The word “mantra” may remind you of the Maharishi and the smell of patchouli oil but they can be useful in a practical non-hippie way. One time to use them is when you are talking an agent or a publisher or anyone else who might be helpful to you in reaching one of your goals.
Referring to a workshop he attended, performance coach Angus McLeod wrote in Rapport: "We role-played a board presentation with four presenters. Each presenter was given a covert mantra [to repeat silently between sentences] and the board, subsequently, was asked to guess what the mantras might be."
The result: "It is clear that the taking up of a simple thought/mantra makes a very significant difference to our way of being and expression and interaction with others. It also demonstrated how phenomenally acute the human mind is at intuitively recognizing subliminal messages."
In other words, it worked.
HERE'S HOW TO DO IT
The next time you want to create a particular mental and physical state for a task, give yourself a mantra - something like "calm" if you're usually nervous during that task, or "love" or "understanding" when dealing with someone who normally exasperates you.
Repeat it silently and notice the difference it makes to you - and probably to any other people involved even though they will have no idea what you're doing.
(Now repeat after me: “I will buy Jurgen’s book, ‘Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done.'” Repeat until you have ordered it from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)
