A Movie Worth Watching

I have a challenge for you.

Write down the top five things you worried were going to happen to you last year.  Then, circle the things that actually DID happen to you.

How many did you circle?

Better question...do you even remember the top five things you worried about?

I don't either.

I just remember worrying.

About anything. And about everything.  The big things, the small things.  From paying the mortgage to forgetting to apply deodorant. 

Before every marathon, I fear I am going to either  1) not finish or  2)  finish last.  I have run over one dozen marathons.  I have  1) always finished and  2) never finished last.

Yet I continue to worry.

Worry about future events that never happen.

Last year I tried something new to boost my marathon time.  So I could finish in under four hours.  It's a process used by professional athletes called creative visualization.  Creative visualization is the process of forming a vivid picture in one's mind of a preferred outcome--a successful new business, an "A" on an exam, a new personal best in a race.

I think of it as replacing the bad DVD running in my mind with a good DVD.  Replacing Apocalypse Now with Rocky so to speak.  Replacing fear with victory.

I know.  Sounds too Oprah-ish.

Guess what my time was at my last marathon?  A 3:56.  Under four hours.  Just like it appeared in my brain's new DVD.

What if we could apply this process to everything we do?  Choose to take out the old tape we have been playing day after day and put in a new tape? A tape with a good day in the classroom, a good day with our kids, a good day with our co-workers, a good score on the exam. 

In other words...watching the outcome we WANT, instead of the outcome we FEAR. 

Now that would be a movie worth watching.


AMJ