Hocus Focus: Do You Really Know What It Means To Be Focused? -By Jason Selk

The definition of “hocus pocus” is “meaningless talk or activity, often designed to draw attention away from and disguise what is actually happening.” Unfortunately, this is not dissimilar to how many people understand the meaning of “focus.” Focus is one of those concepts that we use a lot, but do we really know what it means? The highly successful have decided exactly what they are supposed to focus on, and they work to maintain that focus when the stress and realities of work and life want to divert it.

Maintain Focus Using The Performance Statement

The performance statement is designed to help you remain focused on the two to three most important control points for success. Mental toughness, quite simply, is the ability to stay focused on the right things, especially when all the wrong things want to enter your mind; things like a high-pressure meeting, being passed over for a promotion, or having been awake all night with a sick child. The highly successful have learned to manage pressure by refocusing their minds onto what is effective, rather than what is debilitating. 

Our brains are designed in a way that makes it incredibly likely for our focus will go to whatever the problem or stressful event is, no matter how much we tell it not to. We call this Problem-Centric Thought. Your biology dictates that your brain is going to focus on the problem. Telling it not to is wasted breath. Telling yourself not to focus on something is like telling yourself not to think about a pink elephant. Try it now. Do not let yourself think about a pink elephant…

What are you thinking about? 

Instead of telling ourselves not to think about the things that are guaranteed to come into our minds, we must replace those negative thoughts with something else in order to get rid of them. We call this thought replacement, and we use the performance statement to do this. 

A client of mine had taken on the task of spearheading a new direction for his firm. He was confident that this direction would change the game in a positive way for his company, but he also knew he would be met with a good amount of opposition. His first task was to educate his superiors on the necessity for the change, so he found himself in the position of frequently presenting to small and large groups on the subject. While he was prepared with the knowledge and expertise on every aspect of his area, he had found himself flustered in a few meetings, during which he was flooded with the questions and comments of defensive and resistant leaders. 

He developed a performance statement that reminded him to keep his focus on educating his superiors when he wanted to become frustrated or defensive. He spoke of one meeting in particular, during which he was “peppered with questions from a superior who, for whatever reason, felt like being adversarial. This guy took it upon himself to continue firing difficult questions.” When he felt himself becoming flustered, he would repeat his performance statement in his mind:“breath, emphasize solutions, keep it simple.”

This Performance Statement allowed him to maintain his confidence during his presentations and to keep his focus on making his plan clear to his audience. He quickly began receiving the support he needed from his superiors to make an impactful change for his firm.

Another client of mine developed the performance statement, “Slow, pause, energy,” for any time he would give a speech. This performance statement reminded him to maintain a slow pace when he has a tendency to rush. It reminded him to use pauses in his presentation, and then to keep a high level of positive energy.

Develop Your Own Performance Statement

What are the two or three most important things for you to stay focused on? 

Keep your performance statement as simple and concise as possible, and commit to using it whenever you find yourself in high pressure situations. 

Mental toughness is a huge part of high-level success, but it is also something that most people typically don’t spend any time working on. Take five minutes now to develop a performance statement, and set yourself ahead of the competition. 

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