How to Slow the Game Down

In last week’s Athlete CEO: Peak Performance, Erik Averill is joined by Josiah Igono, our resident PhD of Performance Psychology and founder of All Things Performance to drill down on focal points. Erik and Josiah discuss what focal points are and how to set them to achieve high performance at work, on the field, and at home. Here is a breakdown of the 3 key takeaways from the episode:

Focal Points and Performance

A focal point is somewhere concrete in the performance field where you can anchor your thoughts.  A place to zero-in and calm the millions of thoughts and distractions that can surface during any kind of performance event. Josiah uses three words “Find, attach, attack” to describe the unmatched focus necessary to excel. First, find something stationary that you can attach a power word, phrase, memory, feeling, anything that motivates. Then you attack to achieve the objective. This can be applied in not just sports but business, speaking, or other high-pressure situations. I have seen this kind of focus displayed in ever greater presence at each level of football from college to the NFL and then to the future Hall of Famers I played with.The best at the game in any sport know the mental aspect of the game is the difference maker as the athleticism differences narrow at the most elite level.

Clarity

You often hear experienced players talk about the game slowing down. This is not just experience that causes this but a focus on the mental part of the game. As an NFL Rookie the game is so fast you often have no time to process and most of your play is reacting. As you gain experience and the ability to train your brain on the mental conditioning you can take the next step. You begin anticipating things before they happen and that is when you have a chance to become elite. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our ability to choose, and in that choice lies our growth and our freedom. So, the focal point, guess what it does, it opens up this space and allows me to think clearly and win that battle for clarity” Josiah quotes Viktor Frankl.  Managing mood, emotions, and feeling is a how to drive clarity and without managing it properly creates a “train wreck” in your mind. The focal point allows you to eliminate those 10,000 thoughts into one or a few. It brings “calm, smooth… space.” This can solve anger problems as well as the feeling of not knowing what to do in stressful situations. The focal point can slow time and the clarity derived can center your focus on your intention and desired result.

Mental Battle

The mental battle not only plays out in sports but can be transferred over to the clarity needed in all other aspects of your life. This last quote from Erik deserves to be read in full without commentary:

“So, it's the same way as we know that we actually believe investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. But the most finite resource that there is on the planet is time, because once it's gone, it's not coming back. There's no way to recover the minutes or the seconds that are gone. And so, if we don't have an intention set for that, if we don't have a purpose, a lot of times, I think it's the subconscious anxiety that it's like, "I'm just existing" and that's not the way we're created. We're not created to exist, we're created to flourish. And so, hearing you talk about this of, do you have clarity? When you walk in to a room, have that focal point, because I feel like the other thing it could help us do, we live in such a fast-paced world, we're on our cell phones, now it's Zoom meeting, to Zoom meeting, to Zoom meeting, but it's exhausting that having certain focal points set up and spaces can help us slowdown to be present and to actually make sure we're enjoying the moments the way that they should be enjoyed”. -Erik Averill

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