I learned a great deal about the type of person, manager, and leader I am through my sessions with Eric.
Thinking About Nothing
Research has been conducted on the brain activity of golfers when they are preparing to putt. The researchers found that intermediate and even advanced golfers focus on different things – the ball, their backswing, the lip of the cup, or the break of the green.
Elite golfers, however, focus on the same thing. Nothing. To a person, elite golfers have less brainwave activity when putting than do other golfers. They don’t think because they are confident that thousands of practice putts have conditioned them to make the putt automatically.
Top performance is often a function of bypassing our mind rather than engaging it. It takes confidence to allow your mind to be disengaged, confidence that comes only from serious preparation and experience. You may have heard the cliché, the harder I work the luckier I get. This is true in large part because people who have been working hard are able to take advantage of lucky opportunities. When a unique opportunity presents itself, they don’t think about what to do, they just do it.
Performance Principle: At the moment when high performance is required, you should be thinking about nothing. You should be performing, not analyzing. To perform at an elite level, you need to practice things so much that they get into your “mental muscle memory.” You don’t think about how to do them; you just do them, consistently, and without thought. Ultimately this provides you with the confidence to disengage your mind. You will then have attained the mindset of a top performer – thinking about nothing.
Questions to Consider:
- What mistakes do you or your team keep making over and over?
- How could you achieve mastery in this area?
- What type of practice will help you to achieve this mastery?
- When will you get committed to lifting your performance in this area and to achieving mastery of this area?
