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The mentally weak person asks, “How can I get anything by merely thinking about it?”mental strength

Through the mental strength skill of concentration you can get anything you want. Every desire can be fulfilled. Success depends upon you completely concentrating your mental energy for that desire to be realized.

Simply wishing for personal success will not bring it. Wishing for something shows a mental weakness and not a mental strength belief that you WILL really get it. Stop wishing about something and start concentrating on it, you use up just as much brain force in vain wishing as you do when you focus of something worth while.

Be careful of your personal goals and desires, make a vivid mental representation of what you want, set your will and take action, until it materializes. Never allow yourself to drift without helm or rudder. Know what you want to do at all times, and endeavor with all your mental strength to do it, and you will succeed.

You must feel that you can accomplish anything you take on. Many start, but soon feel they’re going to fail and usually you know what?  They do.

This is the power of concentrating, being about to achieve your personal goals and personal success.  Remember, your soul is a center of all-power, and you can accomplish anything that you set your Will to do.

“I’ll find a way or make one!”  This is the type of attitude that wins.

The “P” Button

There’s a story of a man who is now head of a large bank. He started there as a messenger boy. His father had a button made for him with a “P” on it and put it on his coat. He said, “Son, that ‘P’ is a reminder that some day you are to be the president of your bank.

I want you to keep this thought in your mind. Every day do something that will put you nearer your goal.” Each night after supper he would say, “Son, what did you do today?” In this way the thought was always kept in mind.

He concentrated on becoming president of that bank, and he did. His father told him never to tell anyone what that “P” stood for. A good deal of fun was made of it by his associates. And they tried to find out what it stood for, but they never did until he was made president and then he told the secret.

Wishes Drain You

Don’t waste your mental strength on wishes. Don’t scatter your energies by trying to satisfy every thought and whim. Concentrate on doing something really worth while, something that means something to you. Something that will make you live a life of power, purpose, passion and perseverance.

The person sticks to something is the person that “wins.”

Power to him who power exerts.” – Emerson

Your Personal Force

Personal success today depends mainly in the mental strength skill of focusing on the Interior law of force, when you do, you awaken those powers and forces, which, when used with concentration will all but ensure personal success.

Until you are able to do this you haven’t reached your potential in the use of your personal forces. The Universe is interwoven with myriads of forces, using these forces for the achievement of your personal goals and personal success is all up to you.

Through the Indestructible and Unconquerable Law’s of the Universe you can accomplish anything you want!  S, don’t  be afraid to go after what you really desire, be courageous and be willing to pay for in effort.

Follow Your Purpose

Anything that is right and “ecological” (good for me, others and community) is possible. That which is necessary will inevitably take place.

If something is right it is your duty…your obligation to do it, even if the whole world doesn’t agree with you.

That “right something” is your purpose.  You purpose comes from a Higher Source than your consciousness and you can’t fight it.  Oh sure you may try to fight it, but you’ll still feel it deep down inside…that calling to be a great person, by living a life of power, purpose, passion and perseverance.

Don’t just say “I wish I was a great person”, you can do anything that is aligned with your purpose, vision and mission.

Simply affirm to yourself “I can…I must…I will!”

Just realize that the rest is easy. You have the latent resources and forces to tame any mind gremlins that try to interfere with your plans.

If you’re not sure of your purpose, I suggest looking at “The Warriors Quest – a Journey for Personal Meaning and Fulfillment.”  Find out more by going HERE NOW

Or checkout the Youtube video I made on The Warriors Quest here:

http://youtu.be/baufDe8AxpA

Start developing you power of concentration and enroll in “Warrior Mind Fundamentals” today.  This online training program will teach and give you the mental strength foundation to take back control of your thoughts.  Take a look at this unique and powerful program HERE.

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Before I get into more about concentration I want to make sure you knew about and saw the video I made “Goal Setting mental strength and concentrationLike A Warrior” You can watch it on YouTube HERE.

http://youtu.be/lRR-1Hhp9t4

OK…back to concentration…oh yea…this is part of an e-book I’m writing and will only be available in its completed version in The Warriors Path membership site to be launched by end of January, 2012.

There is nothing that uses up your force and energy as quickly as unfocused non-supportive excitement, the excitement that comes from an unpleasant situation.

This is why an irritable or angry person is never magnetic; they are never admired or loved; they haven’t developed those finer qualities that a real man or women possesses.

Anger, sarcasm and negative excitement weaken a person. The person that allows themselves to get overly emotional will become nervous in time, because they use up their vital energy in unproductive dispersion.

A person that cannot control themselves and keep from becoming highly emotional cannot concentrate.

Positive excitement is good; enthusiasm is great, as long as it’s coupled with intention and action.

When the mind can properly concentrate, all the energy of every cell is directed into one channel, then there is a powerful personal energy generated. Every person possesses millions of these manifestation cells, and each one of these has a center where life and energy are stored up and generated.

If this energy is not wasted on random thoughts, but conserved and controlled, a person is influential.  But when the opposite happens and a person has weak and scattered thoughts, they are not influential or successful.

Just as it is impossible for a steam engine to run with all its valves open, or a hose to work with many holes in it, it’s impossible for you to waste your energy AND run at full speed.

Your Psychic Center

Every neuron in your brain is a psychic center of thought and action, each one is pulsating with an intelligent force, and when this force, your thoughts and motions, are kept in cheek by a mental strength and concentration, the result will be magnificent!

Your muscles, bones, ligaments, feet, hands and nerves, etc., are agents for carrying out the directives of your mind. One main purpose of thoughts (mental messages) is to create physical movement (action) as the energy travels along the wires of nerves and muscles.

Just for that reason, when you consciously create control over these messages, impulses, thoughts, emotions, and physical movements and over these physical instruments you develop your mental strength of self-mastery.  To the extent you succeed here you will you develop the power of concentration.

Any exercise or work that excites the mind, stimulates the senses, calls the emotions and appetites into action, confuses, terrifies or emotionalizes, can potentially weaken the power of concentration.

This is why uncontrollable excitement is not supportive of mental strength. This is the reason why persons who participate in excess, i.e. drinking, anger, sex, TV, daydreaming and food, lack the power to concentrate.

But those whose actions are deliberate and directed by their intelligence develop concentration.

There are occasions were a willful, excitable persons can concentrate.  Unfortunately it’s spasmodic, erratic concentration instead of controlled and focused concentration. Their energy works by “spells”; sometimes they have plenty, other times very little; it is easily excited; easily wasted.

The best way to understand it is to compare it with the discharge of a gun. If the gun goes off when you want it to, it accomplishes the purpose, but if it goes off before you are ready for it, you will not only waste ammunition, but it is also likely to do some damage.

This is what most people do. They allow their energy to explode, thus not only wasting it but endangering others. They waste their power, their magnetism and so injure their chance of personal success.

The majority of people like this aren’t really well liked or respected and never will be, until they gain control over themselves.

It’ll be necessary for them to practice various kinds of concentration exercises, and keep doing them for some time. They must completely overcome their sudden, erratic thoughts, and regulate their emotions and movements. They must from morning till night train their mind to be steady and direct and keep the energies at work.

The lower area of the brain is the store house of the energy. Most people have all the dynamic energy they need if they would concentrate it. They have the machine, but they must also have the engineer, or they won’t get very far.

The engineer is the self-regulating, directing power. The person that doesn’t develop their engineering qualities won’t accomplish much in life. The good engineer controls his every act. All work assists in development. By what you do you either moves your toward your personal goals…or away from them.

It’s essential to keep this point in mind. When you are uncertain what you should do, ask yourself, “Is this getting me closer to me goal?”   If not, don’t do it.

I am a firm believer in “work when you work, and play when you play.” When you’re involved with pleasure and play time you can develop the power of concentration by thinking of nothing else but pleasure; when your mind dwells on love, think of nothing but this and you will find you can develop a more intense love than you ever had before.

When you concentrate your mind on the “You” or Real Self, and all its’ wonderful possibilities, you develop concentration and a higher awareness of yourself. By doing this systematically, you develop tremendous personal power, because you cannot be methodical without concentrating on what you are doing.

When you take a walk and breathe in the fresh air, study the plant, trees, birds etc., you’re concentrating. When you get to work at a certain time each morning you’re developing an empowering systematic habit and concentration.

If, on the other hand you form the habit of being on time one morning, a little late the next, and still later the following one, you are not developing concentration.

Whenever you fix your mind on a certain thought and hold your mind on it at successive intervals, you are developing concentration.

If you hold your mind on a specific object, you centralize your attention, just like a magnifying glass focuses the rays of the sun. Therefore always hold your mind on what you are doing, no matter what it is. Keep a careful watch over yourself, unless you do your progress towards your personal goals will be very slow.

Regularly practice inhaling long, deep breaths, not simply for the improvement of health, although that is no small matter, but also for the purpose of developing more power, more love, more life.

All Work Assists In Development

You might think it irrational to try to develop concentration by using physical exercises; remember that the mind and body are always connected. When you steady your nerves and develop muscles, you steady your mind.  If your nerves get out-of-order and your mind will become erratic and you won’t possess the power of direction, which, in other words, is concentration.

You must understand how important physical exercises and fitness are in developing concentration. Everyone is continually receiving impulses that must be directed and controlled if one is to lead a successful life.

This is why a people must control the movements of his eyes, feet, fingers, etc.; this is another reason why it is important to control his breathing. The slow, deep, prolonged exhalations are of wonderful value.

Deep breathes steady the circulation, the heart action, muscles and nerves of the mind. If the heart flutters, the circulation is not regular, and when the lung action is uneven, the mind becomes unsteady and not fit for concentration. This is why controlled breathing is very important as a foundation for physical health.

You must not only concentrate your mind, but also the action of your eyes, ears and fingers. Each of these has “miniature minds” that are controlled by the Master Engineer. You will develop your mental strength and personal power quicker if you completely understand this.

Let Others Do The Talking

If you have ever associated with great men/women, or read their biographies, you will find that they usually let the others do the talking. It is much easier to talk than it is to listen. There is no better exercise for concentration than to pay close attention when some one is talking. Besides learning from what they have to say, you may develop both mental and physical concentration.

When you shake hands with someone, think of your hand containing hundreds of individual minds, each having an intelligence of its own. When you put this feeling into your hand shake it shows personality. When you shake hands in a listless way, it denotes timidity, lack of force and power of personality.

When the hand grip is very weak and stiff, the person has little enthusiasm in their nature, no passion and no magnetism. When the hand shake is just the opposite, you will find that the nature is also.

The indifferent person is non-magnetic and they show that they are by their non-magnetic hand shake. When two developed souls shake hands, their clasps are never light. There is a thrill that goes through both when the two currents meet. Enthusiasm arouses the opposite currents of the positive and negative natures.

When there is no enthusiasm, life loses its charm. The hand quickly shows when personal energy is being aroused. This is why you should study the art of hand shaking and develop your social affections.

Breathe Deep

A person that loves themselves reflects love, but a person that hates reflects hate. The person with a bad nature, a hateful disposition, evil thoughts and feeling is erratic, freakish and fitful. When you allow yourself to become irritable, watch how you breathe and you will learn a valuable lesson.

Watch how you breathe when you are happy.

Watch your breathing when you harbor hate.

Watch how you breathe when you feel in love with the whole world and noble emotions thrill you. When filled with good thoughts, you breathe a plentiful supply of oxygen into your lungs and love fills your soul. Love develops a person, physically, mentally and socially.

Breathe deeply when you are happy and you will gain life and strength; you will steady your mind and you will develop your power of concentration and become magnetic and powerful.

If you want to get more out of life you must think more of love. Unless you have real affection for something, you have no sentiment, no caring, and no magnetism. So arouse your love affections by your will and enter into a fuller life.

The energy of love always magnetizes, but it must be steady and controlled. Love can be concentrated in your hand shake, and this is one of the best ways to influence another.

The next time you feel yourself becoming irritable, use your will and be patient. This is a very good exercise in mental strength and self-control. It will help you to keep patient if you will breathe slowly and deeply.

If you find you’re starting to speak too fast, just control yourself and speak slowly and clearly. Keep from either rising or lowering your voice and concentrate on the fact that you are determined to keep your poise, and you will improve your power of concentration.

When you meet people of some importance, assume a respectful attitude towards them. Do this at all times. Watch both them and yourself. Static exercises develop the motor faculties and increase the power of concentration.

 If you feel yourself getting irritable, nervous or weak, stand securely on your feet with your chest up and inhale deeply and you will see that your irritability will disappear and a silent calm will pass over you.

If you are in the habit of associating with nervous, irritable people, quit it until you grow strong in the power of concentration, because irritable, angry, fretful, dogmatic and disagreeable people will weaken what powers of resistance you have.

Any exercises that gives you better control of the ears, fingers, eyes, feet, help you to steady your mind; when your eye is steady, your mind is steady. One of the best ways to study a person is to watch their physical movements.

When we study a person’s actions, we are studying their mind, because actions are the expressions of the mind. As the mind is, so is the action. If it is uneasy, restless, erratic, unsteady, its actions are the same.

When it is composed, the mind is composed. Concentration means control of the mind and body. You cannot secure control over one without the other.

Many people who seem to lack ambition have sluggish and weak minds. They are steady, patient and seemingly have good control, but this doesn’t mean they’re able to concentrate.

These people are lethargic, inactive, slow and listless, because they lack energy; they do not lose control because they have little force to control. They have no temper so nothing can disturb them.

Their actions are steady because they possess little energy. The natural person is internally strong, energetic and forceful, but his energy, force and strength, thoughts and physical movements are well under his control.

If a person does not have energy, both mental and physical, they must develop it. If they have energy that can’t be direct and held to a single point, they must learn to do so.

A person may be very capable, but, unless they exercise their “Will” to control their abilities, they’ll not achieve their personal goals and personal success.

We hear so much talk about the benefit of being physical fit, but the real benefits have been lost. There is nothing that creates mental strength as hard physical activities and exercise.  When you learn to control you body, you learn to control your mind.

You can begin to develop your power of concentration by enrolling in Warrior Mind Fundamentals. This online mental training program will help you develop the mental strength so that you can reach your personal success, achieve your perusal success and live a life of power, purpose, passion and perseverance!

To find out more about Warrior Mind Fundamentals go HERE now.

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From a psychological development standpoint, people are not what they could be. They don’t use their self-mastery, mental strength and self masterytheir self-directing power of concentration that they are born with.

They aren’t using their mental strength to train themselves to develop their self-mastery. Every balanced and mentally strong mind possesses the power to engineer, direct and concentrate the thoughts of the mind, both in a mental and physical sense.

Humans must learn to control not only their mind but their body as well.

When reactions to external influences are autonomic and untrained; the impulses, passions, emotions, thoughts, actions and habits of a person suffer from the lack of mental strength, concentration falters, not because the mind is necessarily weak, but because the mind has not properly trained.

When mental strength is not developed the impulses, appetites, emotions and passions have full swing to do as they please and the mind becomes impulsive, restless, emotional and irregular in its action.

This is what makes weak concentration.

When mental strength is weak in development, a person will always lacks the power of concentration. Therefore you cannot learn to concentrate until you develop those very mental strength qualities that provide you the abilities to concentrate.

If you can’t concentrate one of the following is at the root cause:

  1. Deficiency of the neural centers
  2. An impulsive and emotional mind
  3. An untrained mind

The last cause can soon be eliminated by mental strength training and coaching, it’s the easiest to correct.

The impulsive and emotional state of mind can best be corrected by again developing mental strength to control and even restrain anger, passion and excitement, hatred, strong impulses, intense emotions, fretfulness, etc.

It is impossible to concentrate when you are in any of these excited states.

In addition to mental strength development, these excited states can be naturally decreased by avoiding such food and drinks that have nerve weakening or stimulating influences, or a tendency to stir up the passions, the impulses and the emotions; it’s a good practice to watch (model) those persons that are steady, calm, controlled and conservative.

Correcting the deficiency of the neural centers is harder because the person’s brain may be undeveloped and they lack the “wiring” to develop mental strength and will power.

A Weak Mind

Many have the idea that when they get into a negative state they are concentrating (on what can happen); this is just not the case. They may be mentally rehearsing, but not concentrating. Those that are in a negative state a good deal of the time cannot, as a rule, do not concentrate; they develop instead abstraction of the mind, or absence of mind.

Their power of concentration becomes weaker and they find it difficult to concentrate on anything. They very often “injure” their mind, if they keep up this state. To be able to concentrate you must possess mental strength. The person that is feeble-minded cannot concentrate, because of lack of will.

The mind that cannot focus itself on a special subject or thought is weak; also the mind that cannot move away from a subject or thought is weak. The person that can focus their mind on any problem, no matter what it is, and remove any disempowering thoughts might surface has mental strength.

Concentration, first, last and all the time, means strength of mind.

Through concentration a person is able to focus and hold their mental and physical energies towards their personal goal. A concentrated mind pays attention to thoughts, words, acts and plans. The person, who allows his mind to roam at will, will never accomplish their personal success or personal success.

They waste their energies. If you think, talk and act aimlessly, and allow your mind to wander from thought to thought, you will not and cannot concentrate. You concentrate the moment when you say, “I want to, I can, I will.”

Mistakes People Make

If you waste your time reading gossip or worthless newspaper items or over dramatized TV, you excite the impulsive and the emotional faculties, and this weakens your power of concentration. You will not be able to reach your personal success or personal success.

Concentration of the mind can only be developed by watching yourself closely. Mental strength development begins with awareness. You should consistently monitor and regulate your every thought and feeling.

When you being to watch yourself and your own acts, as well as the acts of others, you use the power of self-sufficiency, and, as you continue to do so, you improve your mental strength, until in time you can create your every thought, wish and plan at will.

To be able to focus the mind on the subject at hand is a conscious behavior and leads to concentration. Only the trained mind can focused. To hold a single thought to the absence of anything else is concentration.

A person that can’t direct their thoughts, wishes, plans, resolutions and studies cannot possibly succeed to their fullest extent. A person that is impulsive and excited one moment, and calm the next, has not developed mental strength.

They are not masters of their mind, thoughts, feelings or wishes. Such a person cannot achieve their personal success. When they become irritated they, in turn, irritate others.  This then distracts them from any chance of doing their best.

Master Your Mind

The person that can direct their thoughts and energies and hold them in a concentrated manner controls their very destiny. They can make their thoughts and action serve a higher purpose.

A person with mental strength speaks with deliberation. They have cultivated a more relaxed attitude. They are consciously attentive and focus their mind on one thing at a time. They shut out everything else.

When you are talking to someone give them your sole and undivided attention. Don’t let your attention wander or be diverted. Don’t let anything else come into your mind; use your mental strength, will and intellect so that you act in unison.

Start out in the morning with a goal to see how mentally strong you can be during the day. At times throughout the day, stop and take an inventory of your thoughts and actions to see how well you’re doing.  If you “slip”, make a note and start again tomorrow.

The more self-aware you are the better your concentration will be. Don’t be in too much of a hurry; and, remember, the more you improve your concentration, the greater your possibilities for personal success.

Concentration means success, because you are better able to manage yourself and focus your mind; you become more aligned with your actions and this invariably improves your chances for success.

When talking to a person have your own plan in mind. Concentrate your mental strength upon the purpose your conversation. Watch the other persons every move, but keep your own plans in mind. Unless you do, you’ll waste your energy and time and not accomplish what you set out to do.

I want you to find a person, who has developed their mental strength, a person strong character, a person of force. Watch and see how they have perfect control of their mind and body.

Then I want you to watch just an ordinary person. Notice how they move their eyes, arms, fingers; notice the useless expenditure of energy. These movements expend energy in a wasteful fashion. It’s important to conserve your energy and forces similar to a fine tuned machine.

Some one opens all the valves on a train and the train stops. It’s the same with you. If you want to use your full amount of your “steam”, you must close your valves and direct your power of generating mental steam toward one single purpose. Focus your mind on one purpose, one plan, and one goal.

Start developing your power of concentration by enrolling in Warrior Mind Fundamentals. This online mental training program will help you develop the mental strength so that you can reach your personal success, achieve your perusal success and live a life of power, purpose, passion and perseverance!

To find out more about Warrior Mind Fundamentals go HERE now.

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The Score matters.  The score of the baseball game, football game or Lacrosse match determines whether you winfocus or lose.  Likewise, in other sports: the score, time, finishing place and/or various personal athletic performance statistics matter.  After all, the reasons many of us take part in sports is to compete and to win…and have fun of course.

While the score or finishing performance matrix is important, a focus on these during the event can often distract you from the task at hand.  An over focus on the outcome can lead to all sorts of mental distractions that are most likely tied to things you can’t control.

Thoughts come up like, “If I strike this guy out, the next batter hit a double in the first inning and I can’t let that happen again.” Or “I can’t let this guy run by me, we only have a one touchdown lead and we might lose the game.” And “If I make this putt how will my rankings be affected?” The alternative to all this monkey chatter is to focus on first things first…what is controllable; that is, what needs to be done right here…right now, to make this moment a success.

What Do You Really Control?

First, let’s look at with what you don’t control.  As a pitcher, such as you don’t control the batter.  As am offensive linemen you don’t control the receiver.  As a golfer you don’t control the weather.   Also, you don’t control the last play or even the one next.  And even more importantly, you don’t have direct control over whether you win or lose the game.  So why waste your mental energy and focus on such things?

What you do control is what you can do in this moment, i.e.  The pitch you are throwing right now, the ball you are catching, the shot you are shooting.  One pitch at a time, one ball at a time, and one block at a time…all you have control over is right now…and then what you do with it.

Directing your energy to this one catch, this one at bat, this one play, is the concept of “first things first” or “one at a time” and applies whether you are the batter, receiver or goalie. And actually this principle applies to all athletic endeavors.  First thing first, one strike at a time in MMA, one rep at a time in Olympic lifting, one lap at time in auto racing, effectively places mental energy on to the controllable aspects of your athletic performance and provides you with more focus.

And in my humble opinion there was no one better doing this than Mike Singletary during his career with the Chicago Bears.  Mike always was focused on the here and now.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’m sure you agree that it makes sense to focus on first things first or one thing at a time; this places your mental energy in the here and now.

But the question is…how?

It can be quite challenging to actually do this during the heat of battle as situations and experiences take your focus away from the present into the unknown of the future.  Here area few suggestions that will help you keep your focus on “first things first” and one thing at a time.

As in your physical training, your mental training requires practice, practice and more practice.

Know Yourself – Become aware of those situations that are most mentally challenging for you.  Perhaps you might pay particular attention to your thoughts during practice and make some notes about them in your journal.  Be vigilant in these situations and use your mental strength to purposely direct your attention to first things first before you have wandered off.

Use Cues or Anchors – Identify cue words or specific behaviors (anchors) that can help bring your focus to right now.  It can be as simple as saying to yourself “all I control is right now” Or use the W.I.N formula – What’s Important Now?  Try a slap on the thigh as a single to bring your mind back to focus to the here and now.

Catch Yourself – You’re going to slip; you’re going to mentally drift away to a past play or upcoming opponent.  The key is not to get trapped in distracting thoughts and instead bring your focus to what’s important now

Make a Commitment – Commit to this mental strength approach of “first things first” and one at a time.  Recognize that while at first it might be difficult to carry out, with practice and persistence, it will become a natural way for you to approach your athletic performance.

To enhance your sports performance, you need to focus on your thoughts on the right now.  It’s a wasted of mental energy to focus on what already happen or what might happen.  Instead, direct your focus to what is happening right now…first things first…one play at a time…one catch at a time…one thought at a time.

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I’ve discussed in several posts the importance and affect self-talk can have not only on your state but your athletic self-talkperformance as well.

Self-talk, that is, what you say to yourself absolutely has a significant influence on performance, both good and bad.  It makes sense that if you tell yourself you’re not going to be able to lift the weight or make a shot or catch a ball, chances are you’re not.  As Henry Ford once said “Whether you think can or you can’t, you’re right.

We all inside of us, at the unconsciousness level, as ‘thinker’ and a ‘prover.’  And what the ‘thinker’ thinks, the ‘prover’ proves.  Basically, what focus your attention on will be created in real-world.

For the purpose of this post, your real-world is your athletic performance. I’m going to take a slightly different perspective on self-talk and give an alternative way for you to considered the process of self-talk and hopefully aid in managing how you talk to yourself and what you say.

Let’s start off with metaphor…and analogy that will help understand first hand the efforts involved in managing self-talk:

Most likely you’re reading this article online.  You’re probably at a computer or even a mobile device and you’re giving all your attention the words in front of you…reading them “out loud” in your head.  All your attention is on what I’m about to say next.  You are focused on the article, the words and “hearing” the words in your head.

OK, now keeping your eyes on the computer and “hearing” the words in your head, start to become aware of what is around you. Is there a desk, is someone next to you, what’s on the desk, are there windows…remember you are keeping your attention and focus on the words in front of you AND being aware of what else is going on.

What else is happening?  Are there people moving about? What kind of noises do you hear?  Birds chirping, a radio, the hum of computer, what ambient noises can you pick up?

You are focused on the computer screen and you are also aware of the other stuff going on around you.

That was fairly simple and easy, right?

Now let’s crank it up a bit.

Ask yourself to completely block out all visual and auditory distractions that you are now aware of, so that the only things you’re aware of is the words in front of you and the voice “reading” them in your head.

Come on, don’t pay attention to that person or the desk or that hum…come on….completely block all the other distractions out.

Almost had it…come on keep trying.

It’s pretty challenging, isn’t it?  It takes lots of focus, attention and mental energy to block everything that’s going on around your and the sounds from your mind. This energy, the energy it takes to block out these distractions can be put to better use, more productive and supportive use.

These two exercises basically asked you to do essentially the same thing, that is, focus on the words in front of you.

The difference was in the way you went about it, focusing on the task at hand, i.e. reading the words in front of you vs. blocking all the distractions.  This difference makes a tremendous impact the mental energy you used to achieve the task as well as the success in accomplishing the task.

This difference is subtle and important:

  • Consciously focusing on one thing versus…
  • Trying to block or get rid of everything but one thing.

There’s a saying “Energy flows where attention goes.” So, when you try to block or get rid of something you give more attention and energy so it tends to persist.

So What?  What’s This Got to do With Self-Talk?

In a word…everything!

The words you’re reading represent effective, supportive and empowering thinking; it’s all the good stuff you want going on in your head that helps enhance your sport performance.

The other “stuff” like the desk, the people, the windows, the noise, everything else, that’s the ineffective, non-supportive and disempowering negative self-talk that distracts you  from your performance.

In the exercise above, you experienced first hand that there is significant difficult in trying to keep your attention and mind from everything else that is around you.  This is the same thing with self-talk and athletic performance.

It is a tough challenge isn’t it, trying to keep your attention off what you don’t want…to drive out any negative self-talk from your mind and rid yourself of doubts, concerns, and negativity.

Instead, you’ll find it easier to direct your focus and attention on what you do want… effective, supportive and positive thinking. This is just like when you directed your attention, focus and energy to the words in front of you  (and didn’t worry about the other stuff.)

The task here is to load up your ears and eyes with effective, positive, beneficial words and images.

Identify Effective Self-Talk

So, what is effective self-talk and thinking and what are the things you need to do?  It should consist of all the things you can and should say to yourself to enhance your athletic performance in practice and competition.  Some of things I coach athletes on using are things likes:

  • Technique reminders
  • Confidence builders
  • Performance related cues
  • Motivating words
  • Resourceful anchors

Identify the self-talk that is going to help your performance; the internal dialogue that is going to best set you up for success.  Commit to using this self-talk on a consistent basis.

Invest your mental energy on this positive, productive self-talk and not placing your energy and focus into purging the negative self-talk and you’ll experience great improvement in your sport performance.

Let me know what some other techniques you use in the comments below.

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Mental StrengthWhat you focus on increases.

Yea, yea, yea…I’m sure you heard this saying a thousand times already, right? The real question is do you KNOW it?  Simply because you’ve heard something before doesn’t mean you know it.  When you know something you live it. 

This phrase if a perfect example….and actually…we all do know it, we might just not understand it.

How can I say we know it?

Simple…look at you life!  Your life and all that comes with it is a direct reflection of what you focus on the majority of the time.  You just might not be aware of what you’re focusing on.  Whatever you focus your attention on over time will increase in your experience.  So now you’re probably asking, “What do I mean by focus?”

Focus is the combination of beliefs, thoughts and emotions into a single idea.

Worry is an excellent way of focusing to bring what you don’t want into your life, i.e. disease, lack, debt, etc. To attract what you do want, i.e. personal success, a loving relationship, perfect health; imagine having what you desire and feel, talk, think and move the way you’ll feel when you already have it!

You MUST use all your sense in the creation of your personal success.  Focus is not simply repeating a phrase over and over again.  It’s also not waiting for it to show up as if you are ‘attracting” it to you.

Using your mental strength you must think, act and talk as you would if you already had what you want.  You walk your walk and talk your talk BEFORE you get your personal success….this is focus!

So again, if you’re not sure what you’ve been focusing on, look around! Whatever’s been showing up in your life over time is what you’ve been focusing your attention on.

Change your focus (you’re thinking, acting and talking) and you’ll change your life. What you focus on WILL increases.

Changing your ‘personal triad” (thinking, talking and acting) is all part of personal development and personal empowerment.  Sure, in the beginning this will take a lot of mental strength.  And I assure you, the more often you focus your personal triad, the easier it will become, until one day it will be part of you.

You’ll then look around with awe at all that you have created!

If you’d like some assistance with your focus I suggest an Introductory Consultation or even the e-book, “How to Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior.”

In the mean time…I’d like to hear about your ideas on focus in the comments below. 

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