Джон Харгрейв - Mind Hacking [How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days]

To simulate reminds

And stimulates your mind.

By repeating your positive loops, you have a powerful new tool to help make them a reality: mental simulation . Work these simulations into your daily routine, thinking through all the problems that could arise, and how you will successfully overcome each of them on your way toward your goal. Just as a good computer simulation introduces many random variables, try to predict the unpredictable, and let your mind show you how you will succeed.

You can direct the “mind movie” to a happy ending.

Method #2: Block and Tackle

“I truly believe . . . that your positive mind-set gives you a more hopeful outlook, and belief that you cando something great means you willdo something great.”

—Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks quarterback

The Seattle Seahawks had a weird idea: to make a kinder, gentler football team.

The story starts with head coach Pete Carroll, a positive, energetic leader who made his way up through the world of college football, rising to lead the New England Patriots to a division title in 1997. After the Patriots failed to even make the playoffs over the next two years, however, Carroll was unceremoniously fired, in what ESPN called a high-profile NFL “flameout.” 13Stung by the experience, Carroll hunkered down in the world of college football for nearly a decade, until he was hired by the Seahawks for the 2010 season.

He was back in the big league, and this time he was determined to do things differently. Carroll had an unusual plan in mind for the Seahawks, one that would make mental training every bit as important as physical training. He met with Dr. Michael Gervais, a sports psychologist who specialized in “high-stakes environments,” where split-second decisions can make the difference between a game-winning play and a life-threatening injury. 14After their first dinner together, Carroll leaned over to Gervais and said, “What do you say we build a masterpiece together?” And that they did.

The two men created a remarkable program of mind hacking for the Seahawks, utilizing the same skills you’re learning in this book: daily concentration exercises, constant repetition of positive loops, and regular mental simulations. In fact, as he explains, simulations are central for success.

“Let’s articulate what it feels like,” Gervais tells athletes, “when you’re at your best.” They first imagine, in vivid detail, situations where the athlete was at peak performance. In one-on-one simulation sessions, they make strategies for getting back to that state of peak performance, even in high-stress situations. “We don’t talk about winning, or being in the zone: those are aftereffects,” Gervais explains. “We ask, ‘ What’s getting in the way of you being in an ideal mind-set?  ’ And we figure out strategies to work through that.” 15

By running countless mental simulations, the players prepare for those critical moments in which games are won or lost: moments of fear. He points out that professional football players are under constant and intense stress: not just the physical stress of constant battering and the threat of injury, but the mental stress of making a bad play and losing a game, or a championship, or a career. The press ripping you to shreds, the fans tearing you apart, and the enormous sums of money won and lost on a game.

Simulations help them prepare for that moment of indecision and fear, so they can calmly and effortlessly know their next move, rather than being overwhelmed by the stress. If you’ve ever panicked or frozen up at a public speaking engagement, after being confronted by an angry colleague, or in a moment of high-stakes stress, you can see the practical value of this kind of mental simulation. It’s not just for professional athletes, but also for professional mind hackers.

Gervais likens the simulation process to developing mental “tools,” but I prefer the analogy of mental “functions.” In programming, a function is a block of code that performs a specific function for you: give it an input like “September 1, 2098,” and it will return a day of the week, like “Monday.” The code is nicely bundled in a neat package, like a little machine into which you feed an input (like the number 25) and it returns an output (like the square root of 25).

Running mental simulations is a way of developing these mental functions , so that when we find ourselves confronted with difficult situations, we are better equipped to handle them. “We need to get a platform in place,” says Gervais, “that allows fear to be part of it, to be comfortable with it, even to have fun with it, and that allows us to master it. That’s how to thrive in situations we’re not proficient in. Fear is really central to what we do .”

In those moments, he goes on to explain, “there is no pressure. It’s the moment. And being lost in the moment is so rewarding and so engaging, people become so interested in that moment, that we don’t have to challenge them. They become naturally interested. Asking, ‘What is it like to be your best?’ gets them there.”

Seahawks offensive tackle Russell Okung echoes this idea. “It’s about quieting your mind and getting into certain states where everything outside of you doesn’t matter in that moment. There are so many things telling you that you can’t do something, but you take those thoughts captive, take power over them and change them.”

You can accelerate the performance of your mental simulations by specifically thinking through how you will overcome difficulties : not just “thinking positive” but also “working through the negative.” Returning to the analogy of computer functions, given an input (you don’t make the sales quota, your kids get caught drinking, your speech is a disaster), what will be the output? In other words, how will you successfully respond?

In a 2001 research study, students were asked to identify a large goal, such as going to medical school or becoming an actor. The researchers asked one group of students to think through positive benefits of the goal (respect or personal fulfillment), another group to think through negative difficulties they were likely to encounter (taking the MCATs or enduring humiliating auditions), and a third group to think through both. 16

They found the third approach provided the best of both worlds: students who simulated both the outcome, as well as overcoming the potential difficulties , achieved more. Additional studies have shown that this two-pronged approach—asking “What’s it like to be your best?” as well as “How will you respond in a moment of challenge?”—has proven effective at improving performance for professionals as diverse as nurses, employees, and managers. 17

In fact, this “difficulty simulation” approach can also be effective for treating depression: instead of obsessing on a negative mental loop ( My family doesn’t love me ), patients can start reinvesting mental energy in the higher-order positive loops ( My goal is to feel love and happiness ), and develop alternate ways of getting there. 18Let’s call this the “Block and Tackle” method, where you simulate difficulties in your plan, and how you will successfully overcome them.

The best part of the Seahawks story is its ending: in 2014, Carroll and Gervais led the team to its first-ever Super Bowl victory. The Seahawks trounced the Denver Broncos, 43–8, in one of the largest point spreads in Super Bowl history. Carroll was sixty-two years old, the third-oldest coach to win the championship. But perhaps it’s premature to call this the end of the story, since one of the team’s positive loops is Win multiple Super Bowls .