Congratulations: you’ve downloaded the hypnosis you will listen to every day (or more!) for the next two weeks (or more!). The next step is to power up that hypnosis by making your personalised visualisations.
You are going to create a Mind Movie to play in your imagination when you listen to your download.
A Mind Movie is a visualisation in the form of imagined moving images – like a movie – which you create to watch inside your mind when you listen to your download.
This will show moving images (just like in a movie) representing your best possible public speaking performance.
We are going to use the brain’s “conditioning” function to create a trigger to bring on feelings of calm confidence.
What is the trigger? Breathing out and saying to yourself “calm”.
Our lives contain experiences which, if repeated, trigger an automatic response in our behaviour. In the most famous example, Pavlov, the Russian scientist, rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. After a while, just hearing the bell would trigger his dogs to salivate. An otherwise neutral stimulus like a bell ringing took on a positive meaning for the dogs.
Other examples of classic conditioning might be: standing up when the school bell is rung; or feeling tearful at the sight of a needle because of past painful injections; or a song from the happy moments in the past putting you in a good mood. Put simply, two stimuli are linked together to produce a learned response.
Think about what your best public speaking performance would look like.
What would you say and do? Think about the pitch, tone and speed of your voice.
How would you sound to your audience? How would you look to your audience?
How would you hold your body? How would your body move?
How would it feel as you performed? What would your internal emotions be?
Find somewhere comfortable to relax.
Close your eyes.
Take five deep breaths (inhale through your nose for four or five counts, exhale through your mouth at a slower pace).
Then breathe deeply in a way that is comfortable for you, taking breaths from low down in your abdomen. Place your hand on your stomach to check that it is moving up and down as you breathe.
Create a Mind Movie in which you imagine moving images (just like in a movie) showing you speaking at your very best.
The “Modelling” technique can be very useful here.
Your Mind Movie should be in full colour and last about 30 seconds.
Imagine you have a control board in front of you which allows you to play with your Mind Movie.
Practice watching yourself on the screen, as well as experiencing it through your own eyes (jump into your body in the movie).
Trigger: both before and after you watch your Mind Movie, take a deep breath and on the out breath say to yourself “calm”.
Your brain will make the association between exhaling and saying to yourself “calm”, and the confidence you felt in your Mind Movie
Play your Mind Movie repeatedly.
Work it into your every day activities: e.g. when you brush your teeth, your hair, when you have a hot drink, or take a loo break and so on.
Remember to say to yourself “calm” on the exhale whenever you play your Mind Movie.
Example:
Bobby made a Peak Performance Mind Movie of his best interview performance.
He saw himself speaking confidently with a natural ease and charm.