Your Vision Board On Steroids
We know self-perception rules our results. Our self-perception dictates the meaning we give to experiences and is made up of memories, decisions, conditioning, values, beliefs and attitudes creating a feedback loop of information. We also know the benefits that positive emotions bring not only in terms of survival but also to thriving. This is encapsulated in the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion. In this article we bring these two concepts together to create a tool that you can use to strengthen your daily processes and improve your training outcomes.
Running on auto-pilot
As we move through each day, we are constantly filtering external information through our individual lens of self-perception. This feedback loop of filtered information impacts our subjective mental state and physiology, which in turn impacts our behaviours, our external world and back again. From here we can see how critical our interpretation of events is to thought-action behaviours and the results we achieve (or to be even more specific, how we perceive the results we achieve). It also indicates that if we don’t like the results we seem to be experiencing time and time again, part of what we need to address is our self-perception.
How self-perception and broaden-and-build theory intertwine
The broaden-and-build theory sets out the impact positive emotions bring. Momentary positive emotions broaden a person’s range of thought-action possibilities. For example, joy fuels the desire to create, explore and learn and contentment assists us to lean into gratitude and solidify beneficial beliefs about ourselves and the world.
Tying the self-perception feedback loop and broaden-and-build theory together, we see that positive self-perception leads to more time spent experiencing the expansive benefits of positive emotions. This is because positive emotion fueled thought-action leads to expansion of new thoughts, possibilities and connections which produces an upward spiral of resilience, strengthened social relationships, skills and knowledge. You can see how this increases a person’s chances of survival, health, wellbeing and perceptions of fulfillment. The expansion created by positive emotions also allows us to lean into our authenticity and get curious enough to shed erroneous limiting beliefs.
We can contrast this with the narrowed thought-action tendencies that negative emotions bring. Not to say negative emotions aren’t just as important for human survival, they are, but they aren’t geared towards expansion like positive emotions are. The utility of this is that it allows quick thinking in harm’s way, for example, if you see someone approaching you with a knife. Having a narrowed set of options that can be processed quickly is more likely going to preserve your life than contemplating a vast range of possibilities and playing around with novel ideas. But when we are looking at achieving ambitious performance and physique outcomes, we can see how being resourceful, feeling capable and building support networks will help us succeed. All of these things piggy back off positive emotion states.
Let’s use the following scenario as an example: you place second in a physique competition or powerlifting meet. Granted, there is a spectrum of emotions this is likely to produce; but if we look at two possible subjective meanings a person could give to this scenario, it will highlight the impact self-perception has on generating that meaning and the subsequent emotions felt. And, in turn the effect these emotions have on thought-action behaviours and whether an upward or downward spiral is created in any given moment.
Person A: Whilst somewhat disappointed, through a lens of mostly positive self-perception person A also feels energised, enthusiastic and eager to continue and progress. They feel excited for future opportunities to try again and fine tune their processes. From this state they might choose to consult experts to assist them, try some new things and continue to make progress.
Person B: Through a lens of mostly negative self-perception feels disappointed, hopeless, remorseful and sad. Their field of vision narrows and they make second place mean that they are no good at the sport and shouldn’t bother trying again. From here they give up, throw the towel in and cease competing.
Whilst these are black and white examples, they illustrate how important our lens of self-perception is and the impact of emotions in terms of the trajectory of our future behaviours and our results.
Using self-perception and broaden-and-build theory synergistically for better outcomes
How can we tap into the known benefits of broad-and-build theory intentionally and strengthen our self-perception so that the feedback loops we engage in generate upward spirals more often? By creating our own upward spiral roadmap.
Your upward spiral roadmap is a vision board on steroids. It will allow you an opportunity to intentionally generate the positive emotions associated with creativity, exploration, resourcefulness and resilience, whilst at the same time reinforcing your authentic self by focusing your attention on behaviours and traits that support your goal outcomes.
Creating your upward spiral roadmap
Your roadmap is designed to be used as part of your morning routine. Take 10 minutes each morning to find some space for yourself, read it, take it in and amend it as required.
1. Traits, beliefs and affirmations
The first part of your roadmap will focus on those traits within yourself that you currently value. This may come faster for some of you than others, but it is important to reflect on your current strengths and lead with these. The traits you already possess will act as a launchpad for strengthening your positive self-perception. Focusing on them each morning and then seeing examples of them show up in your daily life (especially examples that you have already identified) will continue to reinforce these traits that you value. In and of itself, it will also begin an upward spiral of positive emotion for the day.
You may like to supplement these traits with further traits that you imagine a person who already has your outcomes possesses. Where possible, take the time to reflect and see if you can identify any instances where you have engaged in these traits, even fleetingly. This will assist you in integrating these beliefs more strongly into your perception of self. If not, the exercise of reading them each morning will allow you to practise and cultivate new traits that will become more familiar to you over time.
I recommend listing around 5 -10 traits that resonate with you.
Next up is beliefs and affirmations. In this section you’ll detail 10 beliefs and/or affirmations that you hold when you’re showing up as your most authentic self. A note here that most of the limiting beliefs we hold do not actually come from our authentic self, so it will be useful to make a note of any limiting beliefs that come up on a different page and work through shifting them separate to this activity.
2. Success stories
For this section of your roadmap you’ll look to stories and accomplishments from your past that provide evidence that you already possess the traits and characteristics listed above. For anything that may seem just out of reach, you can add stories from people who have already accomplished the things you aspire to or who provide examples of living into the behaviours that you wish to focus on. The point of this section is to intentionally draw your focus throughout the day towards evidence that supports your desired self-perception. By immersing yourself in this roadmap every day you will be training yourself to look for evidence that supports your chosen beliefs.
3. Future self
This section is similar to the concept of a vision board where you will write out and/or include pictures of the goals that you are working towards. Play around with time frames here to suit you. Anything from short term or years ahead, it’s up to you. Ensure that to the best of your ability the traits, beliefs, affirmations and success stories are likely to set you on the path towards your ideal future self so that the whole roadmap feels aligned.
This is the outline for the roadmap, but i’ve found it is most effective when you make it in such a way that feels most authentic to you. For example, play with how many traits you list, use pictures, make it into a voice recording or movie, or read it whilst listening to music. My clients who use it with most success are the ones who make it theirs and consistently engage with it each day.
A final note, I’ve kept it to training outcomes given this is my area of expertise, but this roadmap can also be used to suit life in general. In my experience, the traits that lead to success in the gym also assist my clients in bringing about success in other areas of their life too, so you might also decide to merge your roadmap into training, life and work.
I’d love to hear how you go creating your own roadmap, how you’ve put it together and the impact it has on the way you begin to interpret external information.
