Leadership is... Focus

“When you are properly focused to perform, you pay attention to what’s important in the play happening right now and completely block out everything irrelevant. When you are not focused, you pay attention to all of the wrong things at the worst possible times. The what-ifs steal your courage and kill you confidence.”

When you practice or compete you can mentally be in the past, the future, or the present. If you’re in the past, your mind is behind your body. For example, while you perform, your focus could be on a recent mistake, a bad call, or a missed opportunity. If you’re in the future, you mind is ahead of your body as you perform. You’re thinking about what might happen. If you’re in the present, your concentration and your body are working together. Your focus is locked onto what you are doing at that moment. You must consistently stay in the now of your practices and performances in order to perform at your best.

“Focus allows you to eliminate all of the unnecessary distractions that interfere with reaching the goals that have been set. Developing a laser focus on the agreed upon goals is one of the key ingredients to team success. Focus promotes attention to detail. Greatness is achieved through the discipline of attending to detail. Focusing is a skill that can be learned; it is also an attribute that is within your control. All performances improve when there is focus.”

One of the mental skills that distinguishes the athletes who are successful is their ability to adapt and re-focus in the face of distractions. When you enter competitive situations, many things have the potential to distract you, upset you, lower your confidence, or put you in a bad mood. But something becomes a distraction only if you let it distract you. You can choose to be distracted by it, or choose to let it go.

“You don’t lose your performance skills because of distractions; you let yourself lose the focus that allows yourself to execute your skills effectively.”

Coaching legend John Wooden always coached the process, not the outcome. Wooden never focused his players on winning, an uncontrollable. Instead, he got them to pay attention to giving a full effort and executing to the best of their ability. In doing so, he narrowed his players’ concentration to the process of the game.

“The world’s top athletes achieve their best results when they focus only on their performance and not on the outcome.”

“Stay focused on those things that are within your control.”