Performance Planning

Performance Planning - Planning to Manage Distractions

Introduction:

So far, we have looked at a range of tools that help you to prepare for stressful events. We have shown you how to reduce uncertainty and rehearse properly for the event. We have also looked at Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking, so that you can manage the fears, anxieties and negative thoughts that you might have about the event.



For small events, this might be all that is needed to give an excellent performance.



For big events, it is worth preparing a Performance Plan. This is a pre-prepared plan that helps you to deal effectively with any problems or distractions that may occur, and perform in a positive and focused frame of mind.


Using the Tool:
To prepare your Performance Plan, begin by making a list all of the things that you need to do from starting to prepare for a performance through to its conclusion.



Start far enough in advance to sort out any equipment problems. List all of the physical and mental steps that you need to take to:

* Prepare and check your equipment, and repair or replace it where it does not work;
* Make travel arrangements;
* Pack your equipment and luggage;
* Travel to the site of your performance;
* Set up equipment;
* Wait and prepare for your performance; and
* Deliver your performance.

And think through whether there's anything else you need to do to prepare for the performance.



Next, work through each of these steps:

* Everything that could reasonably go wrong at each step with equipment and arrangements; and
* Any distractions and negative thinking that could undermine your confidence or stop you having a positive, focused frame of mind at the start of and during your performance.

Work through all of the things that could go wrong and look at the likelihood of the problem occurring. Many of the things you have listed may be extremely unlikely. You can often strike these out and ignore them from your planning.



Then look at each of the remaining contingencies. These will normally fall into three categories:

1. Things you can eliminate by appropriate preparation, including making back-up arrangements and acquiring appropriate additional or spare equipment;
2. Things you can manage by avoiding unnecessary risk; and
3. Things you can manage with a pre-prepared action or with an appropriate stress management technique

For example, if you are depending on using a data projector for a presentation, you can arrange for a back up projector to be available, purchase a replacement bulb, and/or print off paper copies of the presentation in case all else fails.



You can leave earlier than strictly necessary so that you have time for serious travel delays. You can also think through appropriate alternatives if your travel plans are disrupted. If you are forced to wait before your event in an uncomfortable or unsuitably distracting place, prepare the relaxation techniques you can use to keep a calm, positive frame of mind. Research all of the information you will need to take the appropriate actions quickly, and ensure that you have the appropriate resources available.



Also, prepare the positive thinking you will use to counter fears and negative thoughts both before the event and during it. Use the stress anticipation skills we have already looked at to ensure that you are properly prepared to manage stress. Then use thought awareness, rational thinking and positive thinking techniques to prepare the positive thoughts that you will use to protect and build your confidence.



Write your plan down on paper in a form that is easy to read and easy to refer to. Keep it with you as you prepare for, and deliver, your performance. Refer to it whenever you need it in the time leading up to the event, and during it.



Tip:
In his excellent book “Fight Your Fear and Win”, Don Greene discusses a useful routine for recovering from an error in your performance. This helps you to restore the focus and self-confidence that you need to perform well. To use the routine follow these steps after making an error:

* Accept the mistake: Do not criticize yourself for it. The mistake is now in the past, and there is nothing you can do about it.
* Focus on the present: Worrying about the past will not help.
* Relax: Breathe deeply and use appropriate relaxation techniques to calm down.
* Focus on normal good performance: If you try to compensate for the mistake with an excellent performance, you will over-stress yourself, and this will break your flow again…

Build this into your Performance Plan and use it when you need to within your performance.



“Fight Your Fear and Win” is full of similar techniques, and we strongly recommend it for people interested in sport and performance psychology.



Tool reproduced with the permission of Dr Don Greene.



Summary:
Performance Plans help you to prepare for an important performance. They bring together practical contingency planning with mental preparation to ensure that you are fully prepared to handle any situations and eventualities that may realistically occur.



This gives you the confidence that comes from knowing you are as well prepared for an event as is practically possible to be. It helps to ensure that you deliver your performance in a relaxed, positive and focused frame of mind, whatever problems or upsets may have occurred

Post-Performance

Post-Performance Reviews - Preparing for the next time...

Performances do not typically take place in isolation. If you prepared well and delivered a performance that your audience benefited from, it is likely that you will be asked to perform again and again.


Where this is the case, you can learn from each performance to improve your next one by conducting post-performance reviews.


You can do a lot of this on your own; however, you are likely to get more acute insights into future improvements if you review your performance with a coach, with the buyer of your services, or with a respected member of your audience. Not only will external feedback have an objectivity that can be difficult to achieve on one’s own, you will also get both the perspective of the audience and the benefit of the other person’s wisdom and experience.



The precise format for the review will depend on the type of performance; however, at minimum, it should cover:

* The preparation for the event;
* The handling of any problems which occurred before and during the event;
* Any negative thoughts or distractions that occurred at any stage and the effectiveness of your handling of these; and
* Anything that you noticed could be done to improve your performance and increase the value you deliver to your audience, including acquisition of additional equipment, improvement of skills, improvement of preparation, and so on.

Feed the learning points from this performance back into your Performance Plan for the next performance, and take action on any skills improvement points as soon as possible.


The final stage is to review the things that went well, and to congratulate yourself for these things. This is important for building your self-confidence.

Stress & Perception

Stress & Perception - Thinking Stress Away
Managing Stress With Rational Thinking

In many cases, situations do not cause all of the stress that we experience. Sometimes, our reaction to circumstances (and what we say to ourselves about them) contributes to the stress we experience.


Sometimes we are right in what we say to ourselves. Often, however, we are overly harsh and unjust in a way that we would never be with friends or co-workers. This, along with other negative thinking, can cause intense stress and unhappiness and can severely damage your self-confidence.


This section of stress.mindtools.com provides some useful tools that help you overcome the negative thinking that lies behind so much stress.


Negative thinking damages your performance by undermining your self-confidence. It also occupies "attentional capacity" at times when you need to focus your entire mind on what you are doing. This section shows you how to counter negative thinking effectively so that you can perform at your best.

Emotional Analysis

Emotional Analysis
- Understanding and Decoding the Information in Your Emotions

Introduction:
We are educated to believe that emotion is bad. Emotion, we are told, clouds the intellect and interferes with the objective analysis of facts. We understand that excessive emotions like intense anger have tremendous power to damage the complex social relationships on which we rely. So they do. However, this is only part of the story.

In this article, we make a working assumption that negative emotions are similar to the fight-or-flight reflex, in that they are an evolutionary "short cut" that prepares us to react to a situation much more quickly than we could if we had to carefully think each situation through.


Emotion as an "Early Warning Signal"

We assume that emotions give us the benefit of a speedy, and more-often-than-not effective response to simple situations, at the cost of a sophisticated response to more complex ones. As such, negative emotions are a useful early warning signal that something may be wrong.

If instant action is required, then we may choose to act. If it is not, these negative emotions can alert us to something we need to pay attention to. We can then use more sophisticated techniques to understand the situation in appropriate detail.


“‘Emotional Analysis” is an approach we use to start to understand and decode these negative emotions. It helps us get to the root of why we are experiencing a particular emotion, and understand the imperfect information that it may be communicating to us.



We can then either rescript the negative emotions that are based on incorrect assumptions or, if assumptions turn out to be correct, can learn from the early warning signals we have received.


Note:
Emotional Analysis draws on the fascinating “‘Cognitive – Motivational - Relational Theory” advanced by Prof. Richard S. Lazarus and others. This recognizes the deep, impulsive nature of emotions and proposes a useful model as to how they work.


The Rationality of Emotion

Emotional Analysis assumes that we experience different negative emotions for different, very rational reasons. It assumes that each emotion has its own underlying set of assumptions, and that we experience a particular emotion because we are making a particular set of assumptions about a situation we are experiencing.



In fact, according to the theory, there are six main automatic assumptions that can lie beneath negative emotions. These are shown in figure 1 below. The emotions we experience in difficult situations depend on which of these assumptions or factors apply. The assumptions behind some common emotions are shown in figure 2 below.



For example, if we were using this tool to understand why we were becoming angry with someone about a situation, we would probably find that we were making the following assumptions:

* That someone or something is preventing us from achieving a goal that is important to us;
* That we feel that this is damaging our self-esteem, or that it is hurting people, objects or ideas that we think are important; and
* That the person we are getting angry with is responsible for this situation.

Using the Tool:
Emotional Analysis is a useful staring point for understanding our own strong emotions, as well as those of others. It helps us to see whether the emotions we're experiencing are alerting us to important information, or whether they are incorrectly founded or an over-reaction to the circumstances.



To use the tool, follow these steps:

* Relax! Once you recognized the emotion, you need to let it pass so you can think clearly and objectively. If you are able to, use the relaxation techniques we explain elsewhere on this site to calm down.

* Identify the assumptions you are making: Start by using the list of assumptions shown in figure 1. Using this as a checklist, work through it and identify the assumptions that you are making. Once you have done this, identify any other assumptions (not on the list) that are influencing the emotion.

* Challenge the assumptions: Approaching each of the assumptions one-by-one, challenge it rationally to see whether the assumption is correct or not. Figure 2 shows examples of some of the emotions that you might experience, the assumptions that lie behind them, and the challenges that you might make to these assumptions.

With each challenge, identify whether the assumptions you have made are correct or incorrect. If it helps with this, imagine as you make each challenge that you are your own best friend – do not be harsh with yourself. Be fair.

* Take action appropriately: Where your assumptions are incorrect, the negative emotions should change or disappear as soon as you acknowledge this.

Where assumptions either have some element of truth to them or are fully correct, then you need to recognize this. Think through what you need to do to manage these situations. This may include drawing on skills explained elsewhere on this site.

Where you are sure of the foundation of the negative emotion, then you have the option to use it for good effect. For example, in the right circumstances, feeling angry can provide tremendous power and motivation. Expressing it has a shock effect that can help you achieve what you need to achieve, as long as you accept the fact that this may damage relationships.

Figure 1 – The Automatic Assumptions That Lie Behind Emotion:

This list below shows some of the key automatic assumptions that we make when we experience negative emotion. Different assumptions are associated with the experience of different emotions. Only some of these will apply at any one time (see figure 2 for examples of this):

* That the situation is relevant to our goals: Goals can be formal goals or objectives that we set ourselves, or can be informal, unstated desires like wanting to drink when thirsty or eat when hungry. If the situation is not relevant to our goals or to the goals of people who are important to us, then we feel little emotion. The intensity of the emotion we feel reflects the importance of the goal.
* That the situation threatens our goals: We usually experience positive emotions in situations that support our achievement of goals and negative emotion when these are being frustrated.
* That we expect the situation to turn out badly.
* That we feel that something important to us is being threatened: We experience different emotions depending on which of the following personal factors we think are threatened (see figure 2):
o Our self-esteem, or the value that other people see in us
o Our ideal of how we want to see ourselves
o Our moral values
o Thoughts, ideas, philosophies and understandings of reality that we think are important
o People that we love or objects that we value
o Goals and ambitions that are important to us
o That we are responsible, or that someone else is to blame
o That we have some power to affect the situation, or that we are powerless



Summary:
While acting immediately on strong emotion can often leave us looking foolish, emotion should not be discounted. While strong emotion can cause us to make mistakes, it can also act as an early warning system, alerting us to threats in our environment long before we could rationally understand what's going on.



Emotional Analysis helps us to understand the information content of our emotions. It allows us to challenge the underlying assumptions to see whether the are incorrect, or whether they are alerting us to important information that we need to recognize and act on.



To use Emotional Analysis, follow these steps:

* Relax so that you can challenge the assumptions you are making objectively
* Identify these assumptions
* Challenge them rationally and identify valid and invalid assumptions
* Take action appropriately

Imagery

Imagery - Mental Stress Management
Relaxation Techniques from Mind Tools

Introduction:
Imagery is a potent method of stress reduction, especially when combined with physical relaxation methods such as deep breathing.

You will be aware of how particular environments can be very relaxing, while others can be intensely stressful. The idea behind the use of imagery in stress reduction is that you use your imagination to recreate and enjoy a situation that is very relaxing. The more intensely you imagine the situation, the more relaxing the experience will be.



This sounds unlikely. In fact, the effectiveness of imagery can be shown very effectively if you have access to the biofeedback equipment we discussed in the introduction to this section. By imagining a pleasant scene (which reduces stress) you can actually see or hear the stress in your body reduce. By imagining an unpleasant and stressful situation, you can see the stress in your body increase. This very real effect can be quite alarming when you see it happen the first time!


Using the Tool:


Imagery in Relaxation
One common use of relaxation imagery is to imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as safe, peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. You can bring all your senses into the image with, for example, sounds of running water and birds, the smell of cut grass, the taste of cool white wine, the warmth of the sun, and so on. Use the imagined place as a retreat from stress and pressure.

Scenes can involve complex images such as lying on a beach in a deserted cove. You may “see” cliffs, sea and sand around you, “hear” the waves crashing against rocks, “smell” the salt in the air, and “feel” the warmth of the sun and a gentle breeze on your body. Other images might include looking at a mountain view, swimming in a tropical pool, or whatever you want. (You can listen to an example of this in action with Meditainment's "Secret Garden" guided imagery meditation, which you can listen to by clicking here.)

Other uses of imagery in relaxation involve creating mental pictures of stress flowing out of your body, or of stress, distractions and everyday concerns being folded away and locked into a padlocked chest.


Imagery in Preparation and Rehearsal
You can also use imagery in rehearsal before a big event, allowing you to prepare for the event in your mind.



Aside from allowing you to rehearse mentally, imagery also allows you to practice in advance for anything unusual that might occur, so that you are prepared and already practiced in handling it. This is a technique used very commonly by top sports people, who learn good performance habits by repeatedly rehearsing performances in their imagination. When the unusual eventualities they have rehearsed using imagery occur, they have good, pre-prepared, habitual responses to them.



Imagery also allows you to pre-experience achievement of your goals, helping to give you self-confidence. This is another technique used by successful athletes.


Summary:
With imagery, you substitute actual experience with scenes from your imagination. Your body reacts to these imagined scenes almost as if they were real.

To relax with imagery, imagine a warm, comfortable, safe and pleasant place, and enjoy it in your imagination.

Imagery can be shown to work by using biofeedback devices that measure body stress. By imagining pleasant and unpleasant scenes, you can actually see or hear the changing levels of stress in your body change.

Positive Thinking (2)

Thought Awareness, Rational & Positive Thinking (2)

In our Performance Stress section, we looked at Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking specifically in relationship to performance stress. Here, we extend this important tool to apply to all instances of negative thinking.

This positive thinking tool also acts as the basis of the next two tools, Emotional Analysis and Cognitive Restructuring. Whereas this tool helps with general negative thoughts, Emotional Analysis helps you understand negative emotions, and Cognitive Restructuring helps you tackle negative moods.

First, we look at “Thought Awareness”. As you will see, this is a technique that helps you understand your fears and negative thoughts. We then look at rational thinking and positive thinking as ways of countering the negative thoughts that you have identified.


Using the Tool:

Thought Awareness
You are thinking negatively when you fear the future, put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, or expect failure. Negative thinking damages confidence, harms performance and paralyzes mental skills.

A major problem with this is that negative thoughts tend to flit into our consciousness, do their damage and flit back out again with their significance having barely been noticed. Since we do not challenge them, they can be completely incorrect and wrong, however this does not diminish their harmful affect.

Thought Awareness is the process by which you observe your thoughts and become aware of what is going through your head.

In our Performance Stress section, we use Thought Awareness in thinking about an upcoming event. This is one way of using it. Here you observe your stream of consciousness as you think about a stressful situation. You do not suppress any thoughts. Instead, you just let them run their site while you watch them, and write them down as they occur.



Another more general approach to Thought Awareness comes with logging stress in your Stress Diary.

One of the benefits of using the Stress Diary is that you log all of the unpleasant things in your life that cause you stress for one or two weeks. This will include negative thoughts and anxieties, and can also include difficult or unpleasant memories and situations that you perceive as negative.

All of these can be looked at using the techniques in this section. By logging your negative thoughts for a reasonable period of time, you will quickly see patterns in your negative thinking. When you analyze your diary at the end of the period, you should be able to see the most common and the most damaging thoughts. Tackle these as a priority.


Thought awareness is the first step in the process of managing negative thoughts, as you cannot manage thoughts that you are unaware of.


Rational Thinking
The next step in dealing with negative thinking is to challenge the negative thoughts that you identified. Look at every thought you wrote down and rationally challenge it. Ask yourself whether the thought is reasonable: Does it stand up to fair scrutiny?



As an example, by analyzing your Stress Diary you might identify that you have frequently had the following negative thoughts:

* Feelings of inadequacy
* Worries that your performance in your job will not be good enough
* An anxiety that things outside your control will undermine your efforts
* Worries about other people’s reactions to your work

Starting with these, you might challenge these negative thoughts:

* Feelings of inadequacy: Have you trained and educated yourself as well as you reasonably should to do the job? Do you have the experience and resources you need to do it? Have you planned, prepared and rehearsed appropriately? If you have done all of these, are you setting yourself unattainably high standards for doing the job?


* Worries about performance: Do you have the training that a reasonable person would think is needed to do a good job? Have you planned appropriately? Do you have the information and resources you need? Have you cleared the time you need and cued up your support team appropriately? Have you prepared appropriately? If you have not, then you need to do these things quickly. If you have, then you are well positioned to give the best performance that you can.


* Problems with issues outside your control: Have you conducted appropriate contingency planning? Have you thought through and managed all likely risks and contingencies appropriately? If so, you will be well prepared to handle potential problems.


* Worry about other people’s reactions: If you have put in good preparation, and you do the best you can, then that is all that you need to know. If you perform as well as you reasonably can, then fair people are likely to respond well. If people are not fair, then this is something outside your control. Often, the best thing to do is to rise above unfair comments.

Tip:
If you find it difficult to look at your negative thoughts objectively, imagine that you are your best friend or a respected coach or mentor. Look at the list of negative thoughts and imagine the negative thoughts were written by someone you were giving objective advice to, and think how you would challenge these thoughts.



When you challenge negative thoughts rationally, you should be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong or whether they have some substance to them. Where there is some substance, take appropriate action. In these cases, negative thinking has been an early warning system showing where you need to direct your attention.


Positive Thinking & Opportunity Seeking
Where you have used Rational Thinking to identify incorrect negative thinking, it can often be useful to prepare rational positive thoughts and affirmations to counter them. It can also be useful to look at the situation and see if there are any useful opportunities that are offered by it.



Affirmations help you to build self-confidence. By basing your affirmations on the clear, rational assessments of facts that you made using Rational Thinking, you can use them to undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to your self-confidence.



Tip:
Your affirmations will be strongest if they are specific, are expressed in the present tense and have strong emotional content.



Continuing the examples above, positive affirmations might be:

* Feelings of inadequacy: “I am well trained for this? I have the experience, the tools and the resources I need. I have thought through and prepared for all possible issues. I can do a superb job.”


* Worries about performance: “I have researched and planned well for this, and I thoroughly understand the problem. I have the time, resources and help I need. I am well prepared to do an excellent job.”


* Problems issues outside your control: “We have thought through everything that might reasonably happen and have planned how we can handle all likely contingencies. Everyone is ready to help where necessary. We are very well placed to react flexibly and effectively to unusual events.”


* Worry about other people’s reaction: “I am well-prepared and am doing the best I can. Fair people will respect this. I will rise above any unfair criticism in a mature and professional way.”

If appropriate, write these affirmations down so that you can use them when you need them.



As well as allowing you to structure useful affirmations, part of Positive Thinking is to look at opportunities that the situation might offer to you. In the examples above, successfully overcoming the situations causing the original negative thinking will open up opportunities. You will acquire new skills, you will be seen as someone who can handle difficult challenges, and you may open up new career opportunities.



Make sure that identifying these opportunities and focusing on them is part of your positive thinking.



Tip:
As we said in the last section, in the past people have advocated positive thinking almost recklessly, as if it is a solution to everything. Positive thinking should be used with common sense. First, decide rationally what goals you can realistically attain with hard work, and then use positive thinking to reinforce these.



Summary:
This set of tools helps you to manage and counter the negative thinking.

Thought Awareness helps you to understand the negative thinking, unpleasant memories and misinterpretation of situations that may interfere with your performance and damage your self-confidence.

Rational Thinking is the technique that helps you to challenge these negative thoughts and either learn from them or refute them as incorrect.

Positive thinking is then used to create positive affirmations that you can use to counter negative thoughts. These affirmations neutralize negative thoughts and build your self-confidence. It is also used to find the opportunities that are almost always present to some degree in a difficult situation.

Physical Techniques

Physical Techniques: Deep Breathing, Progressive
Muscular Relaxation & The Relaxation Response
Relaxation Techniques from Mind Tools

Introduction:
This tool introduces three useful physical relaxation techniques that can help you reduce muscle tension and manage the effects of the fight-or-flight response on your body. This is particularly important if you need to think clearly and perform precisely when you are under pressure.


The techniques we will look at are Deep Breathing, Progressive Muscular Relaxation and “The Relaxation Response”.

Using These Techniques:
Deep Breathing:
Deep breathing is a simple but very effective method of relaxation. It is a core component of everything from the "take ten deep breaths" approach to calming someone down, right through to yoga relaxation and meditation. It works well in conjunction with other relaxation techniques such as Progressive Muscular Relaxation, relaxation imagery and meditation to reduce stress.

To use the technique, take a number of deep breaths and relax your body further with each breath. That's all there is to it!


Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR):
Progressive Muscular Relaxation is useful for relaxing your body when your muscles are tense.

The idea behind PMR is that you tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible. Hold them in a state of extreme tension for a few seconds. Then, relax the muscles to their previous state. Finally, consciously relax the muscles even further so that you are as relaxed as possible.


By tensing your muscles first, you will probably find that you are able to relax your muscles more than would be the case if you tried to relax your muscles directly.

Experiment with PMR by forming a fist, and clenching your hand as tight as you can for a few seconds. Then relax your hand to its previous tension, and then consciously relax it again so that it is as loose as possible. You should feel deep relaxation in your hand muscles.

For maximum relaxation you can use PMR in conjunction with breathing techniques and imagery.


The “Relaxation Response”:
We mentioned “The Relaxation Response” in our article on Meditation. In a series of experiments into various popular meditation techniques, Dr. Benson established that these techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response. Direct effects included deep relaxation, slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance.


This is something that you can do for yourself by following these steps:

* Sit quietly and comfortably.
* Close your eyes.
* Start by relaxing the muscles of your feet and work up your body relaxing muscles.
* Focus your attention on your breathing.
* Breathe in deeply and then let your breath out. Count your breaths, and say the number of the breath as you let it out (this gives you something to do with your mind, helping you to avoid distraction).

Do this for ten or twenty minutes.


An even more potent alternative approach is to follow these steps, but to use relaxation imagery instead of counting breaths in step 5.


Again, you can prove to yourself that this works using biofeedback equipment.


Summary:
“Deep Breathing,” “Progressive Muscular Relaxation,” and the steps leading to the “Relaxation Response” are three good techniques that can help you to relax your body and manage the symptoms of the fight-or-flight response.


These are particularly helpful for handling nerves prior to an important performance, and for calming down when you are highly stressed.

Self-Hypnosis

Self-Hypnosis
Relaxation Techniques from Mind Tools

Introduction:
Hypnosis, like meditation, has a dubious image. Many people over many years have made their living by overlaying this practical and useful technique with unwarranted mystical and magical rituals. In fact, it is a useful tool for achieving deep relaxation.


Self-hypnosis is when you hypnotize yourself. This is often more practical as a stress management tool than normal hypnosis, as you do not need to have a hypnotist present.

Drawing on the same "relaxation response" that drives meditation, self-hypnosis helps you to relax your body, lets stress hormones subside, and distracts your mind from unpleasant thoughts. The relaxation achieved with self-hypnosis can be intense. Unlike meditation, we often use affirmations as part of self-hypnosis to manage stress and build self-confidence. Affirmations are the positive statements (based on rational thinking) that we make to ourselves to counter stress and unpleasant thoughts - see our article on Rational and Positive Thinking for more information on this.

Along with meditation and imagery, self-hypnosis can usefully be used as a part of a daily stress management routine.


Using the Tool:
First, decide if you want to use affirmations as part of your self-hypnosis session (you will still be able to relax deeply if you do not use them). If you do, then prepare the affirmations you want to use before you start the session, as you will not want to think about them once you have reached a state of deep relaxation!


Next, find somewhere comfortable and quiet, and sit down.


Now, relax your body. A good way of doing this is to close your eyes and imagine waves of relaxation running down your body from your scalp downwards, washing out stress. Let the waves run in time with your breathing, first washing down over your head, then your neck, then your torso, then arms, and finally your legs. Feel the muscles in your body relaxing as the waves of relaxation wash over them.

The next step is to use suggestion to deepen the state of relaxation. This can be as simple as saying something like: “I am feeling relaxed and comfortable to yourself. With every breath I am becoming more relaxed and more comfortable…" Alternatively, use the traditional approach of suggesting sleepiness: "I am tired and sleepy. I can feel the heaviness in my arms and legs. I am more and more tired…"


Once you feel completely relaxed, use the affirmations you have prepared. Mix these in with the relaxation suggestions.


Typical self-hypnosis sessions can last between 15 and 25 minutes; however, they can last for as long as you like.


An alternative to using self-hypnosis is to listen to hypnosis MP3s - the benefit of these is that you can listen to them and relax when you are too tired to want to hypnotize yourself. A good source of these is Hypnosis Downloads, whose information we show on the sidebars. Hypnosis Downloads provide the following relaxation and stress management programs:

* A Healthy Rest - Relaxation hypnosis
* The Four Seasons - Relaxation hypnosis
* A Warm Place - Relaxation hypnosis
* The Island - Relaxation hypnosis
* Boost your energy levels with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis
* Relieve stress and tension with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis
* Improve your mood now with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis

These are instantly available so you can try them out and see their effectiveness right away.


Summary:
Self-hypnosis is a practical and effective technique for relaxing deeply. It can be used with or without affirmations, depending on what you want to achieve.


To use the technique, find somewhere comfortable and quiet to sit down. Think about, and prepare, any affirmations that you might want to use. Start by closing your eyes and relaxing your muscles. A good way of doing this is to use imagery. Move on to use suggestion to relax yourself even more. When you feel very relaxed, use any affirmations that you have prepared. Enjoy the state of hypnosis for as long as you like.

Using Music

Using Music or Relaxation Tapes*
- Easy mental relaxation

* For 'tape', please also read CD or MP3!

The three tools we have looked at so far in this section are active techniques. You need to concentrate to use them - unfortunately you may, quite legitimately, be too tired at the end of a busy day to want to concentrate on anything.


An alternative approach is to listen to calming music, or to pre-prepared relaxation or hypnosis tapes. It takes no effort on your behalf to listen to these, and this may be very welcome at the end of a long, hard day's work!


Quite obviously, you can buy relaxing music in very many places.


An up-to-date approach is to listen to hypnosis MP3s, for example on an iPod.


Click here to find out about Mind Tools' own relaxation MP3s. Our "Healthy Rest", "Instant Stress Relief" and "Island" MP3s are proving to be very popular as a way of getting 15 minutes of intense relaxation.


Another good source of these is Mind Tools' partner Hypnosis Downloads, who provide the following relaxation and stress management programs:

* The Four Seasons - Relaxation hypnosis
* Boost your energy levels with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis
* Relieve stress and tension with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis
* Improve your mood now with hypnosis - Stress management hypnosis

These are instantly available, so you can try them out and see their effectiveness right away.


Similarly, there are many sources of relaxation and self-hypnosis tapes, most of which will be perfectly adequate. Three sources of tapes and CDs are:

* Centerpointe Research Institute, which uses a proprietary audio technology to achieve deep relaxation;
* Relaxation CDs and Tapes, which has clear, well-written reviews of many different relaxation and self-hypnosis tapes with hyperlinks to the stores offering them; and
* RelaxationTapesMusic.com, a store that has tapes of relaxing music and nature sounds

Meditation

Meditation - Relaxing with sustained concentration
Relaxation Techniques from Mind Tools

Introduction:
As with our next tool (self-hypnosis), meditation has a popular image that can lead to it being dismissed as a less-than-serious stress management tool. This is a shame. Good research has been conducted into meditation that shows it is a useful and practical technique for managing stress.

As with the next two tools, meditation is a good way of relaxing during, and at the end of, a stressful day. It is something you can learn to do yourself, or may be something you prefer to learn in classes.

Note on research:
Some of the key research on meditation was carrier out by Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard University. His book on this, “The Relaxation Response”, was published in 1968. In a series of experiments into various popular meditation techniques, Dr. Benson established that these techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response. Direct effects included slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance.



Using the Tool:
The idea behind meditation is to consciously relax your body and focus your thoughts on one thing for a sustained period. This occupies your mind, diverting it from the problems that are causing you stress. It gives your body time to relax and recuperate, and to clear away stress hormones that may have built up.



There is nothing mystical about meditation. On the contrary, it is something that you can do quite easily by following these steps:

* Sit quietly and comfortably.
* Close your eyes.
* Start by relaxing the muscles of your feet and work up your body relaxing muscles (a technique like Progressive Muscular Relaxation can be useful for this).
* Focus your attention on your breathing.
* Breathe in deeply and then let your breath out. Count your breaths, and say the number of the breath as you let it out (this gives you something to do with your mind, helping you to avoid distraction).

Do this for ten or twenty minutes.



Focusing on breathing and counting breaths is just one way you can occupy your mind during meditation. Other approaches are:

* Focusing on an object:
Here, you completely focus attention on examination of an object. Look at it in immense detail for the entire meditation. Examine the shape, color differences, texture, temperature and movement of the object. Objects often used are flowers, candle flames or flowing designs, but you can use other objects equally effectively (for example alarm clocks, desk lamps or even coffee mugs!)

* Focus on a sound:
Some people like to focus on sounds they make. The classic example is the Sanskrit word “Om”, meaning “perfection”. Whether or not this is practical depends on your lifestyle.

* Using Imagery:
This can be a very refreshing and pleasant way of meditating. Here, you create a mental image of a pleasant and relaxing place in your mind. For more information, see our article on imagery.
* Listening to Meditation Scripts:
You can access a useful library of meditation scripts by clicking here. Most of these are chargeable, however you can listen to the free (and beautiful) "Secret Garden" script by clicking here.

However you do it, it is important to keep your attention focused. If external thoughts or distractions wander into your mind, let them drift out.


Summary:
Meditation is a useful and practical relaxation technique. To use it, sit in a comfortable place, close your eyes, relax your body, and focus your concentration on something for a period of time.

Positive Thinking (2)

Thought Awareness, Rational & Positive Thinking (2)

In our Performance Stress section, we looked at Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking specifically in relationship to performance stress. Here, we extend this important tool to apply to all instances of negative thinking.

This positive thinking tool also acts as the basis of the next two tools, Emotional Analysis and Cognitive Restructuring. Whereas this tool helps with general negative thoughts, Emotional Analysis helps you understand negative emotions, and Cognitive Restructuring helps you tackle negative moods.

First, we look at “Thought Awareness”. As you will see, this is a technique that helps you understand your fears and negative thoughts. We then look at rational thinking and positive thinking as ways of countering the negative thoughts that you have identified.

Using the Tool:


Thought Awareness
You are thinking negatively when you fear the future, put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, or expect failure. Negative thinking damages confidence, harms performance and paralyzes mental skills.

A major problem with this is that negative thoughts tend to flit into our consciousness, do their damage and flit back out again with their significance having barely been noticed. Since we do not challenge them, they can be completely incorrect and wrong, however this does not diminish their harmful affect.

Thought Awareness is the process by which you observe your thoughts and become aware of what is going through your head.

In our Performance Stress section, we use Thought Awareness in thinking about an upcoming event. This is one way of using it. Here you observe your stream of consciousness as you think about a stressful situation. You do not suppress any thoughts. Instead, you just let them run their site while you watch them, and write them down as they occur.

Another more general approach to Thought Awareness comes with logging stress in your Stress Diary.

One of the benefits of using the Stress Diary is that you log all of the unpleasant things in your life that cause you stress for one or two weeks. This will include negative thoughts and anxieties, and can also include difficult or unpleasant memories and situations that you perceive as negative.

All of these can be looked at using the techniques in this section. By logging your negative thoughts for a reasonable period of time, you will quickly see patterns in your negative thinking. When you analyze your diary at the end of the period, you should be able to see the most common and the most damaging thoughts. Tackle these as a priority.

Thought awareness is the first step in the process of managing negative thoughts, as you cannot manage thoughts that you are unaware of.


Rational Thinking
The next step in dealing with negative thinking is to challenge the negative thoughts that you identified. Look at every thought you wrote down and rationally challenge it. Ask yourself whether the thought is reasonable: Does it stand up to fair scrutiny?



As an example, by analyzing your Stress Diary you might identify that you have frequently had the following negative thoughts:

* Feelings of inadequacy
* Worries that your performance in your job will not be good enough
* An anxiety that things outside your control will undermine your efforts
* Worries about other people’s reactions to your work

Starting with these, you might challenge these negative thoughts:

* Feelings of inadequacy: Have you trained and educated yourself as well as you reasonably should to do the job? Do you have the experience and resources you need to do it? Have you planned, prepared and rehearsed appropriately? If you have done all of these, are you setting yourself unattainably high standards for doing the job?


* Worries about performance: Do you have the training that a reasonable person would think is needed to do a good job? Have you planned appropriately? Do you have the information and resources you need? Have you cleared the time you need and cued up your support team appropriately? Have you prepared appropriately? If you have not, then you need to do these things quickly. If you have, then you are well positioned to give the best performance that you can.


* Problems with issues outside your control: Have you conducted appropriate contingency planning? Have you thought through and managed all likely risks and contingencies appropriately? If so, you will be well prepared to handle potential problems.


* Worry about other people’s reactions: If you have put in good preparation, and you do the best you can, then that is all that you need to know. If you perform as well as you reasonably can, then fair people are likely to respond well. If people are not fair, then this is something outside your control. Often, the best thing to do is to rise above unfair comments.

Tip:
If you find it difficult to look at your negative thoughts objectively, imagine that you are your best friend or a respected coach or mentor. Look at the list of negative thoughts and imagine the negative thoughts were written by someone you were giving objective advice to, and think how you would challenge these thoughts.



When you challenge negative thoughts rationally, you should be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong or whether they have some substance to them. Where there is some substance, take appropriate action. In these cases, negative thinking has been an early warning system showing where you need to direct your attention.


Positive Thinking & Opportunity Seeking
Where you have used Rational Thinking to identify incorrect negative thinking, it can often be useful to prepare rational positive thoughts and affirmations to counter them. It can also be useful to look at the situation and see if there are any useful opportunities that are offered by it.



Affirmations help you to build self-confidence. By basing your affirmations on the clear, rational assessments of facts that you made using Rational Thinking, you can use them to undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to your self-confidence.



Tip:
Your affirmations will be strongest if they are specific, are expressed in the present tense and have strong emotional content.



Continuing the examples above, positive affirmations might be:

* Feelings of inadequacy: “I am well trained for this? I have the experience, the tools and the resources I need. I have thought through and prepared for all possible issues. I can do a superb job.”


* Worries about performance: “I have researched and planned well for this, and I thoroughly understand the problem. I have the time, resources and help I need. I am well prepared to do an excellent job.”


* Problems issues outside your control: “We have thought through everything that might reasonably happen and have planned how we can handle all likely contingencies. Everyone is ready to help where necessary. We are very well placed to react flexibly and effectively to unusual events.”


* Worry about other people’s reaction: “I am well-prepared and am doing the best I can. Fair people will respect this. I will rise above any unfair criticism in a mature and professional way.”

If appropriate, write these affirmations down so that you can use them when you need them.

As well as allowing you to structure useful affirmations, part of Positive Thinking is to look at opportunities that the situation might offer to you. In the examples above, successfully overcoming the situations causing the original negative thinking will open up opportunities. You will acquire new skills, you will be seen as someone who can handle difficult challenges, and you may open up new career opportunities.

Make sure that identifying these opportunities and focusing on them is part of your positive thinking.


Tip:
As we said in the last section, in the past people have advocated positive thinking almost recklessly, as if it is a solution to everything. Positive thinking should be used with common sense. First, decide rationally what goals you can realistically attain with hard work, and then use positive thinking to reinforce these.

Summary:
This set of tools helps you to manage and counter the negative thinking.

Thought Awareness helps you to understand the negative thinking, unpleasant memories and misinterpretation of situations that may interfere with your performance and damage your self-confidence.

Rational Thinking is the technique that helps you to challenge these negative thoughts and either learn from them or refute them as incorrect.

Positive thinking is then used to create positive affirmations that you can use to counter negative thoughts. These affirmations neutralize negative thoughts and build your self-confidence. It is also used to find the opportunities that are almost always present to some degree in a difficult situation.

Thinking

Thinking On Your Feet
Staying Cool and Confident Under Pressure

"So, Susan, your report indicates you support forging ahead with the expansion but have you considered the impact this will have on our customers? Surely you remember the fiasco in Dallas last year when they tried the same type of project?"

Yikes! If you're Susan, you're likely feeling under pressure! You have to answer the question and allay the CEO's concerns about the disruption to customers. What do you do? What do you say? How do you say it? What if you can't think of anything to say?

This is not an uncommon situation. Whether you are put on the spot while attending a meeting, presenting a proposal, selling an idea, or answering questions after a presentation, articulating your thoughts in unanticipated situations is a skill. Thinking on your feet is highly coveted skill and when you master it, your clever and astute responses will instill immediate confidence in what you are saying.

When you can translate your thoughts and ideas into coherent speech quickly, you ensure your ideas are heard. You also come across as being confident, persuasive, and trustworthy.

Confidence is key when learning to think on your feet. When you present information, give an opinion or provide suggestions, make sure you know what you are talking about and that you are well informed. This doesn't mean you have to know everything about everything, but if you are reasonably confident in your knowledge of the subject, that confidence will help you to remain calm and collected even if you are put unexpectedly in the hot seat.

The secret of thinking on your feet is to be prepared: learn some skills and tactics, and do some preparation for situations that might put you under pressure. Then when you do find yourself faced with unexpected questions and debate, you'll be ready to draw on these tactics and preparation, and so stay poised while you compose your thoughts and prepare your response. Here are some tips and tactics:

1. Relax
This is often the opposite of how you are feeling when you're under pressure, but in order for your voice to remain calm and for your brain to "think", you have to be as relaxed as possible.

* Take deep breaths
* Take a second and give yourself a positive and affirming message
* Clench invisible muscles (thighs, biceps, feet) for a few seconds and release.

2. Listen
It comes as no surprise that listening is critical to thinking on your feet. Why do you need to listen? To make sure you fully understand the question or request before you reply. If you answer too soon, you risk going into a line of thinking that is unnecessary or inappropriate. To help you with your listening remember to:

* Look directly at the questioner
* Observe body language as well as what is being spoken
* Try to interpret what is being suggested by the question or request. Is this an attack, a legitimate request for more information, or a test? Why is this person asking this and what is the intention?

Tip:
Remember that the person is asking a question because he or she is interested. Some interest is positive - they simply want to know more - and some is negative - they want to see you squirm. Either way they are interested in what you have to say. It's your privilege and pleasure not to disappoint them!

3. Have the Question Repeated
If you're feeling particularly under pressure, ask for the question to be repeated. This gives you a bit more time to think about your response.

At first glance people think this will only make them look unsure. It doesn't. It makes you look concerned that you give an appropriate response. It also gives the questioner an opportunity to rephrase and ask a question that is more on point. Remember, the questioner may well have just "thought on his or her feet" to ask the question, so when you give them a second chance, the question may well be better articulated and clearer to all.

By asking to have the question repeated you also get another opportunity to assess the intentions of the questioner. If it is more specific or better worded, chances are the person really wants to learn more. If the repeated question is more aggressive than the first one, then you know the person is more interested in making you uncomfortable than anything else. When that's the case, the next tip comes in very handy.

4. Use Stall Tactics
Sometimes you need more time to get your thoughts straight and calm yourself down enough to make a clear reply. The last thing you want to do is blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind. Often this is a defensive comment that only makes you look insecure and anxious rather than confident and composed.

* Repeat the question yourself. This gives you time to think and you clarify exactly what is being asked. It also allows you to rephrase if necessary and put a positive spin on the request. "How have I considered the impact on customers in order to make sure they have a continued positive experience during the expansion?"
* Narrow the focus. Here, you ask a question of your own to not only clarify, but to bring the question down to a manageable scope. "You're interested in hearing how I've considered customer impacts. What impacts are you most interested in: product availability or in-store service? "
* Ask for clarification. Again, this will force the questioner to be more specific and hopefully get more to a specific point. "When you say you want to know how I've analyzed customer impacts, do you mean you want a detailed analysis or a list of the tools and methods I used?"
* Ask for a definition. Jargon and specific terminology may present a problem for you. Ask to have words and ideas clarified to ensure you are talking about the same thing.

5. Use Silence to your Advantage
We are conditioned to believe that silence is uncomfortable. However, if you use it sparingly, it communicates that you are in control of your thoughts and confident in your ability to answer expertly. When you rush to answer you also typically rush your words. Pausing to collect your thoughts tells your brain to slow everything down.

6. Stick to One Point and One Supporting Piece of Information
There's a high risk that, under pressure, you'll answer a question with either too much or too little information. If you give too short an answer, you risk letting the conversation slip into interrogation mode. (You'll get another question, and the questioner will be firmly in control of how the dialogue unfolds). When your reply is too long, you risk losing people's interest, coming across as boring, or giving away things that are better left unsaid. Remember, you aren't being asked to give a speech on the subject. The questioner wants to know something. Respect that and give them an answer, with just enough supporting information.

This technique gives you focus. Rather than trying to tie together all the ideas that are running through your head, when you pick one main point and one supporting fact, you allow yourself to answer accurately and assuredly.

Tip:
If you don't know the answer, say so. There is no point trying to make something up. You will end up looking foolish and this will lower your confidence when you need to think on your feet in the future. There is (usually) nothing wrong with not knowing something. Simply make sure you follow up as soon as possible afterwards with a researched answer.

7. Prepare some "what ifs"
With a bit of forethought, it's often possible to predict the types of questions you might be asked, so you can prepare and rehearse some answers to questions that might come your way. Let's say you are presenting the monthly sales figures to your management team. The chances are your report will cover most of the obvious questions that the management team might have, but what other questions might you predict? What's different about this month? What new questions might be asked? How would you respond? What additional information might you need to have to hand to support more detailed questions?

In particular, spend some time brainstorming the most difficult questions that people might ask, and preparing and rehearsing good answers to them.

8. Practice Clear Delivery
How you say something is almost as important as what you say. If you mumble or use "umm" or "ah" between every second word, confidence in what you are saying plummets. Whenever you are speaking with people, make a point to practice these key oration skills:

* Speak in a strong voice. (Don't confuse strong with loud!)
* Use pauses strategically to emphasize a point or slow yourself down
* Vary your tone and pay attention to how your message will be perceived given the intonation you use
* Use eye contact appropriately
* Pay attention to your grammar
* Use the level of formality that is appropriate to the situation.

9. Summarize and Stop
Wrap up your response with a quick summary statement. After that, resist adding more information. There may well be silence after your summary. Don't make the common mistake of filling the silence with more information! This is the time when other people are adsorbing the information you have given. If you persist with more information, you may end up causing confusion and undoing the great work you've already done in delivering your response.

Relaxation

Physical Relaxation Techniques
Deep Breathing, PMR and the Relaxation Response


Physical relaxation techniques are as effective as mental techniques in reducing stress. In fact, the best relaxation is achieved by using physical and mental techniques together.

These three useful physical relaxation techniques can help you reduce muscle tension and manage the effects of the fight-or-flight response on your body. This is particularly important if you need to think clearly and perform precisely when you are under pressure.

The techniques we will look at are Deep Breathing, Progressive Muscular Relaxation and “The Relaxation Response”.
Deep Breathing

Deep breathing is a simple, but very effective, method of relaxation. It is a core component of everything from the "take ten deep breaths" approach to calming someone down, right through to yoga relaxation and Zen meditation. It works well in conjunction with other relaxation techniques such as Progressive Muscular Relaxation, relaxation imagery and meditation to reduce stress.

To use the technique, take a number of deep breaths and relax your body further with each breath. That's all there is to it!
Progressive Muscular Relaxation

Progressive Muscular Relaxation is useful for relaxing your body when your muscles are tense.

The idea behind PMR is that you tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible. Hold them in a state of extreme tension for a few seconds. Then, relax the muscles normally. Then, consciously relax the muscles even further so that you are as relaxed as possible.

By tensing your muscles first, you will find that you are able to relax your muscles more than would be the case if you tried to relax your muscles directly.

Experiment with PMR by forming a fist, and clenching your hand as tight as you can for a few seconds. Relax your hand to its previous tension, and then consciously relax it again so that it is as loose as possible. You should feel deep relaxation in your hand muscles.
The Relaxation Response

‘The Relaxation Response’ is the name of a book published by Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard University in 1968. In a series of experiments into various popular meditation techniques, Dr Benson established that these techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response. Direct effects included deep relaxation, slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance.

This is something that you can do for yourself by following these steps:

* Sit quietly and comfortably.
* Close your eyes.
* Start by relaxing the muscles of your feet and work up your body relaxing muscles.
* Focus your attention on your breathing.
* Breathe in deeply and then let your breath out. Count your breaths, and say the number of the breath as you let it out (this gives you something to do with your mind, helping you to avoid distraction).

Do this for ten or twenty minutes.

An even more potent alternative approach is to follow these steps, but to use relaxation imagery instead of counting breaths in step 5. Again, you can prove to yourself that this works using the biofeedback equipment.
Summary

“Deep Breathing,” “Progressive Muscular Relaxation,” and the steps leading to the “Relaxation Response” are three good techniques that can help you to relax your body and manage the symptoms of the fight-or-flight response.

These are particularly helpful for both handling nerves prior to an important performance, and reducing stress generally.

This is an excerpt from "Managing Stress for Career Success", the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. These physical relaxation techniques are just some of the important skills that we explain. As well as explaining relaxation techniques, the Stress Management Masterclass shows you how to take action to tackle the root causes of job stress - a side-effect of this approach is that you become more effective and successful in your career.

Imagery

Imagery
Mental Stress Management


Sometimes we are not able to change our environment to manage stress – this may be the case where we do not have the power to change a situation, or where we are about to give an important performance. Imagery is a useful skill for relaxing in these situations.

Imagery is a potent method of stress reduction, especially when combined with physical relaxation methods such as deep breathing.

You will be aware of how particular environments can be very relaxing, while others can be intensely stressful. The principle behind the use of imagery in stress reduction is that you can use your imagination to recreate and enjoy a situation that is very relaxing. The more intensely you imagine the situation, the more relaxing the experience will be.

This sounds unlikely. In fact, the effectiveness of imagery can be shown very effectively if you have access to biofeedback equipment. By imagining a pleasant and relaxing scene (which reduces stress) you can objectively see the measured stress in your body reduce. By imagining an unpleasant and stressful situation, you can see the stress in your body increase. This very real effect can be quite alarming when you see it happen the first time!
How to Use the Tool:

Two situations where imagery can be very effective are when you're trying to relax and when you're preparing or rehearsing for a performance.
Imagery in Relaxation

One common use of imagery in relaxation is to imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as safe, peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. You can bring all your senses into the image with, for example, sounds of running water and birds, the smell of cut grass, the taste of cool white wine, the warmth of the sun, etc. Use the imagined place as a retreat from stress and pressure.

Scenes can involve complex images such as lying on a beach in a deserted cove. You may “see” cliffs, sea and sand around you, “hear” the waves crashing against rocks, “smell” the salt in the air, and “feel” the warmth of the sun and a gentle breeze on your body. Other images might include looking at a mountain view, swimming in a tropical pool, or whatever you want. You will be able to come up with the most effective images for yourself.

Other uses of imagery in relaxation involve creating mental pictures of stress flowing out of your body, or of stress, distractions and everyday concerns being folded away and locked into a padlocked chest.
Imagery in Preparation and Rehearsal

You can also use imagery in rehearsal before a big event, allowing you to run through the event in your mind.

Aside from allowing you to rehearse mentally, imagery also allows you to practice in advance for anything unusual that might occur, so that you are prepared and already practiced in handling it. This is a technique used very commonly by top sports people, who learn good performance habits by repeatedly rehearsing performances in their imagination. When the unusual eventualities they have rehearsed using imagery occur, they have good, pre-prepared, habitual responses to them.

Imagery also allows you to pre-experience achievement of your goals, helping to give you the self-confidence you need to do something well. This is another technique used by successful athletes.
Summary:

With imagery, you substitute actual experience with scenes from your imagination. Your body reacts to these imagined scenes almost as if they were real, calming you down and letting adrenaline disperse.

To relax with imagery, imagine a warm, comfortable, safe and pleasant place, and enjoy it in your imagination.

Imagery can be shown to work by using biofeedback devices that measure body stress. By imagining pleasant and unpleasant scenes, you can actually see or hear the changing levels of stress in your body diminish.

Performance Planning

Performance Planning
Planning to Manage Performance Stress


We all know the feeling of sickness in our stomach before an important presentation or performance. We have all experienced the sweaty palms, the raised heart rate, and the sense of agitation that we feel as these events approach. We have probably all also experienced how much worse this becomes when things go wrong in the run up to an event.

This article helps you deal with this by helping you to prepare well for future performances.

The Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking technique that we look at later may be enough to help you manage the fears, anxieties and negative thoughts that may arise in a small performance.

For larger events, it is worth preparing a Performance Plan. This is a pre-prepared plan that helps you to deal effectively with any problems or distractions that may occur, and perform in a positive and focused frame of mind.
How to Use the Tool:

To prepare your Performance Plan, begin by making a list all of the steps that you need to do from getting prepared for a performance through to its conclusion.

Start far enough in advance to sort out any equipment problems. List all of the physical and mental steps that you need to take to:

* Prepare and check your equipment, and repair or replace it where it does not work;
* Make travel arrangements;
* Pack your equipment and luggage;
* Travel to the site of your performance;
* Set up equipment;
* Wait and prepare for your performance; and
* Deliver your performance.

Next, work through each of these steps. Think though:

* Everything that could reasonably go wrong at each step with equipment and arrangements; and
* Any distractions and negative thinking that could undermine your confidence or stop you having a positive, focused frame of mind at the start of and during your performance.

Work through all of the things that could go wrong. Look at the likelihood of the problem occurring. Many of the things you have listed may be extremely unlikely. Where appropriate, strike these out and ignore them from your planning.

Look at each of the remaining contingencies. These will fall into three categories:

1. Things you can eliminate by appropriate preparation, including making back-up arrangements and acquiring appropriate additional or spare equipment;
2. Things you can manage by avoiding unnecessary risk; and
3. Things you can manage with a pre-prepared action or with an appropriate stress management technique

For example, if you are depending on using a data projector for a presentation, you can arrange for a back up projector to be available, purchase a replacement bulb, and/or print off paper copies of the presentation in case all else fails. You can leave earlier than strictly necessary so that you have time for serious travel delays. You can also think through appropriate alternatives if your travel plans are disrupted. If you are forced to wait before your event in an uncomfortable or unsuitably distracting place, prepare the relaxation techniques you can use to keep a calm, positive frame of mind. Research all of the information you will need to take the appropriate actions quickly, and ensure that you have the appropriate resources available.

Also, prepare the positive thinking you will use to counter fears and negative thoughts both before the event and during it. Use stress anticipation skills to ensure that you are properly prepared to manage stress. Then use thought awareness, rational thinking and positive thinking skills to prepare the positive thoughts that you will use to protect and build your confidence.

Write your plan down on paper in a form that is easy to read and easy to refer to. Keep it with you as you prepare for, and deliver, your performance. Refer to it whenever you need it in the time leading up to the event, and during it.
Summary

Performance Plans help you to prepare for an important performance. They bring together practical contingency planning with mental preparation to help you prepare for situations and eventualities that may realistically occur.

This gives you the confidence that comes from knowing you are as well prepared for an event as is practically possible to be. It also helps you to avoid the unpleasant stresses that come from poor preparation, meaning that you can deliver your performance in a relaxed, positive and focused frame of mind, whatever problems or upsets may have occurred.

This article is an abridged version of just one of the techniques used to manage performance stress explained in “Managing Stress for Career Success”, Mind Tools’ Stress Management Masterclass. The ‘Managing Performance Stress’ module explains how to prepare for the event, how to manage negative thinking leading up to it and how to learn lessons from your experience of stress. As well as this, it shows you how to use a range of useful adrenaline management techniques for controlling the anxiety you will inevitably feel just before your performance.

Job Analysis

Job Analysis
The First Step in Managing Job Overload


We have all experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to intense stress.

The alternative is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reducing the time we spend on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing this.

The first of the action-oriented skills that we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.

To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is easy to overlook.

By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.

Job Analysis is a useful technique for getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.

Note that this tool takes two forms - the short-form we discuss here assumes that your organization is already well organized and that its job descriptions, review criteria and incentives are well-aligned and correct. The long-form (discussed within the Stress Management Masterclass), helps you to deal with jobs where this is not the case – here, inconsistent job design can cause enormous stress.
How to Use the Tool:

To conduct a job analysis, go through the following steps:

1. Review formal job documentation:

* Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it.
* Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
* Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know.
* Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.

2. Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:

Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!). Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.

Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.

Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?

Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.

3. Find out who the top achievers are, and understand why they are successful:

Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.

4. Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:

The next step is to check that you have the staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.

5. Confirm priorities with your boss:

By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.

This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.

It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed.

6. Take Action:
You should now know what you have to do to be successful in your job. You should have a good idea of the most important things that you have to do, and also the least important.

Where you can drop the less-important tasks, do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.

Where you need more resource or training to do your job, negotiate for this.

Remember to be a little sensitive in the way you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them or negotiate longer time scales.
Summary:

Job analysis is a five-step technique for:

* Understanding and agreeing how to achieve peak performance in your job;
* Ensuring that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight; and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and
* Making sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.

By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities.

This helps you to manage the stress of job overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.

Job Analysis is just one of many practical action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload. These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and powerful people, improving the way your teams function and become more assertive so that other people respect your right not to take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality of your working life, and for achieving career success.

Stress Diary

Stress Diary
Identifying the Causes of Short-Term Stress


Stress Diaries are important for understanding the causes of short-term stress in your life. They also give you an important insight into how you react to stress, and help you to identify the level of stress at which you prefer to operate.

The idea behind Stress Diaries is that, on a regular basis, you record information about the stresses you are experiencing, so that you can analyse these stresses and then manage them.

This is important because often these stresses flit in and out of our minds without getting the attention and focus that they deserve.

As well as helping you capture and analyse the most common sources of stress in your life, Stress Diaries help you to understand:

* The causes of stress in more detail;
* The levels of stress at which you operate most effectively; and
* How you react to stress, and whether your reactions are appropriate and useful.

Stress Diaries, therefore, give you the important information that you need to manage stress.
How to Use the Tool:

Stress Diaries are useful in that they gather information regularly and routinely, over a period of time. This helps you to separate the common, routine stresses from those that only occur occasionally. They establish a pattern that you can analyse to extract the information that you need.

Download our free Stress Diary template and make regular entries in your Stress Diary (for example, every hour). If you have any difficulty remembering to do this, set an alarm to remind you to make your next diary entry.

Also make an entry in your diary after each incident that is stressful enough for you to feel that it is significant.

Every time you make an entry, record the following information:

* The date and time of the entry.
* The most recent stressful event you have experienced.
* How happy you feel now, using a subjective assessment on a scale of -10 (the most unhappy you have ever been) to +10 (the happiest you have been). As well as this, write down the mood you are feeling.
* How effectively you are working now (a subjective assessment, on a scale of 0 to 10). A 0 here would show complete ineffectiveness, while a 10 would show the greatest effectiveness you have ever achieved.
* The fundamental cause of the stress (being as honest and objective as possible).

You may also want to note:

* How stressed you feel now, again on a subjective scale of 0 to 10. As before, 0 here would be the most relaxed you have ever been, while 10 would show the greatest stress you have ever experienced.
* The symptom you felt (e.g. “butterflies in your stomach”, anger, headache, raised pulse rate, sweaty palms, etc.).
* How well you handled the event: Did your reaction help solve the problem, or did it inflame it?

You will reap the real benefits of having a stress diary in the first few weeks. After this, the benefit you get will reduce each additional day. If, however, your lifestyle changes, or you begin to suffer from stress again in the future, then it may be worth using the diary approach again. You will probably find that the stresses you face have changed. If this is the case, then keeping a diary again will help you to develop a different approach to deal with them.

Analyze the diary at the end of this period.
Analyzing the Diary

Analyze the diary in the following ways:

* First, look at the different stresses you experienced during the time you kept your diary. List the types of stress that you experienced by frequency, with the most frequent stresses at the top of the list.
* Next, prepare a second list with the most unpleasant stresses at the top of the list and the least unpleasant at the bottom.
* Looking at your lists of stresses, those at the top of each list are the most important for you to learn to control.
* Working through the stresses, look at your assessments of their underlying causes, and your appraisal of how well you handled the stressful event. Do these show you areas where you handled stress poorly, and could improve your stress management skills? If so, list these.
* Next, look through your diary at the situations that cause you stress. List these.
* Finally, look at how you felt when you were under stress. Look at how it affected your happiness and your effectiveness, understand how you behaved, and think about how you felt.

Having analyzed your diary, you should fully understand what the most important and frequent sources of stress are in your life. You should appreciate the levels of stress at which you are happiest. You should also know the sort of situations that cause you stress so that you can prepare for them and manage them well.

As well as this, you should now understand how you react to stress, and the symptoms that you show when you are stressed. When you experience these symptoms in the future, this should be a trigger for you to use appropriate stress management techniques.
Summary

Stress Diaries help you to get a good understanding of the routine, short-term stresses that you experience in your life. They help you to identify the most important, and most frequent, stresses that you experience, so that you can concentrate your efforts on these. They also help you to identify areas where you need to improve your stress management skills, and help you to understand the levels of stress at which you are happiest, and most effective.

To keep a stress diary, make a regular diary entry with the headings above. For example, you may do this every hour. Also make entries after stressful events.

Analyze the diary to identify the most frequent and most serious stresses that you experience. Use it also to identify areas where you can improve your management of stress.

Introduction

Introduction to Stress Management


A lot of research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated.

Dr. Cheryl: Work Stress Management


During this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively defended.


What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced. A definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not.

Definitions
Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that “stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental.” Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.

Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved on. Stress is now viewed as a "bad thing", with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations.

The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.” In short, it's what we feel when we think we've lost control of events.

This is the main definition used by this section of Mind Tools, although we also recognize that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think.

Fight-or-Flight

Some of the early research on stress (conducted by Walter Cannon in 1932) established the existence of the well-known “fight-or-flight” response. His work showed that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive.

In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation.

Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.

There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.

In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout.

Managing Stress

There are very many proven skills that we can use to manage stress. These help us to remain calm and effective in high pressure situations, and help us avoid the problems of long term stress. In the rest of this section of Mind Tools, we look at some important techniques in each of these three groups.

Keeping a Stress Diary or carrying out the Burnout Self-Test will help you to identify your current levels of stress, so you can decide what action, if any, you need to take. Job Analysis and Performance Planning will help you to get on top of your workload. While the emotionally-oriented skills of Imagery, Physical Techniques and Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking & Positive Thinking will help you change the way you see apparently stressful situations. Finally, the article on Anger Management will help you to channel your feelings into performance.

This is a much-abridged excerpt from the ‘Understanding Stress and Stress Management’ module of the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. As well as covering this material in more detail, it also discusses:

• Long-term stress: The General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout
• The Integrated Stress Response
• Stress and Health
• Stress and its Affect on the Way We Think
• Pressure andPerformance: Flow and the ‘Inverted-U’

These sections give you a deeper understanding of stress, helping you to develop your own stress management strategies for handling unique circumstances. Click here to find out more about the Stress Management Masterclass and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles on stress management.