For business leaders, mental strength is just as crucial as knowledge and abilities to perform the job. Do you feel pressured to excel, always have answers, and remain in control of situations? Have you ever lost your cool with an employee? Do you get visibly frustrated during a meeting? Consider applying sports psychology to enhance your mental strength and improve your performance at work.
Athletes learn to control their emotions and feelings to achieve peak performance in sports. This is not a one-size-fits-all concept for all sports or people. For example, higher levels of anger or frustration may be helpful for some in more aggressive sports like boxing or weightlifting. Whereas acknowledging anger or frustration, coping with and releasing these feelings quickly can be more beneficial to keeping focus on sports like golf or bowling.
Athletes become exceedingly self-aware of their mental and physical state and adapt to utilize the emotion in their best interest. The same philosophy applies to leadership.
Emotional Response – Staying in the Center Lane
Your mental and emotional state are essential tools in the office. Your emotional response to events impacts your employees and business outcomes. You have most likely heard of E + R = O or Event plus Response equals Outcome. Jack Canfield first wrote about it in his book, First Secrets to Success, and it has been repeated in numerous business and leadership books since.
This same equation is taught to athletes. I learned this through extensive coaching and training as a Hall of Fame athlete. Awareness of oneself, one’s style, and one’s natural emotional reactions or inactions to events is crucial to managing outcomes effectively. Today, I utilize my athletic and coaching training to help leaders recognize and manage their emotional states, enabling them to adapt effectively to various situations. For easy understanding, I compare managing your emotional state to driving a car.
Peak performance happens when you stay in the center lane. Your emotions are steady down the middle. Emotional swings out of the center lane – marked by big highs and lows – significantly impact performance. It can affect confidence, resilience, self-control, and your response, dictating the outcome.
Find the Center Lane
Where is your emotional sweet spot for peak performance? What is your mental and physical state that allows you to listen thoroughly to understand the situation, ask clarifying questions, make informed decisions, and take action? What is your mental and physical state when you have the most control over your emotions to control your response for favorable outcomes? This emotional state, the state of being, is your center lane. This is the space where your response to events will deliver the best outcomes. You are focused and have sharper decision-making and overall better leadership.
As much as you would like, you can’t always control the events happening around you. But you can control your response to them. Finding, knowing, and maintaining your center lane puts you in a position to have peak performance under pressure of events. You are at a perfect balance of optimism, focus, and confidence.
If you know your center lane, what are the points at which dysfunction sets in due to emotional impact versus performance clarity? This is your left and right lanes.
Left Lane
Sometimes, you can be too excited, overconfident, or even arrogant. Things might be going exceptionally well. The team is exceeding sales goals, you’ve received a promotion, or you’ve hired a fantastic employee who is exceeding expectations. In this emotional state, leaders may have a false sense of security. The response may be tied to pride or egotism that makes you feel invincible. The result could cause you to respond fast, overlook a situation, engage in risky behavior, and fail to consider all stakeholders, alternatives, and outcomes. This is the emotional state of the left lane or driving too fast, being overly optimistic and presumptuous.
Right Lane
Sometimes, you have a poor state of mind. You are negative, afraid, and slow to respond due to a lack of confidence. You didn’t get the promotion, you have struggling employees, and there is a lack of support from your boss or teammates. This is the emotional state you’re in when driving in the right lane, going slowly and pessimistically. Responses in the state tend to be unfavorable, such as taking your frustration out on others, escalating conversations into heated discussions, and even disengagement. In this emotional state, leaders may overreact, dwell on the problem rather than the solution, point fingers, blame others, and exhibit more negative responses.
Achieve Peak Performance
Once you understand your lanes, you can develop strategies to manage your emotions and keep your actions or inactions in the center lane. When approaching the left or right lane, what emotions, feelings, and bodily reactions do you experience? Are you feeling anxiety, doubt, defeat, elation, or hubristic? Are you experiencing physical symptoms such as excessive sweating, thirst, accelerated breathing, an increased heart rate, or feeling tired? Identifying emotions or physical reactions while moving toward your left or right lanes can allow you to adapt in the moment, keeping yourself centered for peak performance.
Adapting
Adapting may involve calming yourself through breathing techniques. Slowing your breathing to a count of four on the inhale, holding for four counts, and exhaling for four counts helps slow the heart rate and calm the body and muscles. Thinking and speaking positively, as well as using visualization or affirming self-talk, can change one’s mindset. See your ideal outcome, and say things like “I always make good decisions,” “I always respond professionally,” or ‘I always actively listen.” These will help foster a positive mindset, reduce anxiety, and instill the right level of confidence to succeed.
If you have entered the left or right lane, you may need to ask for a break. Try drinking some water, going for a walk, or simply pausing to think before responding. If you are feeling stuck specifically in the right lane, consider creating a positive affirmation routine. Create a list of positive affirmations and read them before work, on break, and after work. Consider recording the list to listen to while falling asleep or meditating. If emotions are impacting your clarity and you become unfocused and unable to make a decision, reflect on your company mission, values, vision to reframe and refocus.
Test various techniques and determine which ones work best for you. Practice self-awareness of your emotions and physical reactions to different events or situations. At the first sign of a stimulus leading you out of the center lane, adapt with the technique that will keep you centered. You will want to do this personally and professionally to gain the most practice in recognizing, adapting, and performing at your peak.
Coaching
The best athletes use coaches not only to refine their physical game and equipment but also to improve their mental state. Applying sports psychology techniques to your professional career can enhance your peak performance. A coach can help you discover blind spots or barriers in your mindset, moving you out of the center lane. They can help you recognize your mental and emotional state in various situations and provide techniques for more effective responses. Making changes to how you respond isn’t easy, and a coach can help hold you accountable for your desired outcomes and provide support during the learning period.
If you’re interested in discussing and exploring coaching to enhance your leadership skills, please reach out. I help businesses and individuals seeking their greatest potential find clarity to win.
