Sunday, February 2, 2014

Two Sides of the Same Coin

 
 
Photo courtesy of Microsoft

Are you able to turn a stressful situation
into an advantage?
 

                It is easy to go off course during a project. You don’t know what to say when someone asks you a question during a presentation at work. You forget how to play a piece of music at a recital for which you have spent months rehearsing. Time seems to stop as that crucial event and the split second in which “it” occurred are burned into your mind and memory, forever. But time continues to march on and, you still have your life to lead and that project/performance/game, etc. to complete. When your focus is disturbed, are you able to maintain your composure and carry on as if nothing is changed? Will you use the disruption to your advantage, or will you freeze and miss out on later opportunities to recover because you are still focused on what has already happened?

                I saw both scenarios play out tonight while I watched the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos lost control of the football to the Seattle Seahawks in the first 10 seconds or so of the game. Seattle quickly took advantage of their “advantage” and kept powering through the game. You could see their athletes’ confidence grow with every play. Football players are big guys, anyway; however, Seattle’s players literally seemed to get physically bigger every time they scored a point or got an inch closer to the end zone. They had more spring in their step on the field and on the sidelines. Conversely, the Broncos were stuck in an endless loop of that first scrimmage. I could see the frustration and disappointment on the team’s faces and, more importantly, in their demeanor. Each time a pass was intercepted or one of the Broncos missed or dropped the football, everyone on that team seemed to deflate a little bit more and their opponents got that much bigger.
 

                Two sides of the same coin.

 

 

 

                Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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