Communications: Outcomes need positive not negative descriptions

Always describe the positive outcome or activity you desire. Your words place an image in people’s minds that impacts their future behavior. Athletes visualize successfully executing their sport because it is highly effective. Describing the outcome you don’t want will backfire and lodge the negative image in people’s minds. Use “do” versus “don’t” to describe the desired outcome, goal or activity.

Resources

• Ironic process theory is reviewed in Wikipedia. Ironic process theory or the white bear problem refers to the psychological process whereby deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts make them more likely to surface. An example is how when someone is actively trying not to think of a white bear they may actually be more likely to imagine one.

• "Visualization Techniques for Athletes", by Elizabeth Quinn discusses the use of visualization techniques by athletes and research sources.

• "Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Visualization", by A. J. LeVan in Psychology Today, broadly discusses the topic of visualization in many applications and related research.

Brain studies now reveal that thoughts produce the same mental instructions as actions. Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. It’s been found that mental practices can enhance motivation, increase confidence and self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for success, and increase states of flow – all relevant to achieving your best life!

• "Olympians Use Imagery as Mental Training", by Christopher Clarey at the NY Times, 2014, relates how Olympic athletes use visualization to achieve extraordinary levels of performance.

Author

The author of this page is Terry Gardiner

Terry Gardiner is the founder and President of Silver Lining Seafoods and NorQuest Seafoods - a medium-size Alaska seafood processing company; and currently a Board member of the Anvil Corporation, an employee-owned company specializing in oil and gas engineering.

His co-operative experiences include member director of the Commercial Fishermen Co-operative association; creation of legislation for the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank; and advisor to the US Dept of Health and Social Services for the state Health CO-OPs.

Terry served ten years as a member of the Alaska House of Representatives -several legislative committee chairmanships, Speaker of the House, Chairman of the Alaska Criminal Code Commission and board member on various state and federal boards and commissions.

His non-profit experiences include National Policy Director for the Small Business Majority in Washington DC; working with the Herndon Alliance and ForTerra.

Terry authored the leadership book, "Six-Word Lessons to Build Effective Leaders: 100 Lessons to Equip Your People to Create Winning Organizations".

For more check: Terry Gardiner Long bio