Emotional Pendulum Calibration - The Superpower You Didn't Know You Have

A few years ago, I started consciously playing around with a concept I call Emotional Pendulum Calibration (I’ll just refer to it as EPC in this post). I wasn’t sure if there was an actual name for it, so I made one up. It’s something I’ve experienced and practiced throughout my life. But I had never tried to articulate how it works, until now. It was just something I did, naturally, from a young age.

EPC is the practice of purposely going to extremes—think of a pendulum swinging back and forth—to elicit an emotional sensation that will help calibrate your physical and/or mental performance.

Let me give you an example.

Three years ago, I was coaching my son’s 11-year-old volleyball team. One of the boys was struggling to pass the ball. Every time he contacted the ball it would shoot off in the wrong direction.

I walked over and asked, “What do you think you’re doing wrong?” He shook his head and said, “I don’t know. I thought I was doing everything right.”

I decided to do an experiment. I said, “Instead of trying to make a good pass to the setter, I want you to shank the ball as far as you can to the left. And then I want you to shank the next ball as far as you can to the right. And then I want you to hit the ball to the ceiling.”

I should point out that “shanking” means to screw up. It doesn’t mean stabbing the ball with a homemade knife!

After he got over the disbelief that his coach wanted him to purposely screw up, he started shanking balls all over the gym.

After each shank, I asked him, “How did that feel?” He would say something like, “It felt bad” or “It didn’t feel right.” After each series of three or four balls, I asked him to try and pass the ball a little better. His post-pass responses went from, “It felt bad” and “It didn’t feel right” to “That felt good” and “That felt right.”

After a few minutes, he was passing dramatically better. It’s not that his form was bad (although it needed some work), he just wasn’t emotionally calibrated. He knew what a good pass LOOKED like. But he didn’t know what a good pass FELT like. He had never paid attention to the emotional feedback his body was giving him. Going to the extremes (i.e. shanking the ball in different directions), while mixing in some good passes, allowed him to feel the emotional contrast between a good pass and a bad pass. Sometimes we put too much emphasis on what we can see and not enough emphasis on what we can feel.

Let me give you another example.

When I was in middle school (over 30 years ago), I used to play basketball with my friends during recess. One time a friend said, “I bet you can’t kick a basketball across two courts and make a basket.” My initial thought was, “You’re right, I can’t do that.” But being super competitive, I couldn’t back down from a challenge.

I remember looking across the two courts and imagining myself trying to kick the ball into the basket. I visualized it several times, but it didn’t FEEL right. Even though this was all happening in my head, the ball wasn’t going in. I decided to kick the ball (again, in my head) way to the left, way to the right, way too high, way too low, etc. I visualized a bunch of different scenarios. Each kick created an emotional sensation. The farther away from the basket I kicked the ball, the stronger and more uncomfortable the sensations were. I calibrated my kicks until everything FELT right. And by “felt right,” I mean there was a calm, peaceful sensation that washed over me—a stillness.

I was finally able to both feel and visualize the ball going into the basket. And that’s when I kicked the ball.

I can still see it flying through the air, almost in slow motion—and then “SWOOSH,” the ball went into the basket. As soon as the ball left my foot, I knew it was going to go in. I wasn’t surprised.

My friend and a few curious bystanders started screaming, “No way! How’d you do that?!” I just shrugged and calmly said, “I don’t know.”

I’m not going to pretend that I’m capable of doing this every time someone challenges me to do something. It doesn’t work like that. This just happens to be one of my earliest memories of unintentionally using EPC.

I’ve played volleyball my whole life, so it’s easy to come up with volleyball-specific examples of EPC. But the concept can be used in every sport. A quarterback can use it to throw more accurate passes. A baseball player can use it to hit more home runs. A golfer can use it to make more accurate shots.

And it’s not limited to sports. I use EPC when I’m writing, brainstorming, meditating, etc.

Here’s a non-sports example…

If you’ve ever written anything, you’ve probably experienced writer's block—you sit down to write something and your mind goes blank.

When I started writing this post, I had writer's block. I knew I wanted to write about EPC, but I didn’t know what to say. I had never tried to put the concept into words. After a few minutes of feeling like an idiot, I decided to use EPC to write about EPC.

The first thing I wrote was:

“[EPC] is a pointless, stupid concept that no one should ever use. If you do, you’re a gas-guzzling cricket that worships frozen frog legs.”

I just put down whatever randomly popped into my mind, as long as it was negative (EPC works best the farther you initially swing the pendulum). I read the word salad out loud and immediately felt a sharp, uncomfortable sensation in my chest. My emotional calibration “engine” was basically telling me, “That doesn’t feel right” and “That’s not true.”

Next, I swung the pendulum to the other, more positive (and equally random) extreme and wrote:

“[EPC] is a beautiful, flowery, effervescent, photogenic, delightful, charming, jolly, lovable concept that everyone can effortlessly apply in their perfect, joyful lives.”

I felt the same sharp, uncomfortable sensation in my chest. It was an indication that I needed to swing back in the other direction.

After swinging the pendulum a few times, I finally wrote:

“[EPC] is the practice of purposely going to extremes—think of a pendulum swinging back and forth—to elicit an emotional sensation that will help calibrate your physical and/or mental performance.”

My definition of EPC materialized in a single, concise sentence. It took a few pendulum swings to get there, but it FELT right when I read it out loud. It was the same “calm, peaceful sensation” that I experienced in middle school (and many other times in my life).

The more you practice EPC (like anything else), the better and quicker you get at creating pendulum scenarios and recognizing and interpreting the emotional feedback.

I would imagine most people have used EPC at some point in their lives, even if they didn’t know they were using it. It’s basically emotional triangulation. For example, every time you play catch with a baseball, you’re performing a quick triangulation to calculate the trajectory and speed necessary to accurately throw the ball to the other person.

EPC is different in the sense that you’re not just mentally calculating and triangulating the trajectory and speed of the ball, but you’re also paying attention to the emotional signals and sensations that happen before, during, and after you throw the ball.

If you throw the ball too far to the left, you’ll feel something. If you throw it too far to the right, you’ll also feel something. And it won’t feel comfortable because the ball’s not going where you want it to go. A good throw will feel different. It will feel “right.” Will it be a “calm, peaceful sensation” like I typically experience? Not necessarily. What you feel is not as important as noticing the emotional contrast between good and bad outcomes.

Because the mind, body, and emotions are tightly interconnected, calibrating your emotions will also improve your mental and physical performance.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think in the comments. If you already consciously practice EPC, I'd love to hear about how you use it.