The Personal Development Ezine from Gurdy.Net

STARTING NEXT MONDAY...

MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION

I need to explain!   The subconscious is preoccupied with the psychological snapshots that it took during your formative years.  It uses them as the reference point for your current behaviour.   Let’s look at a concrete example of how this works – sticking with the example of someone looking out over an audience about to make an important presentation.    Many years ago, I met a guy, who subsequently became a good friend and client, who had a major fear of public speaking.  He was a very able guy and held down an important job but, oh he was a God awful speaker!   He’d been to all sorts of seminars, workshops and courses on how to make the perfect presentation – but he still kept making a perfect fool of himself.

During a day-long session with me he recounted a story that had ‘stuck in his mind’ from his childhood.  It had been a Spring morning, the first sunny and warm day of the year (this was in Dublin so it’s quite possible that it was going to be the only sunny and warm day of the year!) and his mother had decided that he should wear his short pants.  At school that morning he was asked to stand up in front of the class to give a talk on the project that he and a mate were working on.  But, as he spoke, two tough guys in the front row of desks started sniggering and pointing at what he described to me as his “white knobbly knees”!   He felt awful and, as a result, his subconscious mind took a psychological snapshot of what was going on and how it made him feel.

The upshot of all this is that, nowadays, decades later, when he looks out across a waiting audience, his subconscious mind sees two guys in the front row laughing at his knobbly knees – and it’s all downhill from there.   That is why, when it’s most important to make a good impression, we often mess things up.

Someone recently told me that he was worried about making the right impression at an interview for a CEO position.   I told him “If you’re worried about making a good impression, you’re not!”   It’s that simple.   The worry factor comes from some subconscious baggage that you’re carrying and, if you allow that to create worry, then your mind is split and you’re not all there.   Didn’t you realize that, in order to make a good impression, you have to actually mentally turn up for the occasion!   And, as I’ve already said, the problem is that we don’t bother to turn up – sure enough the body’s there but the mind is all over the place.   Indeed, it is estimated that the normal person is only 1% present – 99% of them is off, as I said, looking at old photographs.

To make a good impression you have to be present – that’s why we think of people who do make a good impression as having what we call ‘presence’.   All this means is that those impressive people are a little more present than all the other idiots whose minds are missing in action – all the so-called normal people.   If you want to make any kind of impression you’re going to have to stop trying and start doing.  You’re going to have to be bothered enough to turn up to your own life!
Presence doesn’t come naturally to the normal adult mind – but it does come naturally with a little practice and cultivation.  Obviously, you don’t start practicing when you most need to be present – you train in advance, just as you would if you were going to run a marathon or play an important football match.   Your mental training is simplicity itself – all you have to do is learn how to pay attention to the reality of the moment to the extent that there’s not enough of your subconscious mind’s attention left to amuse itself with those old snapshots.  This ‘paying attention’ is what we call ‘focus’ – another hallmark of impressive and successive people, along with presence.

In order to become focused, you should spend a little time every day developing your ability to pay attention to what your five senses are telling you.   You could use some form of formal meditation – because meditation will discipline your mind to be attentive.  Or you could just sit down for a few minutes, close your eyes and focus on what you’re feeling and hearing.  You could, alternatively, close your eyes and focus on your breathing for a few moments.   Indeed, if you watch the world’s top sportspeople on your TV you’ll see that that’s exactly what they do to focus their minds.

There are a million and one things that you can do to divert your subconscious mind’s attention onto the one and only thing that matters in this life – the absolute reality of the present moment.   It’s in the present moment that your life is lived (maybe that’s why you feel you’re not living life to the full – because your mind is idling in the past).  It’s in the present moment that you will find real reality – and it’s only in the present moment that you’ll make the best possible impression.

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN!