Most people look at “performance” from the standpoint of skills or action. And, while these are performance, they are the “end results”. We can influence performance, change behavior, and inform action at a deeper level when we get to the level of cause.
Why does one person that is equally educated, trained and experienced perform at a different level than another person? It is how they receive, process and interpret information, from which they will make decisions and take action.
Okay, that makes sense. So, what determines how they process information? Emotional intelligence and mindset! We receive and process information according to our emotions in any moment. If you think about it, you will know that this is true. In your life when you’ve been feeling happy and positive, a particular piece of news just “rolls off you” and you are easily able to put it into perspective and “bounce back”. However, if you are frustrated, upset or angry, that very same news would literally be heard differently causing a completely different physiological reaction in your body, the hormones you release into your system and the part of your brain that you access and the decisions and action you take. You receive and process information in any moment according to your emotional state.
We all have an “emotional set point”, where we typically fall on the emotional scale. Your emotional set point is a result of your habitual thought patterns. Just like sound exists at a certain frequency, thought also exists at a certain frequency. The quality or frequency of our thoughts triggers an equal emotional response. The quality of the emotional response triggers a complex, dynamic physiological reaction in your body determine which hormones are released (either DHEA the vitality hormone, or “cortisol”, the stress hormone) and which part of your brain you are able to access.
The good news is that you can intentionally train yourself to have different thoughts, which trigger corresponding emotional responses that create vitality and creativity and establish a new emotional set point so that your habitual thoughts are of a higher quality and frequency.