Day 5 of Mental Excellence – Full Focus
A link to the complete 7-day series on mental excellence is here …
Mental Excellence 101: Develop the Mental Skills of Elite Performers
“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”
- Michael Faraday
So far we have discussed commitment, self-belief (confidence) and mental readiness as fundamental aspects of mental excellence. Terry Orlick (2005) identifies that the ability to fully focus on the task at hand “is the single most important mental skill associated with performance excellence”.
How ‘Full Focus’ Can Make A Difference
Full focus means being completely engaged in the present moment and task. The ability to do this will maximize your experience and your performance.
Being able to focus will also enable you to control your energy and stress levels so you will waste less time and energy being distracted by things that are irrelevant. If you are learning a new task the more focused and engaged you are the more powerful that learning experience will be. Being able to fully focus will also enable you to complete tasks more efficiently and effectively.
Observations of elite performers reveal their ability to fully connect and focus often in the most difficult of circumstances.
Jonny Wilkinson
Elite sportspeople learn to create and enter into an inner focus in order to execute practiced performances.
In yesterday’s blog we discussed mental readiness and the role of practice and meticulous preparation – these are essential in order to engage in full focus. We also touched upon the issue of control and its relationship to stress. remember that by ‘controlling the controllables’ you can reduce your stress levels. In order to fully focus, you need to keep this principle of mental excellence in mind. By identifying the controllables, you will be more able to remain focused in the moment and on the task in hand.
- Become More Aware of Your Focus
- How long can you focus for?
Is this seconds or minutes? What is the impact of this? What you benefit from improving your ability to ficus? - How do activities or environments affect your focus?
What type of activities fully engage your focus? What type of activities do you find difficult to engage in ? In what type of environment is it easiest for you to focus? - How do your patterns of working hinder or improve your focus?
Do you create your own distractions that divide your attention? Whilst you are reading this blog how many other documents or windows do you have open? Do you schedule time to check and respond to email, or do you have email open in the background and stop what you’re doing each time you receive an email? - Choose Your Spot
- Compare and Contrast
3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Focus
In a world that continually bombards us with information and stimulus (email, advertising, and social media such as twitter and facebook), it’s easy to get distracted. Being fully engaged in the present moment can be increasingly difficult, and you may need to invest some time and energy in developing your ability to focus.
Try these 3 simple exercises to improve your focus…
Start by becoming aware of the focus of your attention. Take some time to reflect on your current ways of working with the following set of questions to think about.
Just reflecting on your focus in this way can give you some valuable information about your ability to focus, so you can begin taking steps to improve it. Imagine how much difference improving your focus would make to your performance and productivity.
Try this great exercise to improve your focus, that will leave you feeling refreshed and rejuvinated. Before you start, take a quick inventory on how relaxed and clear your mind feels.
Choose a spot on the wall and take 5 minutes out to concentrate your mind on that spot. As you do this, acknowledge any extra thoughts that come into your mind and allow them to float out of your mind again until later. Become gradually aware of your breathing as you stare at the spot on the wall.
Keep this going until the 5 minutes is up. Now compare your current state to how you felt before the exercise. Notice how different you feel. Imagine what an impact doing this twice a day for a week (at least) would have on your performance.
This short exercise will enable you to start improving your focus right away.
Pick an object from your surroundings (this could be anything – a piece of fruit, pencil, or anything that you can focus on easily). Spend 2 minutes examining it. Stay in the moment and focus on the examination of the object. Shut your eyes and recreate the object in your mind’s eye as vividly as possible. Open your eyes and check how accurately you have visualized the object.
Repeating this exercise on a regular basis will enhance your focusing abilities significantly. You will notice within a very short time, that this your ability to work effectively and efficiently is dramatically improved.
Tags: attention, breathing, connect, control, effectiveness, efficiency, elite, elite performers, focus, inner focus, learning, mental excellence, mental readiness, practice, stress
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