Look Where You Want to Go — Episode 5

A few years ago I had one of the best jobs of my life — Head of F&B for Mad Monkey, running hospitality across 20-odd locations in 6 countries. And every Monday there was a group call with the founders and the senior team. The panic would start the night before. By the time it came round to me, my face was so hot you could've fried an egg on it. Pure panic. And it was never about being scared of them — it was the pressure I put on myself to be great, and that pressure is exactly what flattened me. Those calls played a real part in me walking away from a job I loved.This episode is about that. Why it happens. Why trying harder makes it worse. And the fix — which it turns out a good mate handed me years ago on the back of a motorbike, and I never thought to use anywhere else.It's not on a stage. It's the Monday call, the networking pitch, the conversation at the bar where nobody's even watching. If you freeze exactly when you most want to be good — this one's for you.No fluff. Just the research, an honest experiment I'm running on my own life, and a promise to report back.Pull up a chair.— What we get into — Why it's not "too much passion" — it's social perfectionism and self-focus (you're watching yourself instead of being there) Anticipatory anxiety — why the night before is worse than the moment itself The white bear: why "don't freeze" guarantees you freeze "We steer where we stare" — the proven law that your body goes where your eyes go Daryl, the motorbike, and a question I can't stop turning over Why trying harder jams the system (and what happened to Simone Biles) The quiet eye — and the good news that calm is a trainable skill Three things you can actually do: look at them not you, swap "don't" for "do", and stop telling yourself to calm down— The research, the people, the receipts —Ellen Hendriksen — social anxiety, perfectionism, self-focus (How to Be Yourself) https://www.ellenhendriksen.com/Anticipatory anxiety — "bleeding before you are cut," ADAA https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/anticipatory-anxiety-bleeding-you-are-cut-0Daniel Wegner et al. (1987), "Paradoxical effects of thought suppression" (the white bear), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/DANWEGNER/pub/ECS.pdf"We steer where we stare" — driver gaze and steering, ScienceDirect (2024) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198224000782Keith Code — "look where you want to go," motorcycle riding (A Twist of the Wrist) https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/one-tip-look-where-you-want-to-goSian Beilock — choking under pressure and working memory (explicit monitoring) https://news.uchicago.edu/story/psychologist-shows-why-we-choke-under-pressure-and-how-avoid-itGabriele Wulf — external vs internal focus of attention (constrained action hypothesis) https://gwulf.faculty.unlv.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Chua_EF_meta-analyses_PB_2021.pdfSimone Biles & "the twisties" — what it is, Cleveland Clinic via TIME https://time.com/7004666/what-are-the-twisties-gymnastics-cause-treatments-simone-biles-condition/Joan Vickers — the "quiet eye" research https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3111367/Martin Oscarsson et al. (2020), approach vs avoidance goals (58.9% vs 47.1%), PLOS ONE https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234097Alison Wood Brooks (2014), "Get Excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement," JEP: General https://www.hbs.edu/ris/download.aspx?name=xge-a0035325 (2).pdf