What do you visualize before you start work? Do you imagine yourself managing the day successfully and calmly? Or do you anticipate all the stressful things that might come up an d how overwhelmed you’ll feel? Many of us tend to ruminate or catastrophize about the negative events we expect to happen at work. Maybe you worry about dealing with irate customers, dread making a phone call, or cringe at the prospect of hurting your back again. Regardless of whether or not these scenarios may happen or not, we often don’t imagine ourselves handling them very well. When we worry, we are prone to focus on how bad something will be, without doing any concrete problem solving or realizing that life will continue, even if this anticipated disaster occurs. Before work, rather than worry about the coming day…visualize in a positive way what will happen today. Imagine yourself having a nice day. If you’re likely to encounter obstacles or setbacks, visualize managing them well. Research shows that this kind of mental rehearsal improves later performance.

Jonathan S. Kaplan, Urban Mindfulness