High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 492: Believe in the Best-Case Scenario

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

To create the life, performance, and business that you desire and deserve, you have to see it first. You have to have a positive expectation about yourself, other people, and the circumstances in your life. Dr. Kamphoff talks in this episode how when you continually believe in the best-case scenario and make it happen with your "my-scenario", your life changes. This will change your future and bring your grit to a whole new level.  This Week's Power Phrase: “ I focus on what I want to happen. I believe the sky is the limit for me.”  This Week's Quote of the Week: “Don’t spend a lot of time imaging the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice.” —Michael J. Fox 

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We check in with Cendra Kampoff today and we're talking in believing in the best case scenario.

And Cendra, start us off with one of your quotes. I love this quote by Michael J. Fox. He said, don't spend a lot of time imagining the worst case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will. And if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice. So can you tell us about the topic for today? Sure. So what we're talking today about is how neuropsychologists have found that when your brain expects something to happen, it works to achieve it at a subconscious level. And so our expectation creates it and your brain takes over the job of accomplishing what you see. So if you expect the worst, you're going to get the worst. If you expect the best,

you're more likely to get the best. And this is important because our expectation impacts our behavior, which can then actually cause what we expect to happen. And why is this so important? Well, really what we're talking about today is how we can each develop self-fulfilling prophecies, where we expect something to happen and then it happens. And so especially negative self-fulfilling prophecies can lead to kind of a vicious cycle where our negative expectations kind of result in, like, let's say, mistakes or a lack of motivation or even a lack of confidence. And then our lack of confidence creates more mistakes or more of lack of motivation. So, for example, if you expect today is going to be bad, it more likely will be. If you expect to have a bad practice today in sport, it's more likely that you will. Or if you expect your business to fail, it more likely will.

So the point today really is, Lisa, that you create the future in your mind and really only you make it happen. So, Cinder, what's the better option for us? Well, the better option is to believe in the best case scenario. And so the key is to focus on what you want to happen, not what you don't want to happen. So even just saying things like, you know, in your mind, like the sky is the limit for me,

or I'm a champion in the making, or my success will continue. Instead, our brain automatically goes to, you know, the negative of like, oh, here we go again, or something bad is about to happen. So when you believe it's going to happen, it's more likely to happen. And only after you believe can you put a plan in place to make it a reality. So what do we do? What should we do if our mind always goes to the worst case scenario? Well, I think it's pretty natural that our minds go to the worst case scenario because it tries, you know, our brain is protecting us.

So the next time your mind goes to the worst case scenario, I want you to pull it back and focus on what you want to happen instead. And so shift your thoughts away from the worst case scenario to the best case scenario. Or something in my Beyond Grit book that I talk about is called the My Scenario. And this My Scenario is like what you can plan, what you can create. It focuses more on the small things like the process and the things that you can control. So can you give us an example of that? Sure. I use this often. So when I was training for a marathon one time, leading up to the marathon, I felt so much anxiety. You know, my brain kept on going to the worst case, like, I'm going to crash and burn

in this marathon. And then, okay, I took a step back, what's the best case? Well, maybe the best case is I run, you know, my fastest time so far. But that wasn't always something I could control because of the weather. So then I went to focusing on my scenario. And that was like, I will run my heart out. I will run fast and strong. I will, you know, do my best today. And after just focusing on the my scenario, it actually made me have more energy and more excitement in the race. I do this when let's say I'm giving a speech, or a talk to a business or a team. My mind can go to the worst case, right, that they're not going to like this at all.

But if I stay focused on the best case, that's, you know, it's really going to make a big difference for their work or their life. And then even if I go down to my case, you know, those are the things I can control, which is delivering it with passion and energy and excitement. So how would you like to finish today? Well, so to create the life or performance or even business that we each of us desire, we have to see it first. And you have to believe in the positive expectation of yourself and other people and the circumstances in your own life.

So just continuing to believe in the best case scenario, make it happen with the my scenario that I talked about today. And this will change your own future where you feel like you can be in charge of what you're doing next. Cinder, what is this week's power phrase? I focus on what I want to happen. I believe the sky is the limit for me. And if people want to get in touch with you, maybe pick up that Beyond Grit book you were talking about, or maybe the new book when it comes available to us. What do we need to do to follow you? You can go to Dr. Sindra, the D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A in the book, in the workbook, and I have a Beyond Grit Academy you can check

out over there as well. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow. Did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.