Take a deep breath.

Take a deep breath.

Now, cast your mind back to a time when you felt good. A time when you felt personally powerful and confident.

Sit in those feelings now.

Focus on where you feel it in your body.

Now ask it to grow.

See how big you can make it, how good you can make it feel.

Feel good?

I won’t ask you to do the same with a memory of when you felt powerless.

You may have felt something during that activity. You may have not. That’s less important right now.

What’s important is that this simple exercise, performed either written or mentally, heavily influences which networks of the brain we operate from.

When we summon up memories of personal power, we are more likely to operate from the prefrontal cortex in the brain.

This effect is so impactful that multiple studies have been able to demonstrate significant drops or increases in test scores depending on whether participants summoned memories of personal power or powerlessness.

Said another way—attention drives performance.

When attention is on a negative past or a negative potential future, our abilities in the present significantly drop.

The answer here might appear to be to think positively—but in reality, just thinking positive thoughts will actually make things worse if you don’t believe them.

But placing your attention on who you are—your values, beliefs, purpose, and genius—brings you into the present.

Impostor syndrome, fear of failure, fear of judgment, performance anxiety—these are all the opposite of presence.

Try this before your next big meeting, decision, or challenge. Notice what changes when you operate from personal power rather than doubt. If you want to explore how to step into this power more consistently, let’s talk.