The Performance You Can Deliver | Peak State Hypnosis

Take a long breath in through your nose. And let it out slowly through your mouth. Again. In. And out. With each breath out, let your jaw soften. Let your tongue rest behind your lower teeth. Let your shoulders drop one notch. And then another. Notice the weight of your body. The places where you meet the surface beneath you. You don't need to do anything right now. You don't need to perform. You don't need to prepare. For these few minutes, your only job is to listen and let go. Bring your attention to your feet. Feel them. Let them be heavy. Move that heaviness up through your calves. Into your knees. Into your thighs. A slow, warm settling. Let it move into your hips. Your lower back. Your belly. Feel your belly rise and fall a little more freely now. The heaviness rises through your chest. Your upper back. The space between your shoulder blades. Down your arms. Through your elbows. Into your hands. Your fingers heavy. Resting. Up through your throat. Your jaw soft again. Behind your eyes. Behind your forehead. The top of your head. Quiet. And as you rest here, I'm going to count slowly from ten down to one. With each number, you'll go a little deeper inside. Ten. Nine. Deeper. Eight. Seven. Letting go of the day. Six. Five. Halfway down. Four. Three. So much deeper now. Two. One. All the way down.

I'd like you to imagine a place. A quiet room with two doors. The room itself is comfortable. The light is warm. The air is still. You are standing in the middle of it. One door is behind you. That door leads back to the version of you who has been tightening up under pressure. The you who knows what it feels like to walk in well prepared and watch your body refuse to cooperate. You don't have to go through that door. You only have to acknowledge it's there. The other door is in front of you. It is slightly ajar. Light comes through the gap. Beyond that door is your future self. The version of you who has already learned how to deliver, on the day, in the moment, under the lights. This is not a fantasy version. This is not a perfect version. This is simply you, one year ahead, who has practised what you are practising now, and figured it out. Take a moment to feel that this future self exists. They are real because the work you are doing right now makes them real. When you're ready, step toward the door in front of you. Push it open. And walk through.

On the other side of the door, the light is soft and golden. There is space here. The kind of space that lets you breathe. Notice your breathing has slowed. Your shoulders are lower. With every step you take into this space, you go deeper. First step. Deeper. Second step. Even more relaxed. Third step. Twice as deep as before. Fourth step. Your mind is quiet and clear. Fifth step. And now you see them. Your future self is standing a little way ahead, waiting for you. They are calm. They are at ease in their own body. They look like someone who has stopped fighting themselves. You walk toward them. They turn and meet your eyes. There is no judgment in their face. Only recognition. They know exactly who you are because they have been you. They reach out and take your hand. And something happens in that contact. A transfer. A knowing.

Your future self begins to speak, but not in words. They speak by letting you feel what they feel. The first thing you notice is their breath. Slow. Low in the belly. Unhurried. Even when they think about the moment of performance, the breath stays where it is. Let your breath match theirs now. In. And out. This is the first thing they want you to know. The breath is the doorway to the state. When everything speeds up around you, your breath slows down. That is the choice you make. The second thing you notice is what they do with the nerves. Because they still feel them. Even now, with everything they have learned, there is a quickening before they perform. A heat. A sharpening. But they do not call it fear. They call it readiness. They call it the body lighting up to help. Feel that reframe now. The sensations you have been calling anxiety are the same sensations elite performers feel right before their best work. The only difference is the label. Your future self places a hand on your chest, over your heart. And they let you feel the third thing. Trust in the training. They are not trying to perform. They are letting their training perform through them. The reps you have done, the hours, the corrections, the failures, all of it lives in your body now. Your job on the day is not to remember how to do it. Your job is to get out of its way. Repeat this inside, silently. I trust the training. I trust my body to know. I let it through. The fourth thing they show you is focus. Notice where their attention sits. Not on the outcome. Not on the audience. Not on the people watching or the people judging or the score or the result. Their attention is on the next thing. The next note. The next breath. The next play. The next sentence. Narrow and immediate. When your attention is on the next thing, there is no room for the future to scare you. There is only the doing. And the fifth thing, the most important thing. They show you what they do with mistakes. Because mistakes happen. A note clipped. A pass missed. A word stumbled. Their response is almost instant. A small internal nod. Acknowledgment. And back to the next thing. No story. No spiral. No collapse. Feel how light that is. How much energy that saves. Mistakes are not the end of the performance. They are part of the performance. Now your future self wants to give you an anchor. Something you can carry back. A way to call this state into your body whenever you need it. Choose a word now. A single word that means this state to you. It might be ready. It might be flow. It might be home. It might be your own name. Whatever it is, choose it now. And as you hold that word in your mind, take one slow breath in, and as you breathe out, say the word silently to yourself. From this moment forward, that breath and that word together will bring back this state. The slow breathing. The low belly. The reframe of nerves as readiness. The trust in your training. The attention on the next thing. The lightness with mistakes. One breath. One word. And you are here again.

Now your future self steps aside, and you see a screen forming in the air in front of you. On the screen, you see yourself on the day of your next performance. The match. The recital. The meeting. The competition. The audition. Whatever it is for you. See yourself the morning of. Waking up. Notice you are calm. Not flat, not numb, but settled. You take a slow breath and say your word. See yourself getting ready. Travelling there. The familiar pre-event energy is in your body, and you welcome it. This is readiness. See yourself arriving at the venue. Hear the sounds. Feel the atmosphere. Your breath stays slow and low. See yourself in the moments before you go on. One slow breath. Your word. And then you step into the moment. Watch yourself perform. Watch your body do what it has been trained to do. Watch how present you are. How locked in to the next thing. If something small goes wrong, watch yourself nod internally and move on. No story. Watch yourself finish. Notice the feeling at the end. Not relief that it's over. Satisfaction that you were actually there for it. That you delivered the level you have. Step inside that version of you now. Feel it from the inside. This is available to you. This is the performance you can deliver.

Thank your future self. They are not going anywhere. They will be there every time you breathe and say your word. Begin to come back now. I'm going to count from one up to five. With each number, you'll come up a little more, bringing the state with you. One. Awareness returning to your body. Two. Movement in your fingers and toes. Three. A deeper breath. The state still with you. Four. Eyes ready to open. Feeling clear and steady. Five. Eyes open. Fully back. Fully here.

Carry your anchor with you today. One slow breath. One word. Practise it now and then so it becomes automatic. The night before your next performance, listen to this session again. The morning of, take five minutes to sit quietly and meet your future self once more. Remember, you are not trying to become someone new on the day. You are simply letting through the version of you that already knows how. Go well. The performance you can deliver is already inside you.