Say You Can’t Meditate? It May Be Holding You Back From Success!

Shift of Focus:
Concentration
In competitive sport, the term “concentration” can be defined as the ability to focus on what’s important and let everything else go. When you’re competing, there are usually a ton of things vying for your attention. Be it extrinsic (opponents, officiating, the crowd), or the intrinsic (you made a mistake and you’re beating yourself up about it, you have doubts, you have worries). Your job is to find what’s important, and let all the other things go.

Now, what’s important? We can usually boil this down to two things:
You’re focus must stay in the “now” or the “present.” No time traveling! Quit dwelling on a mistake in the past, or jumping ahead to the future and worrying about outcome or messing up.
When you’re in the “now” make sure you’re in the right “now.” Focus on yourself and what it is you are doing.
Easier said than done.
Concentration is a two-part (recognize and return) skill.
You have to recognize the minute your focus leaves what’s important (the now or yourself), and drifts somewhere else
Having the ability to quickly bring yourself back
It’s not bad to lose your focus, everyone does. What will hurt your performance is if you lose your focus and you don’t come back right away.

Exercise time!
Grab a pair of goggles. Set the goggles about 3-4 feet away from you and pick a spot on the goggles. As you are sitting comfortably, let your eyes gently rest upon that spot, and let your focus go inside (being aware of your breathing) and as you exhale let a word come to mind which you can label your “concentration cue.”

Now, there are very few things more mind-numbing and boring then concentrating on a pair of goggles that aren’t moving, so you’re most likely to mentally drift (which is perfectly normal). Recognize this, bring yourself back, inhale feel the breath, exhale focus on the object.

I challenge you to take two minutes a day, in a room, no distractions just to develop and fine-tune this skill of recognizing when you drift and bringing yourself back. We don’t leave the physical aspect of training to chance, don’t leave the mental edge of competitive sport to chance either. Take a little time each day and it will pay off in peak performance under pressure.

Coach Nate Chessey