Focus Workshop

Focus-concentrating at the right thing at the right moment.

What we focus on affects the way we feel, how we feel determines how we act.

* What did you think during your best performance? Most people say something like, "I dunno, I just." This means when we focus on the process, we can lose ourselves, and attain the coveted flow state.

You need to get out of your own way. You need to shift from left brain (thinking) to right brain (feeling). Clear your mind of thoughts.

May sound opposite of self-talk. But we use our self-talk mainly outside of competition to program our subconscious for competition. It cannot wait until game day to be learned. Same with technique. Technique is mastered in practice.

Humans by nature are poor multi-taskers.
Concentrate Intensely on ONE THING AT A TIME
You will get more out of studying 30 minutes with full concentration than 3 hours with half attention.

McGuffey’s Primer

Work while you work,
Play while you play;
One thing each time,
That is the way.
All that you do,
Do with your might;
Things done by halves
Are not done right!



Present Moment- Satori (Buddhist philosophy)
-Take out the Trash- The Trash is anything that is keeping you from the only thing that matters- this moment. This is Not saying future or past doesn’t matter. But, we learn from the past to do things right in the present and we do things in the present to improve our future. Either way the only time we have control over is the present. Only time that’s a gift is the present.
NOW IS THE MOMENT OF POWER
There is no power that exists at any other period of time


Use Deep Breathing to clear mind and refocus.

-Where are you? Here
-What time is it? Now
-What are you? This moment

Focus only on what you can control, not what you can’t. Others reactions and outcomes are not directly within your control. You affect the outcome by focusing on the present.
Remember also that the crowd, fans, friends, coaches, and parents are unarmed and they will remain in the stands throughout the entire duration of the competition. They’ll have no impact on the match whatsoever. They are irrelevant and they will mess with your mind if you let them. They aren’t part of the equation. They aren’t to be trusted at all. Let them mess up your opponents. Not you.

After a mistake, refocus. Great athletes forgive themselves and let go of their mistakes much faster than amateurs. And they have much less reason to. Accept your mistakes and move on. Don’t make one mistake cause another. Drop it.
Have an interrupt cue to let it go and move on. ie. You gotta love it etc.

In competition- there’s a time and place for evaluation and it’s NEVER during a competition.

Know at what points you need to focus.
When could you focus better.
Use process cues to narrow your attention focus (make it simple, avoid overwhelming)

Training vs. Trusting
Training- practicing techniques and learning
Trusting- practicing letting go and relying on instincts

Some experts recommend 70% Practice should be Trusting- To practice staying in the moment and trusting your instincts.

Decisiveness
When you do a technique or movement you go all the way with it. Don’t second guess yourself or move halfheartedly.
People with worse technique but greater decisiveness often beat the athlete who has better technique but are less decisive. Technique is only half the equation, decisiveness is the other half.


Directive Focus-
Our subconscious, brain, nervous system, and muscles respond best to the smallest possible target. Don’t aim for the hole, aim for a specific part of the hole. Don't say-I wanna be rich. Instead say- I wanna have 1 million in 5 yrs

Perspective and Focusing-
Close eyes, brown vs green

Controlling our emotions-
Probably the quickest way we can control and direct our mental and emotional state is to control and direct the focus of you mind.
2 things that affect your state (1) how your feeling (2) what you focus on
Headache story, distracted mind altered your focus. Worked like a Tylenol.

There are so many things going on at once so we become forced to choose what we focus on. Focus is a choice. Either you consciously decide what you will focus on or your subconscious will make that decision for you. Since we cant focus on everything we become deletion creatures. Card example. We magnify what we want to see and delete the things we don’t. There are so many things we could choose to focus on, so what we focus on is what we choose to focus on. This is why negative thinking is like a disease. Its contagious to others (especially bad when we spread this to the people closest to us, then they reinforce it back to us, until were surrounded by negative stinking thinking). So, we need to consciously focus on the things that we want.

Life is a self-fulfilling prophesy- we get what we expect. We get back the image that we project to the world.

Focus is a choice!

Ex: Write down things that distract you when you compete.
Write down things that distract you when you train.

Tools- attentional boundaries
Visualize a barrier that separates you from the rest of the world.

Peaks and Valleys graph.
You cant peak if you don’t drop to valleys.
Take advantage of times where there’s a break in the action to unwind and recharge.

Your focus is your future.

Success is no hocus pocus, its focus focus.