It's a mind game!

Do you swim faster if you’re being chased by a shark? Can you jump higher if the hedge is razor-sharp? I’d like to think that few of us have had the opportunity to try out the extreme situations portrayed in this Tag Heuer commercial. But is it possible to surpass your limits by imagining that a shark is on your tail? In athletics, as in personal and professional life, isn’t the best pressure the one you put on yourself?

Once a project has been put together, opportunities and risks analyzed, and all the planets aligned, there’s always a little something beyond our control that can lead us to success… or scupper it all. This little impalpable something is the power of our mind. It’s our ability to stay focused and give it our best shot right to the end, despite the thousand and one reasons why someone else might give up. But how can we “muscle up” our minds to boost endurance and performance? By telling ourselves a story.

This story is the film you play in your head to transcend your performance and channel your adrenalin. It’s the story that makes us want to surpass ourselves and raise the bar even higher… while at the same time playing down the situation. It’s the intimate little scenario that turns your professional life into an XXL playground or a life-size video game…

This story is like the Rocky music we hum in the elevator before going into a meeting. He’s the student who prepares for exams with a headband to give himself Ninja strength. She’s a slightly shy friend who makes her delicate phone calls with a tiara on her head to give her the confidence of a queen (remember to take it off if you’re video-conferencing!). It’s the commercial that visualizes the ascent of Mont Blanc to celebrate each step towards its goal (10,000€: first refuge). It’s the manager who sees himself as a warlord, gathering his troops together before conquering the tender, and the one who has a basketball in his office to see himself scoring baskets with every success…

And what if, in the end, that little story we tell ourselves in our heads isn’t a much more powerful driving force than the pressure put on us by a superior, a competitor or a colleague?

In the Tag Heuer ad, the golfer who imagines her green covered with Chinese vases certainly achieves a much more interesting level of concentration than if she were thinking about the stakes of the competition. By inventing this scenario for herself, she adds a level of pressure, but also transforms her swing into an exceptional moment. Each of us can tell our own story to spice up our professional life and make it less dramatic. It can be a secret (better to keep that tiara thing quiet), or it can be a secret (how many of you have a ball in your office?), but either way, it’s there to help you map out your goals and achieve them…

And you, what’s the story you invent to put positive pressure on yourself?

By Virgil Benyayer

It's a mind game!

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