It’s the day before an audition, and as you take a few minutes to review some tricky sections, suddenly you get a twinge of anxiety and start stressing and freaking out about how awful everything sounds. How unprepared you feel. And how horribly you’re afraid things are going to go. It’s at those exact moments when you know the right thing to do is “think positive.”But these are also the exact moments when it’s hardest to think good thoughts. Like telling a kid to cheer up after they just lost all of their video game privileges for the day, as their little sister munches happily on the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer, giggling while watching her favorite YouTube show (hmm…that's awfully specific...doesn’t that kind of make you wonder what’s happening in the Kageyama household right now?). Most of us have a natural tendency to dwell on negative thoughts. To worry about the future, bemoan past decisions and choices, and focus on what’s bothering us right now in the present. Which from a survival perspective, probably makes good sense. But from a performance perspective, this negativity bias can make it difficult to stay in a good frame of mind before auditions. Or get to sleep the night before a big recital. Which can then make the performance go to crap.So how can we get better at “thinking positive” - at least temporarily - when we need it most? Source