The wheel of excellence (PART 2)

Focused Connection

The second element of excellence centers on being fully focused or completely connected

• for the duration of your task, or interaction;


• on the task at hand;


• in the moment;


• in your zone;


• in the performance;


• totally absorbed in what you are doing or experiencing;


• on autopilot; and


• freeing yourself to let good things unfold naturally.

In a very real sense, focus is everything -- life and in performance pursuits. A positive and absording focus channels your commitment into a series of positive actions, thereby making your personal journey to excellence possible. A fully connected focus releases you from everything irrelevant and connects you totally with your experience or performance. It is a mind phase where nothing else in your world exists apart from being totally connected with what you are engaged in or experiencing at that moment. Focusing is the most important mental skill associated with ongoing learning and consistent high level performance.

Your challenge is to discover and perfect a focus that frees you to perform your best and to live that fully connected focus while you are engaged in the task, activity or performance. The key to consistent high quality performance is to consistently focus in ways that free you to perform to yourcapacity within different contexts. The quality of your focus affects every learning and performance situation you encounter. It determines your rate of learning, quality of learning and quality of performance and quality of life. By guiding your focus in positive ways, you control the intensity, direction, duration and consistency of your actions and reactions.

A best-performance focus is both absorbing and natural, free-flowing and intense, simple and magical. It is a focus that you lived often as a very young child. The ultimate goal of all preparation and performance is to enter this fully connected zone on a consistent basis. By training your mind to connect fully, trusting your connection and freeing yourself to let outside worries go, you can live and perform closer to your capacity in situations that count.

The key to accomplishing this lies in absorbing yourself in the present -- in the here and now -- and gradually increasing the consistency, quality and duration of your focus. When you step out of the performance arena, a simple shift in focus to something less demanding or more relaxing can free you to return with a clearer, stronger, more positive focus.

Your focus is the leader. Where your focus goes, everything follows. Let it lead wisely.