Thread by @stevemagness

There is no one optimal performance state for all situations.

Instead of searching for a magic state, we need to understand how our mindsets, appraisal, environment, and thinking influence our ability to perform

A THREAD to dive very deep on performance states.
🧵👇👇

In the classic psychology literature, you may have heard of the Inverted-U theory of arousal. Too high and anxiety takes over. Too low and we aren’t amped up to perform.

Simple.

In reality, it’s really complicated. Arousal is a catch all term.

We have a myriad of ways to respond. Sympathetic NS, PNS, adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, testosterone, and on and on

Each shift of our internal preparation response changes our emotional and behavioral response

In classic terms, we can fight, flight, freeze, tend and befriend, and so on.

Each of these different ‘stress responses’ prepares and push us towards a different action.

In my lingo, I categorize them as:
Letting it happen
Making it
Losing it
Forcing it
Recovering it
Learning

How does our body decide which way to go? Prediction.

We predict what gives us the best chance of ‘success’ in that moment. Success doesn’t just mean winning, it could mean surviving, bonding, and so forth.

How can you impact this prediction?

The right mindset, right environment, right interpretation, right training.

Mindset:
This is how your interpreting the world you are interacting with. How are you appraising the situation and your self?

In psych terms, are we seeing the situation as threat or a challenge?

Letting it happen occurs when challenge is high and threat is low. You are free to perform

Making it= threat is high, but so is challenge. There’s some fear of losing/harm, but you are able to accept that & counterbalance it by seeing the more important challenge in the endeavor

Setting your mind= appropriate appraisal of what the task entails, what your current capabilities are, and the appropriate expectations of the risk/reward/cost of the endeavor.

The greater the mismatch between expectations and reality, the worse your body’s prediction will be.

Right Environment:
We are more willing to take risks, to play to win, if we feel secure and supported.

If you are a part of a team or organization that dangles losing your job over your head, you’re going to go into protect/low risk mode.

You play not to lose.

It’s not just about security, but feeling like you are part of the group, that they truly care about you, and so forth.

Does your environment meet your basic needs which allows you to perform at your best? Or does your environment signal your mind that it needs to protect?

We often fall into 'losing it' when we are going after a big goal, but the pressure and downsides are so high from our organization/team/etc., that our brain 'predicts' there's no way to win, so just protect and survive.

We shut down. We feel like we lose control.

Right Interpretation:

Win or lose, how we interpret and integrate the experience into our inner story goes a long way in deciding future responses/predictions.

If a loss is devastating, as if it attacked who we are as a person, that stinging feeling is remembered by our brain.

It may not want to experience that again…

So we’re more likely to try to avoid that experience, avoid being put in that situation again. It’s often why the ‘cool kids’ in gym class didn’t try.

At some point they got exposed, now to limit that exposure, to avoid being seen as not measuring up, they protect themselves by not trying.

Bad interpretation is like a scar, telling your brain to avoid that direction/response in the future.

We need to process then let it go and move on. Let the scar heal.

The same holds true for wins. If we linger on the high of winning for too long, we’re shifting our sensitivity to dopamine. We’re like the guys playing the slot machine who need a bigger and bigger high.

Dopamine is the desire hormone, pushing us towards the goal. If that goal loses its significance, we don’t ‘desire’ it as much. Motivation sags.

It's why the best recovery tool is often a cool down or meal with your teammates. You process with those you feel comfortable with.

Right Training

The final part and the simplest to explain. How you train for your endeavor shifts your expectations, your evaluation of your capabilities, and your sensitivity to different stressors.

Training isn’t just physical, it’s preparing to perform. Preparation allows your body to say “Oh ya, I’ve been in a similar spot before, I should go down this path,” without freaking out.

There are a myriad of branches we could go off using this framework. From the perception of control, to secure confidence, to setting up your environment to invite specific actions, to the training used to sensitive or desensitize certain responses.

The point is to get you thinking about how there is no one optimal state of performance. Your body has a bunch of different levers to pull that are appropriate for different situations.

You have say over which ones get pulled. Train your body and mind to make better predictions.

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