imagine you give the speech and everything goes according to plan you have a great posture on the scene, your audience is getting fully engaged on your speech, you make jokes and the crowd is having a wonderful time and so on.

This is very important so you can prepare yourself with the right feelings of excitement and joy and getting rid of any other distractive negative feelings.

2) Dopamine fasting

The previous day or a couple days of the event you should avoid excessive dopamine activities. They will drain you emotionally and exhaust you mentally. Those activities put unneccesary information on your subconsious and affect your memory and your ability to focus in a very negative way.

Also your task at the moment will seem boring compared to the high dopamine activities and it will affect your will power. The way to do your best in anything is to be excited about it. After a day of gambling, alchool or drugs where your dopamine receptors are overstimulated, giving a speech in front of a crowd will not seem as appealing as if you were journaling and meditating the previous day.

3) Avoid toxicity

Avoid any negativity. If there are people in your environment that might trigger you anxiety, depression, bad luck or any sort of negativity avoid getting in touch with them, at least the day of your event and the day before.

It is not the right moment to deal with other people’s problems right now and no matter what the issue might be it certainly can wait one more day or two. Having a solid positive mentality is crucial and you need to be able to protect yourself to maintain it from any external circumstances.

4) Eat clean sleep tight

Eating light and sleeping tight. You want to be careful with your diet the day before. Firstly for not having any unwanted digestive discomfort the next day. Secondly a light meal will help you digest easier and sleep more sound in the night so you can wake up more restful in the morning.

5) Clear your mind through journaling

A good strategy you can follow to clear your mind from any distracting thoughts you might have is to write them down. The night before grab a pen and paper and write down everything. Start with the most important thoughts and worries and go down to the less significant. The questions I use are the below:

What can happen in the worst case scenario?

How will I deal with the consequences of the worst case scenario?

What reasons do I have to be happy if the worst case scenario happens?

What is the best case scenario?

What is the future potential of a great performance?

How important is this performance in a period of 10 years and what are the alternatives?

You will realise that no matter how hard you fail it’s still not the end of the world.

If you succeed and you get the desirable outcome it’s something inspiring worth fighting for.

If not, you need to remember that it’s just one event of your life. New opportunities will come that you can always take advantage of.

The answers to these question have two purposes.

Relieve your stress and create postive energy.

6) Exercise to stay calm

A great way to help you be in the present and at the same time take some of your nervoussness away is to do a light exercise before the activity. By doing a few push ups or jumping jacks you put yourself in a mode that is ready to fight.

Your heart starts pumping faster in order to carry more oxyganated blood around your body and very shortly you are getting a feeling of positivity and calmness.

7) Focus through breathing

Last but not least is the breathing. All you need to relax and be in the moment is counting your breathing. Inhale slowly through your nose with your shoulders back and relaxed for a count to 4. Hold your breath for 7 seconds and exhale slowly through your mouth for the next 8 seconds. Repeat until you eliminate most of your distracting thoughts and feel fully relaxed and focused.

I have used these 7 ways to prepeare myself mentally when I was playing pool tournaments and I hope they will serve you too as well…