Do not think of a pink elephant.

So…. What’s going through your mind right now? A pink elephant? I just told you not to think of a pink elephant and here you are sitting with the image of a pink elephant going through your head.

More about the pink elephant that you aren’t thinking about in a second but first: I recently saw a study that showed that whether you performed a certain task or watched someone performing that same task, your brain neurons fired identically. The brain is very powerful and can influence the outcome of our tasks whether we realize it or not.

What do pink elephants and neurons have to do with the workplace? I recently read a book called Mind Gym by Gary Mack and David Casstevens and in one of the chapters they talked about what does a golfer do when he comes up to a hole with water on it? Some will reach into their golf bags and pull out a water ball, go up to the tee box and think to themselves “DO NOT HIT THE BALL IN THE WATER.” The ironical part of this is that the brain does not recognize the word “NOT” as we just proved when you had a pink elephant trampling through your mind. So where does the ball go? Just where you wanted it to go; after all, you did call it the "water ball."

The pink elephant combined with how your neurons fire gives light to another area of practice that we often forget about, the mental aspect. We run from meeting to meeting, talking to this person and that person, but how much time do you really devote to the mental aspect of your job? When I coached lacrosse, one drill that I loved to do is a shooting drill without balls. I’d have my team pass the “ball” to one another and take some shots on a goalie that must save an imaginary ball. This gets really odd when I ask them where their shot went and they look confusingly at me and say “top left.” Then I tell them that they missed the goal completely. This gets them visualizing the game and not relying on a ball to confirm where the shot actually went. If they miss with a ball in the game because they weren’t able to visualize the shot, it could cost the team a win. Rather, I like to have them practice and visualize so that they can “see” the ball going into the goal.

The same goes for you and work. It is just as important for us to go through scenarios in our heads each day so that when we are presented with these scenarios, we have already, in our minds, been there and most importantly we visualized ourselves succeeding. If our minds have already been there and saw us succeeding, you will be more comfortable to handle the situation when it arises and success is more within reach than had we never run through that specific scenario from a mental perspective.

I want to leave you with a saying that Arnold Palmer kept in his locker:

If you think you are beaten, you are

If you think that you dare not, you don't

If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,

It's almost certain you won't.





If you think you'll lose, you've lost

For out in the world you'll find

Success begins with a fellow's will.

It's all in the state of mind.





Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man;

But sooner or later the man who wins

Is the man who thinks he can.