When looking to resolve a conflict, be sure to enter the conversation in the right emotional state.
‘Instant pre-play’ is a performance strategy used in sports psychology. It’s the mind playing-out how you want to perform, right before you’re about to perform.
Let’s say you’re an Olympic diver. In the seconds before you make your dive, you pre-play the dive in your mind – seeing it, hearing it, feeling it. It lets your brain know how you want your dive to go, acting like a final instruction for the brain to follow AND it helps create a centred emotional state, which is best for performance.
The strategy doesn’t guarantee success, yet as research has shown, it increases your chances, especially when used repeatedly.
We can transfer the same principle to conflict situations where you need to have a tough conversation. If you find yourself going into the conversation in fight-mode – ‘guns-blazing’ – chances are your mind has been playing out a combative scenario, which can have you feeling agitated, defensive and even aggressive. That’s not so good if it’s a positive outcome you want, including improving the relationship.
Instead, you can apply the instant pre-play strategy and play-out good leadership in a tricky situation.
Pre-play strategy:
- Set a positive context for the conversation
- Commit to deescalation if there’s tension
- Pre-plan your key-messages, avoid combative language
- Imagine hearing your voice – clear and calm
- Imagine your state – centred and confident
- Imagine your open and relaxed body language
- Imagine listening to what they have to say and remaining centred
Ultimately, using instant pre-play can help us approach conflict with a genuine intent to resolve it and not fight our way through it.
The mind can easily imagine a conversation going ‘off-the-rails’ and horribly wrong. This is about deliberately visualising it going well. Call it positive intent if you like, it will help centre your state as you go in to the conversation and potentially help you get a better outcome for all.
Action
Notice what’s playing out in your mind before approaching a tricky conversation. If you are catastrophising, play out a different scenario instead. Imagine it going really well. Imagine playing the bigger game. Imagine saying what you need to say and remaining compassionate towards the other person. Notice how that ‘feels’ different.
Photo by Komang Gita Krishna Murti on Unsplash