Preview: Unfolding your High IDQ with FIRST
Preview tunes your mind onto success even before the pressure moment.
The FIRST Process
The purpose of Preview is to help you look ahead to a future challenge calmly and with confidence. It builds directly on Review, shifting your attention from what happened to what’s coming next, and toward the strengths that will help you succeed.
You do this using the five steps of FIRST:
- Future Challenge
- Identify your Outcome
- Realisation
- SQAs
- Train Your Brain with HPI
1. Focus on a Future Challenge
In Review, you “used the difficulty” by looking back at a past event. Preview is the same process, facing forward. Instead of looking back at what happened, you choose a future challenge you want to meet with confidence.
2. Identify Your Outcome
An Outcome helps you focus on what you want to happen, rather than what you want to avoid. It shifts your attention toward possibilities and away from fear or doubt.
Once you understand how the upcoming challenge affects you and the Identity Beliefs it triggers, ask yourself:
- What do I want to happen?
- How do I want to behave, speak or carry myself?
- How do I want to feel?
- What difference do I want to make?
Be vivid and specific.
Rules for Setting an Outcome (from the 7 Skills Book)
- Express it positively. What you want to happen.
- Avoid Negative Commands.
- Keep it within your control.
- Be ambitious.
- Make it precise and concise.
- Add additional well-defined Outcomes rather than one rambling one.
- Write it down.A strong Outcome becomes a Stroop Magnet; your mind can’t help but move toward it.
3. Realisation
Every Outcome needs a Realisation, a sensory-rich snapshot of success.
As the 7 Skills Book explains:
“Realisation fuses your Outcome with your Identity. Together they guide your Edited Reality, even in stressful moments. Your attention gets drawn to possibilities instead of obstacles, reducing stress and increasing confidence.”
Realisation is effortless and works everywhere, under pressure, in motion, and in the moment.
Ask yourself:
- What will I see when I succeed?
- What will I hear?
- What will I feel?
- What will I think?
(Add taste or smell if relevant.)
This imagery anchors your Outcome in your subconscious mind.
4. Identify SQAs
Everything you learned about SQAs in Review applies here.
Look at your growing list and choose the Strengths, Qualities and Attributes you believe will help with this upcoming challenge. For each one, list two or three ways it will contribute to your Outcome.
This step reinforces your sense of capability and primes your System 1 to use the strengths you already possess.
5. Train Your Brain with HPI
HPI: High Performance Imprinting is how you rehearse success in your mind just before it matters. Once you’ve set your Outcome, chosen your SQAs and created a sensory-rich Realisation, close your eyes for a few seconds and run a short mental clip of yourself handling the challenge at your best.
Keep it simple, vivid and brief. This primes your System 1 to move automatically toward your Outcome, even under pressure. With repetition, HPI rewires your instinctive responses so that confidence and capability become your default in the moments that count.
Example (5–8 seconds):
Close your eyes and picture yourself, or think of yourself, stepping into the moment confidently. See the small details around you, feel your body steady, hear your calm voice, and imagine the exact behaviour you want. Run a quick mental clip, just a few seconds, of you performing at your best. That’s HPI: short, vivid and powerful.
Short, vivid mental clips, when repeated regularly, prime attention, behaviour, and emotional state in ways that can meaningfully influence performance well beyond the moment of rehearsal.*
Outcomes Become a Stroop Magnet
Your subconscious draws you toward whatever it is focused on. With Preview, your Outcome becomes a Stroop Magnet, a powerful pull to success.
System 1 will quietly scan for paths to your Outcome. Even when obstacles appear, it resets and looks for new opportunities. Over time, this shifts your entire Edited Reality around the challenge.
Reaching the Tipping Point
After a few weeks of Preview practice, something important happens.
You will find yourself in a situation you didn’t prepare for, and suddenly notice your mind flicking through your SQAs, pulling them forward.
You become consciously aware of your strengths while under pressure.
This is the tipping point.
It means your System 1 is beginning to absorb these strengths as part of your Identity.
If you take the IDQ test at this point, you’ll often see a shift leftward toward the High IDQ range.
Keep going. This needs around 12 weeks to settle, and will fade if you stop.
If you want somewhere to run FIRST consistently, the Preview cards are in the Library in the 7 Skills App.
Summary
Preview is a powerful routine for setting yourself up to succeed in future challenges.
Following the five FIRST steps shapes your Edited Reality in a High IDQ style. Over time, your System 1 becomes tuned to success, scanning automatically for ways forward.
With routine and practice, Preview reshapes your Identity. It unlocks confidence, mental strength and hidden talents, helping you perform at your best under pressure.
In short:
Preview gives you the mindset for success in any difficult situation.
Review & Preview Links
Introducing Review and Preview
How to Review with CLARITY – Part 1