The Music That Moves You

What Makes You Move?

What songs find you blasting the volume when you hear them and make you feel totally alive, happy, and powerful? I ask every new client that question at the beginning of our work together. Knowing what music moves you is having a powerful motivating tool at your disposal.

Match or Shift Your Mood

Music can be a natural expression of your current mood, whether you’re feeling up or down. For instance, when you are sad, low-key music that matches your mood and acknowledges how you feel can be soothing.

Music is also a very effective tool for when you want to shift your mood. Certain songs are a shortcut to a better frame of mind. This is what Tony Robbins and NLP¹ experts call “anchoring”: having a certain reference point such as a symbolic visual, physical gesture, or in this case, a song, that automatically puts you into a powerful emotional state.

During a particular phase of my career when the company I was working for was in upheaval, I was dragging myself to work every day. I didn’t like starting the day feeling disempowered and frustrated, so I decided to use every bit of my short 11-minute commute to “massage my brain”. Rather than listen to the sarcastic banter of morning DJs, I became the DJ. With an assortment of CDs stocked in my car, I played songs that made me feel alive, energetic, and capable. Sometimes one song had such an effect that I would play it over and over during my drive. I then walked in the door feeling significantly better equipped to manage whatever was on the docket that day.

Eventually, I started sharing my musical motivational methods with others. One morning on the way to what I anticipated would be a tough meeting with a customer, I picked up a co-worker with the U2 version of Mission Impossible blaring in the car. Even though she was not exactly what you’d call a morning person, she indulged me! Somehow we harnessed the explosive energy of the music into a major attitude adjustment and brought that power with us into the meeting.

Tip of Your Fingers

The next time you want to psyche yourself up, feel confident, empowered, or __________, select a song that puts you there. One of the most effective ways to motivate yourself is at the tip of your fingers. Use it!

This Week: Give yourself a theme song to sing, a new perspective, and positive energy to bring with you. Stock your car with your favorite CDs. Create a motivational playlist on your iPod.

Experiment with using music:

• During your commute
• To rev up for a big meeting
• To lift your spirits
• To release anger
• To celebrate a success
• To wind down before bed.

Let the music play!

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
— Berthold Auerbach

Notes:
¹NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which is the study of the fundamental dynamics between the mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay affects our body and behavior (programming).