COMPOSURE, IT’S A BIT LIKE FIGHT CLUB.

Hoping to achieve relaxation by thinking about relaxing is just an “Are we there yet” moment.

The paradox of training for composure.

This is a bit of a brain twister and may need to be read more than once, if we are actively training for Composure then at that moment we are not composed, {if we are composed why are we trying to achieve it}and as such we have already failed and have zero chance of success because we have tricked ourselves into thinking that maintaining this state of non-composure will somehow lead to being composed.

If this does not make sense re-read it until it does.

Just like being relaxed, being composed is an end-state and not something we can engage in.

We become composed or relaxed due to other actions which, due to how we use language, especially English, appear to deal with the opposite condition.

Until we get this we will think that everything we are being told or asked to do is completely backwards from achieving the end state and find it difficult to engage in.

This can and often does bring about a level of cognitive dissonance.

We all know by now that if we are not mentally involved in the action we are doing we will struggle to get the outcome we are after.

Relaxation is the result of releasing, or at the least diminishing tension, as counterintuitive as it sounds, if we are not mentally connected to, and thinking about tension we will not become relaxed.  How can we release tension if we are not thinking about tension?

Hoping to achieve relaxation by thinking about relaxing is just an “Are we there yet” moment.

We need to build the correct mental architecture for the condition we wish to be in, which in this instance is composure.

As a starting point, it should be a given that we would only work on being composed if we think we are not composed.  DUH!

If we are thinking of being composed we will automatically measure our present state against our desired state, and no matter how close we are to our desired end-state not being there will create stress, which will just eat up whatever composure we have at that moment.

Here is where everything sounds backwards, If we are in a dangerous situation the only way we can remain composed is to not think about the danger we are facing, and the only way we can do that is to think about something else.

It is a bit like ‘Fight Club’.  The first rule of ‘Fight Club’ is not to talk about ‘Fight Club”.

Training for composure is Multi-tasking, it is about doing one thing and being completely involved with that thing, with the ‘intention’ of achieving something else, while also doing sometimes many other things.

This is not as weird as it sounds, there are many ways we do this every day, we do it when we are driving, for instance, and we do it when walking through the crowded city shopping district window shopping.

We fail because we are trying to turn these subconscious actions into conscious actions.

We need to think backwards, we need ‘Fight Club’ thinking.

The first rule of training for composure is that we cannot think about composure.

If you can unscramble this egg it will make tonight’s work so much easier.