Week 8 - Performance State

I am working on focusing my attention to the task at hand.  My goal is to learn how to relax, which learning how to relax will help clear the mind, clearing the mind helps you focus and being focused helps you be more aware of yourself.  When I am concentrating on the task at hand, it is hard for me to stay focused when something is going on around me.  When I am tense, fighting off the distraction, it is hard to continue with the task.  The world must cooperate with me in order for me to get my focus back.  In the book, The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin, he calls this the Hard Zone.  Like a brittle branch on a tree, you will snap under the pressure of the distraction.  To be in the Soft Zone, you must learn to be more internally focused and to go with the flow.  You must be like the grasses in the plains and bend with the wind.  I must learn to block external distractions and be internally focused.  I must learn to pull myself back into focus when I have been distracted from the task at hand.  As the years go by, I find myself more and more easily distracted.  I guess that there is more and more going on in my life.  I can see the point of daily meditations.  Clay and I must both work to make time in our daily routines to do our daily meditations.

Follow this link, http://greatday.com/ for daily motivator for November 10, 2011 titled "Act on it".  To summarize this passage: you must act on your ideas, not just talk about it.  This is something that I talk about to other people all the time, this is something that I try to act on in my daily life.  It is hard.  I had someone the other day ask me why they weren't a master, they have always loved martial arts and always wanted to train... simple answer, you must act on it.  Triple Black Belt Academy has offered Tai Chi, Cardio, Fitness Class and Women's Self-Defense.  None of these programs have really lasted.  Whether we charge for lessons or give lessons away for free does not seem to make any difference at all.  People want to be healthy but will not take the time to eat right or show up for a free class being offered.  It is easier to talk about being healthy than to actually do what it takes to get healthy.  We have offered free months to try to entice new students to walk through our doors, that didn't work.  People, including myself, must learn to act on what it is that is important to them, to give their ideas real meaning.