This may come as a huge shock and it may appear to fly in the face of what I’ve told you about “expecting to win” – but listen to me when I tell you there’s a time for GREAT expectations – and there’s a time for NO expectations.
When you visualize a goal, you mentally pretend you’re already there. You see and feel yourself at the finish line. You imagine the emotional state you’ll be in – and so on.
But when you’re done visualizing, you better drop what you visualized, and move on. You better carry a subconscious expectation of achieving your goal – but on the conscious level, you have no expectations. You focus on your breath. You live in the moment. You relax and feel happy for no particular reason.
When you have this feeling of relaxed happiness that comes from living in the present with no expectations – you have MORE ability to achieve your dreams – not less.
I once asked my son, “How would you pitch if you tried to throw a no-hitter or perfect game.”
He said, “I’d get knocked out of the game in the first inning.”
When we TRY to do something with all our might, it’s nearly impossible to succeed. But when we relax and let it flow, when we pay attention to our breathing and have a calm sense of presence about us, we can achieve way beyond our wildest dreams.
My ultimate technique for helping people get calm and to carry the energy of success at a subconscious level is called Theatre of the Mind.
Theatre of the Mind teaches you to relax, breathe deeply and picture what you want. It does something else though – that you don’t find in other visualization methods. It gives you happiness now – it gives you a success feeling now – way before you achieve your goal. And once you have this feeling, you can forget about your goal and just go out there and go for it – with no expectations whatsoever.
It’s an oxymoron. I’m aware of that.
On the one hand you have great expectations. On the other you have none.
Between your hands is YOU – and a blending of “great” with “no” expectations is the master key of success.
You want it – but if you want it so badly you make yourself tense, nervous, fearful and so on – then you cannot have it.
Theatre of the Mind gives you the freedom to let go of the tension and become what you desire – yet does so in a spirit of calm that is typical of a Shaolin monk.
Case in point: Earlier this month I was in Cooperstown, New York, with my son, Frank, for his final baseball tournament on the “little field.” He’d looked forward to this tournament for two years – and when he saw the fields, he went into stress mode, feeling that he must hit home runs, and so on.
In his first game he looked miserable. I took him aside and did Theatre of the Mind with him to calm him down. He responded with a grand slam in the next game.
On the last day of the tournament, after having done Theatre of the Mind for three-straight days, he found a calm, relaxed groove taking hold of him. He went to the plate with a clear mind. No expectations. No pressure. No trying to make something big happen.
His first at bat was a 3-run home run. He hit the ball so hard I instantly knew it was gone. So did everyone else. It sailed at least 350 feet before it landed in the swamp. You cannot do that by TRYING to do it. You do it because you’re relaxed and smooth.
Next time he was up, he hit another 3-run bomb. We won that game by 12.
In the next game, in his very last at bat on the little field, he hit another grand slam – this one sailed at least 300
feet as well.
Afterward, I congratulated Frank. He had high expectations when we arrived in New York. But none of those expectations bore fruit until he found the balance of GREAT expectations with NO expectations.
Get my Theatre of the Mind DVD NOW and bring a cool, calm, relaxed and POWERFUL person into whatever you do.
Best,
Matt Furey
