The Business Leadership Wikipedia: Mental Rehearsal

by DavidSmith

How would it change this week for you, if you began each day spending just 20 minutes mentally rehearsing how you intend your day to play out?

Mental rehearsal is one of the most rapid ways to accelerate progress toward your goals. When is the last time you ended a day wondering, "Where did this day go? Everything happened so fast. It's gone...and what difference did it make?"

Mental rehearsal is a simple form of meditation that can make a world of difference--especially over time. Its power is in giving you a road map for intentional thought and action in the context of your goals and values. That's a pretty heavy statement. Let me unpack it:

For lack of a clear daily road map, we are left to react to life, rather than shape our life. Drilling down more specifically, when is the last time you went into an important meeting with an individual or with your team, having no clear mental map for how the meeting would play itself out? Perhaps you had an overall goal, but something unexpected happened, or was said that threw things off. Before you knew it, your thoughts and actions were being driven by others, and you emerged from that meeting wondering, "What happened?" You may have ended up saying or doing something that conflicted with your goals or values. This may have caused damage requiring costly future correction.

A clear road map can help you stay on track so that your thoughts and actions intentionally support your goals and values.

During mental rehearsal, you create a clear road map for an upcoming time period or event. You script the future out in your mind, and then actually rehearse it, playing out the answers to questions like: Where will you be standing, sitting? What will you be wearing? With whom will you be talking? What will you say? How might they respond? What overall impression do you want to leave with the other? What result do you intend? How does this result, and your actions along the way support your core values of the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life, business, career, relationships you want to create?...

It's impossible to overstress the importance of this simple act of rehearsing your future, one small bite at a time.

Try beginning each of the next seven days with 20 minutes of mental rehearsal. End each day with a 10-minute "reality check". How did things go? How did the actual day compare with the day you rehearsed? You can even do a mini-version of this mental rehearsal with specific events or meetings. Mental rehearsal is an art--like mastering a musical instrument. You'll develop and refine your technique until you're so good at it that you unconsciously do it with competence--and here's where your growth and your progress toward experiencing the things you want most will really begin to accelerate!

At the end of the seven days of daily mental rehearsal, I guarantee you the following seven powerful results:

1. You will be significantly closer to achieving your goals.
2. You will be more aligned with your values.
3. You will find others treating you with more credibility and respect.
4. Others will support you more often. This is because...
5. You will be giving out a more consistent message to the world.
6. That consistant message will attract more of the results you want.
7. Your aligned feeling will reduce stress and increase your happiness.

These are powerful results for beginning each of the next seven days with just 20 minutes of mental rehearsal!

DavidSmith

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David Smith is the CEO of 1st Insight Communications: Business Leadership Coaching for Accelerated Results. He is also the visionary creator of The Business Leadership Wikipedia.

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Comments:

Comment #1: Mental Rehearsal and Navy Seals

I was just watching a special on the History channel last night about the brain and they were talking about mental rehearsal. Navy Seals use it to overcome fear and physical limits. It works because rehearsing moves thought to a higher part of the brain. Primative thought (like fear) resides in the lower part of the brain. I sometimes do mental rehearsal just as I'm waking up in the morning. I used to do my most difficult, complex underwriting that way. I'd rehearse all of the steps first thing in the morning, and when I got to my desk I just riped through it because it was almost like I'd done it already. --Sharon Howe

Sharon Howe is the Director of Underwriting for LifeWise Health Plan of Oregon. She directs the strategic management and technical support for LifeWise in Oregon and Arizona. Howe's team is responsible for underwriting and negotiating rates for large employer groups. Sharon.Howe@LifeWiseHealth.com

Comment #2: How do you handle the "unexpected" when things don't go as you mentally rehearsed?

Here's a comment I just received, appropriately from a "Gen-Xer":

"I read your blog about mentally planning out your day. I think that's true; that can aid in success. However, it would be interesting to incorporate reacting to changes in these plans. I know some people who seem like they mentally try to plan their entire day and then when they stray from this path or an event occurs that is out of their control, the end result is often stress or anxiety. I think many people haven't adequetely learned how to react to changes in their plans and your opinion on this could be also aid in their success. I just thought it would be an interesting follow up."

DavidSmith: Very good observation! We've all heard the phrase, "Great rehearsal--bad performance." What do you do when you make an effort to script things out in detail, and then something happens that wasn't in the script? I can think of a number of ways to approach this:

1. Avoid an all or nothing perspective: If you've ever played a musical instrument or participated in a sport that requires a certain level of mastery (golf, tennis...) you probably found that practice makes a great deal of difference. Mental rehearsal is an art form that requires skill and practice. The great thing about daily mental rehearsal is that tomorrow's a new day where you know you can practice mental rehearsal again. This knowledge should liberate you up to go through your day with less of a rigid all or nothing attitude. Mental rehearsal is about consciously creating your reality the way you intend it to be.
2. Avoid seeing a divergence from your plan as something that went wrong: Let there be a creative interplay between your mental rehearsal and your actual experience. It's a temptation to see the unexpected and the unplanned as a crisis. In Chinese, the word "crisis" also means "opportunity". Know that as you reflect later on how things went, you will be asking yourself how the unexpected may have presented an opportunity for you, and how you might grasp that opportunity. This attitude should cause you to lighten up and...
3. Get into a larger mental framework: Create the space, or frame of mind for something new and better than planned to manifest itself in your life. How many opportunities are lost because people tell themselves, "It has to happen in exactly this manner." Prepare in your mental rehearsal and expect that events will play out in the highest and best way...as you are rehearsing, but keep part of yourself open and in that larger place where you can take in the unexpected. In fact, I suspect you will find that the act of mental rehearsal elevates your experience to a new level, and unexpected things--beyond your wildest imagination will begin appearing.
4. Rationalize the effect of the unintended situation: "Another tool that can be useful is rationalizing the effect of a negative or unintentional situation. This is a common approach to treatment for patients with anxiety disorder, however I think this can be a useful tool for anyone. Rationalizing situations, or events is basically realizing the overall outcome or consequence of a situation or event instead of seeing that specific outcome as life itself or the end of the world. It could also be defined as a realistic pattern of thinking. Instead of focusing on the negative consequence that may result from an undesired situation, one could rationalize and look beyond the situation. 'How will this affect me in the future?' Overall this could also help someone solve their current problem by aiding in helping them set realistic goals and solutions instead of dwelling on the percieved failures or short commings. This could also help by preventing a build up of stress and anxiety. Personally, I used this method before even realizing that it was part of a treatment process for anxiety." (This 4th point added by the Gen-Xer)

David Smith

Comment #3: Mental Rehearsal and Prayer

Among the many responses I received to this article, there were two that came independently of one another from Christians, with the same concern: Is mental rehearsal in conflict with prayer? Should we not be praying and seeking guidance from Jesus rather than doing mental rehearsal?

I appreciate these responses because they caused me to deepen the discussion and place it in the larger context of life values. More specifically: How is the act of mental rehearsal in alignment with your ultimate values?

• Prayer and mental rehearsal are not alternate options: Prayer and mental rehearsal are two very different practices. Comparing the two is a bit like comparing traveling to Los Angeles vs. sitting down to a banquet. Both have value. If I do either in exclusion of the other, I will eventually find myself out of balance. It's not a question of either/or, but both/and.
• Prayer and mental rehearsal are unique disciplines: Mental rehearsal is a form of meditation, prayer is a form of conversation and connection with the Source (Source of your life, purpose, energy and motivation--however you connect). The enduring power of the Sermon on the Mt. in the Gospel of Matthew is that Jesus, through vivid life scenaios is leading the people through an act of mental rehearsal. This was not in conflict with what he said and modeled concerning prayer.
• Both prayer and mental rehearsal are valuable tools: So, mental rehearsal and prayer, rather than being opposed to one another, or being alternative choices, are actually two very powerful tools in the leader's tool kit. If you are at home with one of these, you can experience immediate, incredible growth and effectiveness as a leader by exploring and practicing the other.

Effective leadership springs from expansive awareness:

• The most effective leaders in the future will be those who can draw connections between various disciplines: Science, spirituality, technology, the arts...
• Effective leaders will be present and communicate applying their intelligence at all levels of awareness: Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
• Effective leaders will harvest value from multiple sources, reaching beyond their own group, profession, culture, comfort zone.

This is the idea at the heart of Integral Leadership. I'm developing the article--more to come.

Most of the many other comments I've received on this article are similar to comment #1 above: Those who have, in the past, found great value in the regular practice of mental rehearsal, and who say, "I need to get back into that practice." I'm surprised and impressed at the number of people who are currently making a practice of mental rehearsal and are already harvesting its value!

DavidSmith