Focus

Recently many of my daily conversations have been centered around the difficulty of executing actions that would be beneficial to my clients based on their inability to mentally stick with it. Lets face it, it is easy to lose your head from time to time. The trouble is that a head is much more difficult to find once it is lost than it is to lose in the first place. This phenomenon poses a very real problem for many people, including myself. The first word that comes to mind as a primary combatant against this problem is focus. How can we reduce such a complex problem as cranial chaos down to a single word answer? As is true more often than not, our best answers are the simplest. By definition, focus is a condition in which something can be clearly apprehended or perceived. What this suggests to me is that focus is a state of mind or being and does not allow chaos to coexist simultaneously. Now let's cut the cute bullshit of wordy language and break this down. I was speaking with a derby girl the other day who is having some very specific problems with her game and in the process has begun to question all of her other abilities. In our discussion it became clear that her focus was on what was not going well rather than where she was excelling and this was causing chaos like quicksand, rendering all of her best honed skills useless as well. Her lack of focus on what mattered; her strengths in skating, pack awareness, and overall concept of the game, were paralyzing her and causing her to make mistakes that she knew were wrong and would not normally make. The only solution that I could offer was to change her focus back to what she was capable of rather than the few, and for that matter sleight, weaknesses in her game. I recommended that she remember why she played in the first place, what drove her to want to excel, and then focus on those things and only on those things.

This may seem a little counter intuitive, focusing only on strengths and ignoring weaknesses, but it is my philosophy on performance when it comes to team sports. I believe that in assembling a team you want each member to focus on what they are the best at. It is then the coach or captains job to bring all of these incredible skills together in a way that all of the weaknesses are covered by overlapping skill sets without taking away from promoting individual strengths. This also allows for a very positive environment and a tightness of camaraderie amongst players. I digress... To put a point on it, if you are losing your head find your focus and put it on taking positive action towards what you want. It really is that simple*.
Now lets get to work!


Enjoy!

J

*simple and easy are not the same thing whatsoever.

5 min warm up
Stretch
3x 12 alternating db chest press
3x 12 alternating front raises
3x 20 meters of lunges
2x 10 straight arm twists
2x 25 bicycle crunches
5 min cool down
Stretch