Good morning and welcome to the increased impact podcast. I'm Justin Souther 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 could 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 playing 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.