Good morning and welcome to the Increased Green Impact podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 1,818. When adversity strikes and you keep piling up errors, mistakes, losses, it's very easy for your thinking to become sloppy.

When that is a case, when you're passing through the storms of life and athletics and work

or whatever you're doing, it's easy to begin to think about worst case scenarios and to focus

more on what you don't want to have happen instead of focusing on when you want to have

happen. Losing is painful. Mistakes are embarrassing and sometimes dangerous and it can cost people's

jobs. And so we begin to panic. We begin to worry. And when we begin to panic, worry, become embarrassed or frustrated, our mind starts to get

into protective mode.

And we think to ourselves, don't strike out.

Don't mess up.

Don't fail.

Don't embarrass yourself.

Now, what's interesting about the mind, though, is that it doesn't

understand the word don't. And so the things that you're telling your mind to avoid doing,

that image is popping up in your mind and you're seeing it. And rather than performing aggressive,

rather than plain with laser focus on what you want to have happen, you're more timid.

You're playing not to lose instead of playing to win.

You're focusing on not messing up instead of focusing on succeeding and thriving.

And so today, if you find yourself in that situation or if somebody

you know is in that situation, this is the subtle invitation to grab a hold of your mental

steering wheel and turn it towards what you want to have happen instead of focusing on what you

don't want to have happen. Have a great day

and we'll do it again tomorrow.

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