Focus Like an Elite Athlete

Thirty seconds is left on the clock. The game is tied. It is the finals. He has the ball, it is do or die. He has imagined this scene many times before. The pressure is on, but he has a job to do. That is what he is paid to do. He shoots the ball into the hoop and scores a three-pointer. The crowd goes wild.

The above scene sounds dramatic. But it is something that happens all the time in professional sports. Elite athletes condition their mind to perform in many situations. They accomplish what most people only dream of. They know how to operate in the zone and often do the impossible because they are relentless.

A part of being relentless, and subsequently unstoppable, is that they condition their minds to do the work. Their level of focus is off the charts. But can an average person learn to focus like an elite athlete?

Focusing

You cannot maintain a high level of focus the entire day. However, you can focus for blocks of time during the day. In sports, they talk about being in the zone. Elsewhere, it is about being in a state of flow. In the book Humans in Flow, the author, Zander Garcez says that reading gets you into a state of flow. How many times have you gotten lost in the pages of a book because you were so engrossed with the story?