The Upward and Downward Spirals
Pressure, real or perceived, makes our brains say the most stupid things to us at the most inopportune times.
We have talked about how to overcome these lapses into doubt. But when you make it a habit to turn everything into a positive, it instantly allows for us to not let anything negative lead us to spiral down the pathway of destruction or frustration.
In the book “Every Shot Must Have a Purpose,” the authors devoted a specific chapter on the upward and downward spirals. That was our first introduction to them, and we’ve used them in clinics ever since.
The upward and downward spiral both begin with a neutral or happy state. To better understand these spirals, I’ll start by describing them from that neutral state, and then go up and then go down so that you understand what’s happening in the spirals.
We begin neutral or happy. When we go in the upward spiral, the first step is you become interested in what the course will challenge you today. Then from being interested, you become engaged on the first stand, you make your plan, you make your prediction, you execute, correct or repeat. As the plans begin working, you become confident because they’re working and your process is absolutely killing it.
After you become confident, you slip into the zone and the long-term memory and the working memory are doing their deal and staying in their own lanes, which allows you to slip into that euphoric state where you’re actually just observing yourself doing what you’re doing.
