A Circle of Excellence is not about excelling in a particular skill. It is more about channelling into your confidence level in order to draw upon the abilities that you need to perform on a chosen skill – at your highest potential. Hence, it is a confidence building technique. A resource if you like that you can call upon to help in time of need. It is used to improve our performance whether it be for sport, work purposes or basically, for any purpose at all.
So how do you create your Circle of Excellence?
Firstly, choose a happy place within your own mind. Everyone has one right?
For me, it is the beach. It is where I go when I need to replenish my energy and inspiration levels. It is where I feel safe and at my happiest. It is where time stands still.
Unfortunately, though I do not live at the beach where I can access this experience every single day of my life, but I can access this vision within my own mind whenever and where ever I may be. So therefore, I use this vision when I want to create my Circle of Excellence.
So let’s now go through the steps
Step 1. It is important that you first identify what it is that you want. For example; do you have a speech coming up that you wish to feel calm and confident in, or do you have a potential new client that you wish to blow away with your amazing presentation?
Whatever it is, then ask yourself how you want to feel in this particular situation. For example; confident, excited, focused, passionate. Really contemplate what state you would like to be in that will make you more effective at this given time.
Step 2. Once you have selected your situation and what state you wish to be in, it is now time to step inside the circle by doing this:
Find your happy place. Visualise it in your mind and now take it a step further and visualize a circle where you can step inside and sit down in the centre of it. You may choose to stand, that is completely up to you. However for me, I draw a circle on the sand where I can step into it and sit down staring out at the ocean feeling completely relaxed and calm.
Now imagine yourself as being extremely bright, alert, happy, confident, full of energy and you are a great success. You can now see yourself achieving what you desire in a very successful manner. Stay here in this state as long as you want to. Really enjoy it.
Step 3. Once you have your vision created, now add sound and feeling to it. What sounds can you associate with this scene? For example; if you were going to be the keynote speaker at a conference, can you hear the applause or perhaps you can hear the sound of silence as everyone sits still mesmerised? Then add on to this by actual feeling what it is like to achieve this task.
- Feel the success.
- feel the relief that you have conquered it.
- Feel the pride and sense of satisfaction.
- Sit straight up head held high, air punch the air.
- Savour the moment.
Allow all of these good feelings to come up filling your entire body with strong, confident, positive and powerful emotions. Breathe this in and breathe this out. Replay the entire scene over and over in your mind for as many times as you need to.
To summarise, your Circle of Excellence has three senses that you access and they all build on to each other so when combined, they have a powerful effect.
- Visual
- Auditory
- Kinesthetic
Getting into the zone of being able to step inside your Circle of Excellence where ever you are and whenever you want, may take time until it affects you in such a powerful way, that it will influence how confident you are when you need to be.
It has been said many times that your brain can not tell the difference between a real memory or an imagined memory. So even if you have not performed this task before in reality and you have just imagined the entire scene for the first time, your brain does not necessarily know the difference. The more you practice this, the more it will gain momentum.
Remember this is your Circle of Excellence, you can make it whatever you want.
Not only is this a good confidence booster, but this technique is also extremely calming and a very good coping skill in times of stress.
All the very best with it.
About your guest blogger: Kerrie is a Health Educator with over 20 years of experience in women’s health. Professional Counsellor. International Certified Life Coach. Author. Founder Fight Style kd Determination Active Wear. www.motivation2conquer.com
Original article posted on: www.dynamicbusinesswomen.com