I am reminded right now, as I keep trying harder and harder to figure out what profound message I’ll write right now (with less ideas coming the harder I try to think of them), of what my national team coach Lorne Sawula used to say to me. Lorne would proclaim ‘You make the easy look hard and the hard look easy!’. In other words, I suffered from analysis to paralysis – over-thinking to the point where I could no longer perform simple tasks, because with these easy tasks, there was space for me to think.
When things were challenging, there was no space for thinking, analysis or distractions – I would allow my body to just do it, to perform. So, it would appear that I played better the harder the competition and the more I was challenged because my thoughts wouldn’t get in the way.
That’s the power of the mind: it’s so powerful that if you don’t train yourself to reign it in, it will sabotage your performance. What I had to do was train my focus intentionally train your focus so that I could zap my distractions on purpose!
Your Get Psyched Game-Plan for the week:
A Simple Focus test & training
- Find a spot on the wall to stare at.
- Start your timer and stare at that spot, focusing only on the spot on the wall and nothing else. Let thoughts float by, and keep focusing 100% on the spot on the wall.
- As soon as a thought catches your attention, stop your timer. That’s your focus capacity (at least at this moment).
- Work on focusing for longer and longer without a thought distracting you from your focus.
- The more you train this, the longer you will be able to go without being distracted, so keep practicing daily.
A specific focus tool will be available on our new Get Psyched App, coming soon to the iTunes App store! Stay tuned.. . .
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments out of acting on your Zap Distractions by Training your Focus Game-Plan.