At some point in our lives, we’ve all been told to focus. By a coach, by a teammate, or even by ourselves. And there’s a reason for this: it’s understood that to be focused is to be mentally prepared to do something, whether that be on the court, in the classroom, or in everyday life. But what does it truly mean to focus? When we hear focus out there! from a parent or coach, what are they really asking us to do? Pay attention? If so, how?  To what?  These are critical questions for which many athletes don’t have answers.

So, let’s begin by clarifying our terms:

To focus is simply to direct one’s attention.

To be constructively focused is to direct one’s attention to the task at hand, whatever that task may be.

We can guide our attention toward anything we’d like: the ball, the clock, the coach, or our shaking legs. Similarly, with enough practice, we can direct our attention away from anything we don’t like. Our goal is to routinely and reliably steer our attention toward performance enhancing thoughts, behaviors, and focus points, and away from performance inhibiting ones. In this way, we can think of focus as an entirely developable, completely controllable skill we all can learn, and the first link in a chain reaction of physical and physiological responses that will ultimately dictate how we will perform. When it comes to mindset training and your mental game, focus initiates everything. And rest assured, we’re going to help you develop it.

According to most neuroscience, many of the behaviors most directly related to enhanced focus are things you already do as an athlete: exercise, regularly learn new skills, and, for our field athletes at least, spend time outdoors.  But this doesn’t make even our most mentally-committed athletes impervious to bad habits, or to the benefits of good ones. Our ability to focus is ultimately a consequence of our willpower and our routines, and creating minor modifications in each can amount to significant changes over time.

Be singular in your focus.  This means tackling your tasks one at a time.  If your day is crowded with projects or commitments, create a sequence or a checklist, commit to one task at a time, and see it through.

Avoid the myth of multitasking.  Your mind can’t focus on more than one thing at a time, so stop asking it to.  Multitasking encourages the mind to rapidly transition from one stimulus to the next, which shortens the duration of your focus and limits your ability to perform at your best.  We want to instead program the brain to be selective and intentional with its focus, and to filter out any information that isn’t directly related to the task at hand.  You can encourage this process by committing your attention fully to what’s in front of you, and leaving whatever might come next for whenever your current task is complete.  You’ll get to it, don’t worry.

Finish what you start before beginning a new task.  When we allow our minds to leave a task before it’s completed, we’re chasing the dopamine hit that comes with beginning something new, without rewarding ourselves with the hit that comes from completing what’s been started.  We want to train our brains that the rewards that come from beginning a task are followed by the rewards that come from completing it.  This extends our attention span and keeps our internal chemistry aligned with our performance goals, whether we’re performing on the field or in our everyday lives.

When we allow our minds to avoid a task when it becomes challenging or uncomfortable, we create “avoidance behaviors,” that, if unchecked, can instinctively drive the mind away from tasks in times of struggle or duress, which can negatively impact performance and overall well-being.

Minimize your “outs.”  Committing to a task is challenging, but it’s significantly more challenging with your phone next to you or the television near.  As you get started, try completing your work in undistracted environments.  Leave yourself no alternative to the task in front of you.  If you give yourself an opportunity, or a reason to jump to something else, you’re going to lose as many battles as you win, which can be discouraging.  Instead, make focusing easy on yourself by deliberately removing distractions.  In time, you’ll be able to focus anywhere, but separating yourself from potential distractions or “outs” is always a safe practice.

Remember, your focus is your own.  No one can make you focus.  They can ask, they can appeal, but only you can determine where, or whether, you’re going to focus.  Focus is a decision.  Take some ownership of it, and some pride in it.  Decide to focus, and to focus on things that are going to make your day, and your life, better.  It’s yours to do with what you want, so make a point to take it for a spin, and to direct it toward the things, the tasks, the people that are most important to you.  The more you do so, the more aware you will become of your focus, and how to steer it.

Our goal is to train the mind like we train the body, and to build strength and endurance by demanding another rep or another lap when a task gets difficult or the mind becomes fatigued. We can make these demands while we’re training to build our stamina, but making them in everyday practice will help re-wire your moment-to-moment mental processing, accelerate your gains, and build your confidence in the process.

Our predilection is toward distraction.  If we accept that our tendency is to be distracted, and that distractions will carry us away from time to time, we’re much better poised to have solutions in place for those moments when our distractions get the better of us.  Managing distractions is a challenge for all athletes, particularly in times of duress or fatigue, so those who are able to recognize their distractedness and redirect their focus have a considerable edge over those who do not.  The Action Plan below is a helpful tool to anticipate predictable distractions, whether external (e.g. crowd noise) or internal (e.g. discouragement), and to create simple, concrete strategies to re-focus your attention on actions and behaviors that will positively impact your performance.

Action Plan Exercise

Create an Action Plan like the one above before each of your competitions, and refer to it often as a part of your pregame preparation.  You shouldn’t assume that your distractions will be consistent from performance to performance.  As old distractions are filtered out, new ones will find their way in.  But keeping a checklist of stimuli that have distracted you in the past, and more importantly, an index of behaviors that have successfully redirected your focus in times of distraction, will help make those transitions from distraction-to-refocused more automatic when the chips are down.

Remember, the best way to mitigate distractions is to be prepared.  Your Action Plan is your preparation.

Review your distractions, triggers, and action plan from your “Action Plan Exercise” worksheet before each practice.  Try to implement the Action Plan when you notice yourself getting distracted during practice.

Our mind and body go through a sequence of responses between the presentation of an event (which grabs our focus), and the ultimate outcome of that event (our performance).  This sequence is represented by the graphic below, which we call our Focus to Performance Mindset.

What we FOCUS on leads to what we THINK about.  What we THINK about dictates how we FEEL emotionally.  How we FEEL emotionally leads to what or how we feel physically.  How we FEEL emotionally or physically leads to how we behave; and how we think, feel, and behave will ultimately determine how we will perform.

When we consider this chain reaction of causes and effects, it becomes clear that focus is the primary driver of our performance mindset.  If our focus gets “hooked” on unconstructive thoughts or feelings– like remembering a missed shot, or anticipating the outcome of a poor play or bad decision, or noticing that our legs feel weak or our hands are shaking– it sends unproductive signals down the chain that can negatively impact performance.  If our focus locks on constructive focus points– like the present moment and the task at hand– it brings our mindset into alignment and encourages positive performance outcomes.

Distractions are an inevitability in competition, particularly in high pressure situations.  Negative or unconstructive focus points will always be available to us, and sometimes they’ll slip into our focus no matter how mentally disciplined we become.  Our goal is simply to recognize when our focus has drifted to an unproductive place, and re-direct it back to the task on command.  This takes time and practice to master, but doing so will optimize your mindset sequence, and lead to more consistent performances.

PERFORMANCE MATRIX EXERCISE

Below you’ll find an exercise we use with many of our clients to customize their mindset training.  Take a few minutes to reflect on two distinct experiences you’ve had as an athlete: a peak performance when you’ve performed at your absolute best, and a poor performance when you just couldn’t seem to get over the hump.  Map each of these performances onto the performance matrix we’ve provided.  Your recollections of these experiences will be useful to your training in subsequent sections, so answer each question as thoughtfully as you can before you review the summary section that follows.

Peak and Poor Performance Matrix

SUMMARY:  What we tend to find among athletes reporting on poor performances is a focus on uncontrollables.  These include external sources like fans or the perceptions of their coaches, teammates, opponents, or internal influences like their feelings or emotions– nervousness or doubt are common feelings of note.  Similarly, their focus tended toward past events– a missed shot, a dropped pass, any of a variety of mistakes or miscues– and future outcomes– the inevitable loss of a game or personal prestige, a dip in statistics, a missed opportunity for a scholarship or future playing time, and so on.  When it comes to controllables, like our behaviors, we predictably see performance-inhibiting results.  Head-hanging, negative self-talk, and angry behaviors are only too common.

On the other side of the continuum, athletes reporting on peak performances tend to note a focus on the task and the present moment.  When asked to recall what they were thinking, many have difficulty, or even report that they weren’t really thinking.  Now this, of course, isn’t true.  We’re always thinking.  But what it tells us is that their thoughts were likely simpler and more sequential– unlike the frenetic, colliding rush of thoughts we have when we’re anxious.  It also tells us that their thoughts were backgrounded– their thoughts were positioned behind the task, not in front of it.  The same is true of their feelings or emotions.  Athletes performing optimally aren’t feeling any fewer emotions than those who are performing poorly, they’re just not focused on them.  If how they feel is irrelevant to the task, it’s removed from their focus window.  Controllable behaviors during peak performances are overwhelmingly performance-enhancing: vocal or leadership behaviors; chest-out power poses and postures; intentional, controlled-breathing, and the like.

Far be it from us to predict the results of your personal Peak and Poor Performance Reflections, every athlete is unique, but what we encourage you to do is to isolate those focus points in your Peak Performance Reflection that are controllable– these are likely present-moment foci, foci related to the task, and foci related to your actions and behaviors– and to practice bringing these focus points into your performances with intention.  These are your personal performance boosters.  They won’t bring about a peak performance at every turn, but they can be used to stabilize and direct your focus during times of drift or difficulty, and maintain your readiness during times of calm.  Begin slowly before or during practice– you can even practice conjuring these focus points at home– and incrementally work them into your gametime performances.  We’ll continue to help you broaden and develop these skills in future modules.

Apply the Focus to Performance Matrix during practice by bringing awareness to your focus, thoughts, emotions, body reactions, and behaviors.  Notice how each of these areas change when you shift your focus.