Activate your body’s intelligence and stay calm in demanding situations
Newsletter #4
As a manager, you’ll often find yourself needing to communicate in demanding and unpredictable situations. It’s typical in such situations for your mind to act in a certain way. You’ll jump into action and do something specific to solve the problem you are in. If the pressure is great enough, your brain will focus on survival and your automatic reaction will be to go into a state of fight, flight or freeze. By activating your physical capacity and using Body-Setting techniques, you can change your mental approach and maintain calm, even when you’re standing in the eye of a hurricane.
Watch the video here and see why Body-Setting work
Let me give you an example of how one manager used Body-Setting in a challenging situation.
Katarina, the manager of a finance department for a big international company, was being considered for promotion and feeling the pressure. Ahead of her was a week of video conferences, where she would be responsible for the budget negotiations with the company’s affiliates around the world. The company’s Vice President would be attending many of the sessions, and she knew that he would have the final word regarding her upcoming promotion.
In order to help Katarina deal with the pressure and appear calm yet energized, and with her thought processes working as coherently and efficiently as possible, we agreed on the following Body Setting sequence:
During the short breaks between the meetings, Katarina would find a quiet spot alone and use 1-2 minutes on the following:
· Practice her deep breathing
· Do centering exercises to find the optimal body posture and muscle energy and readiness.
· Deliberately extend her personal space through her sense of awareness and her presence.
In addition, Katarina took a moment to visualize the meeting with the person in her next video call and to imagine a positive, smiling and sympathetic face. By using these simple Body Setting techniques, Katarina was able to tap into her body’s capacity for self-management and participated in a number of productive, successful meetings and yes, she was also promoted.
