Pivot from Distraction to Focus
Key Points:
1. Attentional control is a key skill to be able to perform under pressure. The good news is that we can train this skill by improving our “cognitive fitness” and actually changing our brain’s anatomy.
2. Technology can be amazing, but we have to create healthy boundaries and control how we use it. Smartphones and social media can easily lure us into hours of lost time, so make sure to utilize them intentionally rather than passively.
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”
For world-class performers, as pressure increases, attention narrows. In critical moments in your life, when you are under enormous pressure, you have to perform. So you narrow your attention.
Check out this extreme example of someone narrowing their attention while under incredible pressure. The first moon landing was fraught with challenges. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in the landing module, kept losing radio contact with the command module as they were descending toward the moon. The computer on the landing module kept spitting out an error code that no one had time to look up. To make matters worse, the area chosen for the landing was not flat as the pictures had indicated: it was full of truck-size boulders that would have destroyed the lander. And they were running out of fuel. Through all of this, Armstrong fixated on a small field he saw where he thought he could land, and Aldrin called out data on fuel level, speed, and height. Despite the challenge and risk, they focused on what they could control, ignored the distractions, and stayed calm so they could perform despite the pressure of the situation.
The good news is that you can build your capacity to control your attention and strengthen your brain’s anatomy, neural networks, and cognitive abilities. Professors Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts propose that you can improve your “cognitive fitness” by practicing certain attitudes and lifestyle choices, and performing mental exercises like playing music, learning a second language, and taking dance lessons. Cognitive fitness expands our capacity to make decisions under pressure, solve problems, and perform to our potential even in stressful times. When we exercise our minds, anatomical changes occur in the brain that can be seen on an MRI!
By delineating times when technology is not in the mix, you purposefully get to decide when you want to soak yourself in it. Take an hour to connect with friends. Video chat with somebody you haven’t spoken with in a while. Use your mobile device to learn. Find a cool article to read. Follow somebody interesting on Instagram who inspires you. It’s about intentionality. It’s about connecting with life. It’s about performing at your very best in whatever it is you care about the most.
Smartphones are one of the greatest-ever human inventions. We can connect to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Social media offers an unprecedented platform for the discourse, engagement, and awareness that gives social movements speed and force.
Like many innovations, however, the ubiquitous and immediate nature of smartphone access has a downside. Our phone can pull us away from what is happening around us. We can end up at a magnificent concert and be more concerned about filming it than taking in the performance. We can be perpetually distant from those around us. We can get lost in it.
Practise using your devices for intentional communication with the people you love. Intentionally engage with social media to celebrate and congratulate people on amazing things that are happening in their lives. If you cannot manage your devices with intentionality, you will continue to fall into a state of passive consumption, scrolling through your feeds mindlessly. When that happens, the behaviour is definitely controlling you rather than the other way around.
Today’s Call to Action: Protect Your Attention
If you want to amplify your performance, identify what matters to you most and go after it with everything you have. Avoid spreading yourself around and letting your time and energy drain away. Decide what you want to accomplish and get on with it. Engage in single-tasking—allocate your attention to only one thing at a time—so you enter a state of hyperproductivity.
The same goes for your personal life. When you go to the park with your kids, leave your phone at home. If you want to take pictures, bring a camera and get your kids taking photos, too. The same goes for family gatherings like dinner. Don’t bring devices near the table or even in the room. Put them out of sight so you can focus on each other and make that meal together special.
Today’s Bonus Video
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.