Mental Skill #5 – Innovation
Definition: “The ability to create new words and new mental pictures in the moment”
You have five mental skills that can be described as abilities. You are able to communicate with yourself and select specific words and you are able to do this on demand.
You are able to focus or concentrate by repeating specific words over time and you are able to do this for an extended period of time on demand.
You are able to inventory and create a personal list of words that help you with decision-making and you are able to access this list on demand.
You are able to prioritize and discriminate different words, some should be repeated often and some should not be allowed and you are able to do this on demand.
The fifth and final mental skill is known as innovation. This is the ability to be creative and thinking of new words and new mental pictures and this ability is a skill demonstrated when you create these new words on demand.
There are going to be times when you find yourself under attack in the chatter. You will find yourself weak and the dominant words are, “its not possible”. You will struggle to see yourself winning or achieving in your mind and your words will work against you.
These are the times when courage and faith come into maturity; optimism becomes the dominant thought when you learn to develop this mental skill. You must learn how to see it for yourself. You must discipline very specific words and very specific mental pictures that see you executing the necessary tasks to achieve the next step. Truth told, until you mature into this enlightened self-interest your personal achievement and ability to problem solve and overcome conflict will be limited. The collateral damage from your lack of personal skill development will then flow over into your relationships when you fail to connect with others. As a result your relationships suffer and so too will the team unit or family.
Remember back to the illustration of the two brains, the thinking brain and the feeling brain. Once the feeling brain begins to highjack the thinking brain, creativity and your ability to innovate is hindered, even limited. If you think you have control or can prevent this from happening, you cannot. You cannot prevent the brain from playing this role of a highjack. Yours is to develop the ability to become aware when it’s happening inside of you and then learn to regulate the highjack by bringing the thinking brain back on line with specific words and mental pictures (recovery).
For most of us it is difficult to be creative when under pressure. When you are in an unregulated emotional state of frazzle, your ability to learn is hindered. The brain functions you need the most to make wise decisions for the task at hand are the least accessible. Once you begin to understand and accept this critical truth to how the body responds to pressure we can now better understand why the mental and emotional preparation is so critical. We must learn to be aware of the little penny-conversations we have with ourselves throughout the day. When we learn this 86-4 level of awareness and regulate the chatter, we in turn begin to program (in some cases re-program) past, present and future events.
10.1.1 Guiding Principle: Innovate
When you innovate, you are using your creative brainpower. Your creativity is often hindered when you are under pressure, dealing with stress or the extreme, distressed. As you journey through your day it’s possible to have many low-grade highjacks that begin to add up and before you realize it your stress hormone levels are through the roof and you haven’t even left the house yet.
You wake up late from the lack of sleep (low-grade highjack and lack of physical rest), you spill your coffee on your outfit and no time to change (another low-grade shot of stress hormones into the system) and your chatter runs rampant with words on being late for your first meeting and you are soon sitting on the side of the road talking with the police officer. All of these minor events and lack of regulating the chatter will eventually add up to the point where you and your performance are hindered.
In order to work on a corrective action to improve your performance, you are required to recover from the highjack. Once you recover, you can then begin to seek and discover what adjustments in your task execution need to be made and/or prepared for and refined in the menu list. It is your ability to recover that sets the foundation for your own ability to seek out new words and new mental pictures that get you back on track. The mental skill of innovation is a learned behavior that empowers you to begin the recovery process for developing and improving your next performance.
For the sake of learning, this is a very elementary view of what’s happening inside of you as your chatter dictates to your body’s stress response system. The next time you become aware that you are “wigging” yourself out simply begin to talk to yourself by asking specific questions. By engaging your brain with a question, blood flow increases back to the brain where you need it the most in this critical moment.
“When you ask yourself questions, it’s like making the brain mad.”
Understand what is happening in your body when you are energized and in competition. Your energy is based on your body’s ability to increase blood flow. When you get a jolt of stress hormones, your lungs take in more oxygen while your heart will increase and pump more blood to the body. All of this happens inside of you to support your physical ability to perform the task.
The one thing you need the most under pressure is the least accessible during a highjack, the thinking brain. You must learn to recover and get the thinking brain back on line and to do so simply ask yourself questions targeting thoughts and emotions.
10.1.2 Guiding Principle: Two Questions
What am I thinking? What am I feeling?
These are two very specific “x” and “y” questions or coordinates that you have designed and placed on your mental menu list. These two simple questions are so good, we teach you to use these throughout the day. These two questions help you learn awareness to your thoughts (chatter) and feelings (emotions). Keep in mind, the goal is awareness 86,400 seconds of every day.
When you ask yourself these questions, blood flow goes back to the brain. In theory, your disciplined chatter makes the brain mad and this causes the blood to flow back to the thinking brain. This promotes recovery in order to get the thinking brain back on line with rational, wise decision-making. It is at this point you have a chance to recover from your emotional highjack and regain your ability to innovate, be creative and learn.
It is difficult. You must work through the process of regulating the chatter. You step out in faith, going beyond what your sensory perception tells you, and commit to it in your chatter. You will amaze yourself with what’s possible for you and your un-tapped potential. You will no longer live with “impossibility-thinking” but rather self-discipline the brains optimal states by what is called “possibility-thinking”.
“You must learn to see it for yourself before others will see it in you”
In other words, you just had a bad performance. You are growing and becoming something more by working on your mental skills. Your mental skills are the one thing you can actually put forth a small amount of work and reap amazing rewards and many times the rewards of mental discipline are immediate.
10.1.3 Guiding Principle: Performance Improvement
You will find your thoughts rewinding and reflecting back, your chatter is looking through the past-window. Be aware to catch the negative words and mental pictures that pop up in your mind. Your goal will be to pull from your mental menu list these two questions that are designed as “x” and “y” coordinates, each supporting a “performance improvement” strategy. This strategy is designed to support the way your brain functions during problem solving and conflict resolution.
For example, you are not performing well and your stats are confirming this reality. You have a potential problem and you are now seeking a new solution based on your internal dialogue. The new, innovative solution is to use these mental skills before, during and after you are working on your physical skills and fundamentals to the game you play. Yes, you must continue to put in the hours of physical practice and drill instruction. However, now you are also strengthening your mental and emotional skills at the same time you are practicing the physical skills. This improvement strategy basically keeps your chatter focused on achievement rather than setbacks.
Question #1: What did I do right?
This is your “Atta-boy”. You must discipline your chatter to seek these answers out when you reflect back in the window of the past. Reflect back and learn to review your own personal motives when you were performing well. Seek out what was motivating you and take the necessary time to find the words and mental pictures that were flashing in your chatter while you were performing so well. Simply remember your mental recorder is capturing everything, and will serve you these “Atta-boys” later. It’s amazing how God set this up to work inside of you and it is all based on your chatter in the present-window.
The question, “what did I do wrong” is the natural and the negative one we all ask from time to time. Struggle not! You must understand this is the natural rattle of an unorganized, unregulated chatter and it is so by design. The brain’s role as a security guard for you and your bodies natural response to every situation is naturally going to seek out the threat and all that’s wrong.
Question #2 (with self-discipline): What can I do better?
The kicker is that you have been given the mental recorder; the all powerful, all amazing mental recorder that will either serve you or beat you with the dominant message from your chatter.
By asking a short specific question seeking the “do-better”, your chatter engages blood flow and seeks to innovate. Creativity uses the intellectual brain to make domino corrections; basically refining the “x” and “y” coordinates for the next time you do the task. Your mental recorder is paying attention and captures your answers to be pulled up for the next time. The short story is your brain’s pre-programmed responses will support and engineer your performance in the future. All based on your chatter in the present-window.
“You mental skills and ability will engage you to see yourself winning at every level of executing a task.”
When my mentor first introduced these ideas about the skill of innovation he added this subtle little note:
“The skill of innovation is like striving to achieve greatness and to over come the highest mountain top; realizing you will never get there.”
When you understand the foundation to this skill of innovation, the short story is that you will never be as good as you can be. You must continue to grow and become something more than you are today. This mental skill of innovation will continue to challenge you to tackle the next mountaintop regardless of where you are in your life achievements.
10.1.4 Guiding Principle: It’s Possible
Two words when focused and repeated often with purpose and reason will change your belief system. It’s possible.
Honestly, if someone else can do it, why not you? No this is not a warm fuzzy motivational speech it’s a real question for you to take ownership in the chatter. Each one of us has everything to gain from seeking the truth in this “possibility-thinking”.
Even today I am learning to accept this truth, it is possible for me, and it is possible for you. In my own efforts to practice, preach, and teach, I too must discipline the chatter at times and believe that its possible for me to become more. It is possible for me to become a better teacher, a better writer, a better dad, a better husband, and a better business partner. And yes, even you with all that you have achieved, all that you have become at this point in your life… it is still possible to become something more. Humbly and respectfully becoming something more to yourself and those around you.There are going to be times when you don’t have the answer. You don’t have the mental pictures and the only two words you can muster up are going to be, “it’s possible”.