Think Above the Line: Visualization

It is Mindset Monday at Real Frequency....Today's topic is PART 4 about the importance of refocusing thoughts that are negative to those that are positive.
THINK ABOVE THE LINE is a concept developed by Collin Henderson, MEd. For more on its construct, please see our first three pieces in the series which focused on the three other quadrants of this model. This is all about identifying and redirecting negative thoughts. If we can NAME it, we can TAME it.
As a quick summary of the three previous quadrants that we covered, it goes like this:

Lower Left (Southwest): Negative | Past - Shame lives here
Lower Right (Southeast): Negative | Future - Fear lives here
Upper Left (Northwest): Positive | Past - Confidence lives here (if we can access the right thoughts)

The most important thing to remember is that this “Above the Line” concept is all about POSITIVE SELF TALK. The important thing related to our next quadrant is that the brain does not know the difference between what is REAL and what is IMAGINED. This is why positive visualization is so important. We can trick the brain into believing that are better than we are.

The Upper Right (Northeast) quadrant is where thoughts related to our intent live. And by visualizing, verbalizing and focusing on what we want (goals) we can trigger the part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is right above our spinal cord and it is where all our senses come into the brake (except smell). Most importantly, it connects the subconscious part of our brain with the conscious part of the brain.

What this really means is that when we visualize and set positive intent, our brain is able to focus on that positive intent and can actually start to perform with greater focus and greater results. In sum, our brain filters out “negative noise.” 

There is a story about Hall-of-Fame pitcher Tom Glavin. Early in his career he was struggling and a coach asked him what he thinks about on the mound. Most of his answers were around not making mistakes. After this conversation, he became very intentional about positive talk with himself on the mound. “Do throw down” instead of “don’t throw high” for example. Well, the rest (as they say) is history.

So now that we know that this works, what do we do? As Ron Burgundy said so wisely, “It’s Science.” But in this case, it really is proven science…so now what.

The simple answer, as with all Above the Line concepts, is to regulate your thoughts about the future. Turn “don’t” thoughts into “do” thoughts. Know that by setting clear and positive intentions, you can make your brain operate better. So go do this.  

Identify your “focus key” and tell yourself what you are working toward.

At Real Frequency, we have an extensive course on the importance of clear steps that our clients need to take to bring about their versions of success. This is a peek into that content, but on it’s own, it is plenty to start the process of moving your mind from one that sabotages our performance, to one that can almost lock in success.
Let’s go!