Success is all about persistence and doing the right thing for the long term.
– Bruce Rauner
Suppose, you have to present a speech before a large audience. Your superiors and well wishers have high hopes and expectations from you, they think you will nail it. But the thoughts inside you won’t stop, the nervousness keeps increasing. You are thinking about everything from presentation to audience. What if I mumble? What if I stumble? What if I forget my speech? All the ‘what ifs‘ doesn’t seem to end. You are anxious and have no idea how the speech will go.
Imagine yourself in similar situations where your mind won’t stop the talking and your mouth won’t start. You cannot escape the situation, you can’t turn your back to people who have faith in you and you’ll have to answer all their questions.
You feel like messing up will have effects on your reputation. And in that ‘present moment’ we feel that everything is falling apart.
The emphasis is on that ‘present moment. Now give a break to your imagination. We often face this sinking feeling when we are nervous. So, what’s the deal about it? Ever wondered why you react the same to intense situations, even if you have faced it multiple times? Why was the feeling in 12th board exams same as the 10th board exams? Why did the university exams, the professional exams made you feel the same? We know those were the parts of your life which could make or break you, but the response have been better with experience, right?
Even now, when we think about all the times in which we were so nervous, it brings a smile in our face and we think about how silly we were to be stressed out about these things.
So, what’s the conclusion?
We hype certain situations to such an extent in the present moment that when time passes by, we question ourselves if it was even necessary?
My point is why can’t we smile at ourselves in that intense situation? Why can’t we keep our cool? It is possible…yes, it is.
Let’s learn something about human behaviour…
In my opinion, our response works in 2 systems, the System S and the System L where the reference can be understood as L for “Long” and S for “Short“.
Most people tend to respond by System S, where the actions are just a reflex without much of thinking. System S maybe regarded as default initial response to anything that comes to us. That response is built of conditioning, the habits what we have been learning and developing through these years.
The next response system is System L. This system is more of a long term, looking at a bigger picture, responding to something after giving a thought to it. It processes the default reaction through a set of multiple matrix and decide whether that’s true.
We tend to stress a lot when practising the S system because we keep on overthinking about the negative sides of the thing, instead of thinking about the overall situation with a cool mind. While the L system is when we give everything the right amount of thinking and be stress free.
The System S is something that wants everything right way, the impatient, quick responding and reacting when it doesn’t get what it wants. While the System L looks it in a long term, know what’s right for you and what is the actual need.
Just being able to differentiate between the two systems will be a great step towards improving yourself. We want you guys to not stress for something that won’t be important after a few weeks. Take time to think and keep your cool.
Ofcourse, in situation where survival is the priority we need to react as soon as possible and take action, but if you really want yourself to give your best in the big event, then the only way to convince yourself is to think that even if you mess it up, the effects won’t be long term. The Long Term Theory will always let you keep your cool in any big event, that’s my guarantee.
Let’s do it. You just need to change your vision at that moment. Cheers.
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