Well my favourite team, Port Power missed out this year, but I have to say that I watched on with great interest as the Crows took on Geelong in Adelaide on Friday night.
As I stood for the national anthem, you could not help but notice the Crows – legs apart, standing in unison in an absolute power pose. Their stance demonstrated their commitment, their resolve and demonstrated an absolute confident team in complete solidarity. As compared to their opposition who shuffled their feet, looked down at the grass and took off as soon as the anthem was finished, the Crows watched the other team turn their backs and walk away from the fight. It was great to see a team standing with such confidence. It certainly paid off and the Crows now have a chance at winning a Grand Final.
So how can you incorporate power posing into your routine every day to build your mental toughness? It certainly works as proved by a winning team.
Amy Cuddy’s research on power posing shows us that we can increase testosterone (our power hormone) and decrease cortisol (our stress hormone) after just 2 minutes of power posing. This does not mean that you should stand in a meeting like Wonder Woman or Super Man. However, posing like this before a meeting can certainly help you increase your confidence levels and your own sense of power and purpose.
Power is one of the biggest forces in driving forward our confidence and achieving the outcomes and goals we want to achieve. When we feel powerlessness, we feel ineffective and are much less likely to strive toward our goal, already believing we are incapable of achieving it. Power drives us toward ACTION. We can start seeing situations as opportunities rather than threats.
When we have a sense of power, the impact is significant on our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviour and our physiology.
When people have a sense of power, their ability to engage in abstract thinking actually increases. They are literally freeing up cognitive band width and freeing up resources. When you feel powerless, you eat up band width cognitively speaking due to all the worry and anxiety you have.
We are communicating to others and to ourselves so much even in our own body posture. Your body and mind are constantly communicating. We often feel it’s just our mind telling our body what to do, but our body also communicates to the mind. What is your body posture telling you right about yourself right before that difficult meeting?
When we feel powerful we expand. When we feel powerless, we shrink.
“Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act” Leonard Cohen.
Want to know more about developing your mental toughness or that of your team. Send me an email at michelle@bakjacconsulting.com to enquire about building your potential.
Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Wellbeing Strategist, Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness practitioner. Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing. You can find her at www.bakjacconsulting.com or michelle@bakjacconsulting.com
