100 Days 100 Thoughts | Day 5— Sian Leah Beilock
Howdy Folks !!
Yesterday we saw how sleep plays a major role in our health and how we have to maintain a healthy relationship with sleep to use it as a superpower. We have been talking about sleep, boredom and overcoming procrastination and so on. But when it comes to performing a task which we are versatile at, we fail under pressure. The failure also plays a major role in stopping us from trying harder. Today’s talk is by Sian Leah Beilock on the topic “Why we choke under pressure — and how to avoid it.” Watch it and enjoy.
Welcome Back !!
I wish to discuss two aspects of this video. The primary one is the buzz word of over attention. Leave the stressful situations and deadlines, while climbing the stairs have you ever thought of the steps you are taking? Are you skipping any steps or using each step? Next time when you think about it while you take the stairs you tend to fall and you might even feel like you have forgotten to climb. This is what over attention does to you. While writing an article, you might start thinking of not making a particular mistake and you flutter away from the topic. After a period all you find is a mess and you doubt yourself if you remember writing in the first place.
This is the major problem with over attention and as the speaker says, to avoid it all you need to do is get into the rhythm of doing the task. I used to practice martial arts a long time ago. Whenever I am aware that my coach is there, I tend to screw up in the match and lose. Although I perform great at practice matches, the pressure of losing and what would my coach say creeps in and I lose my mind. Then I started thinking, my coach comes or not the opponent is going to perform the same, so why take it to the mind. If I am going to lose, I am going to lose and took the pressure off the hook and started singing to myself during the match. That helped me stay away from thinking about the pressure and helped me immensely. Before that the pressure of how am I going to perform for the day and in the name of preparation and practice a lot. This helped me many times but at times we should know when to stop too. Rather than repeatedly practising I started mock matches. This helped me immensely to recreate the unpredictable situations of the match and made me ready for the same. You need smarter preparation to face the game. This holds true in every aspect of life. Be it cracking a job interview or working on an assignment.
The second aspect is the reinforcement of a thought. The speaker explains how Math aversion is planted in the minds of the kids. Just imagine in our lives how many situations are made stressful just by reinforcement? We are creating a stressful situation rather than dealing it as it is. Be it an exam or a job. A person goes for an interview, but before going we create enough stress so that the person fails. Then the blame game starts which makes the person feel miserable about themselves. Rather a calm approach to these would result drastically different and creates a healthy environment for the person. Even we do the same to many of our friends knowingly or unknowingly. This can be seen as a joke, but deep down it reinforces a negative thought. Wash away the fear and negativity by sowing seeds of positive approach towards any subject. Take the worst-case scenarios and work on overcoming it rather than talking about how worst the worst-case scenarios are. This is the way to move forward and savour the process rather than just the end result.
