This is the first in many posts that will be drawn from my book CLICK! The Competitive Edge for Sports, Entertainment and Business and the experiences of professional and student athletes, entrepreneurs and global business leaders focusing on their challenges and obstacles, often invisible, that might tend to derail them.
Winning, and the preparation that is required, provides us with an incredible opportunity to learn from highly trained athletes. What do they do differently? What should we listen for and how can we internalize this information and apply it in everyday life? How do we learn this information — where and how do we use what we learn?
Learning takes place both consciously and unconsciously. Your conscious mind is very intelligent. It is the part that you use to listen, learn, analyze, synthesize, accept, reject, plan, negotiate and train others. Your subconscious mind, however, is intuitively very smart. It knows what you want to accomplish and will gather the information and retain it until you need it.
Athletic performance seems to happen without thought…almost automatically. What is the experience like …how do athletes describe it? A world cup slalom skier relates the following, “I stood in the gate being vaguely aware of the panoramic view of that surrounded me. As the count got closer it seemed like my vision narrowed…almost as if I was looking through a piece of PVC pipe and focusing on the first gate. I took off toward that gate and don’t remember any of the others. My only awareness was the sound of my skis on the snow. It seemed to be over very quickly”.
And so we have a highly trained athlete whose training has enabled him to perform and respond to rapidly changing circumstances seemingly without thought. What can go wrong? What do they want to have happen?
We’ll cover an extensive wish list in upcoming posts but today I want to focus on…
Identifying and controlling distraction. This is just one of an extensive list The CLICK! System strives to eliminate ANYTHING that can come between the skill in the subconscious mind and the actual performance.
To remove the possibility that their son would have to deal with his concern for their safety in Sochi, the parents of Olympic speed-skater Tucker Fredricks will be cheering their son on from the comfort of their living room instead of track side in Russia next month.
Fredericks has asked his family to stay home in Wisconsin because of security concerns.
The last thing Peyton Manning needs prior to the Super Bowl is a flurry of requests for tickets from friends, family and business associates. His brother Eli according to media reports is taking care of these requests for his brother.
The bottom line is that the nothing belongs on the field or track but football and skating.
Going forward you may be surprised to notice that you become more and more aware of distractions. Learning to control them begins with noticing.
Strategies to control your MIND GAME are intriguing and you’ll discover them becoming second nature.
Stay Tuned!!!
Dan Schaefer PhD. 