Tag: Focus

When you struggle to focus on the task at hand, perhaps it’s because there’s too much going on in your attentional field. What’s that? It’s a term used to describe everything within your attention span – your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, sights and sounds around you. When you focus on being perfect, you’re less likely to allow for mistakes. Mistakes are necessary in the learning process to achieve competence in any field. Each of us has a different dominant focus style, which is what we default to under stress.

We pay attention in two distinct ways. These two focus styles are…

Internal-focus style. These people are totally and consistently focused during a specific activity like a presentation, a practice session or a competition. They need to keep their focus narrow, thinking only about their performance all the time. The down side of this intensity is that they also tend to be easily distracted by their surroundings.

External-focus style. These people only focus on their specific activity when they’re about to begin the event or competition. They function better by taking their mind off of the activity at all other times, because they tend to over-think, becoming negative, critical, and anxious. For them to excel, they must focus on other things when they’re not actually performing.

Neither approach is right or wrong. The important thing is identifying your focus style and utilizing it to improve your powers of concentration. If you’re trying to force yourself to adopt a style other than your own, you’ll find that under pressure you’ll revert back to your normal style and that could really throw you off your game.

What should you be focusing on right now? Click here to download a free copy of 7-Point Wellness Assessment to find out.

Embodied Learning – A Lifelong Practice that Leads to Excellence and Mastery

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Embodied Leadership, Emotional Intelligence.

“By my actions teach my mind.” ~ William Shakespeare

Learning doesn’t stop when you finish your schooling. As the world has become more connected we are required to continually learn new skills and adapt to change. This takes great flexibility in our thinking. Yet this raises an important question: Is thinking enough to achieve mastery and excellence? No, and here’s why…

Do you really know ‘how to learn’?

Perhaps your style of learning has been to memorize facts intellectually until you take a test or do a task, and then you quickly forget it. Or perhaps you “know” a topic but never put it into practice, let alone master it.

Honestly, would you book Carnegie Hall for your daughter’s piano recital if she had only looked at a music book? No, a master pianist has years of practice to train the mind (to gain the skill), the body (to gain the dexterity) and the spirit (to gain the confidence) to cooperate together harmoniously. Mastery, through embodied learning, requires all three – the mind, the body, and the spirit.

Learning with the Mind. The educational system traditionally teaches the mind. As a result, many people stay stuck because they theoretically know what they should do, but they feel overwhelmed or are distracted by the next “bright, shiny object” that comes along. There’s too much information for any of us to process. We’re moving at a speed that demands immediate action.

In order to master a skill, it’s vital to stay connected as you embody your higher purpose and remain focused on what’s important. This requires…

Learning with the Spirit. Over time we establish a characteristic mood. People can see us as cheery or brooding, positive or negative, and helpful or closed-minded to give a few examples. People will either be repelled or attracted by our mood.

Emotions, on the other hand, come and go as situations change. However, if you’re not skilled in resolving your emotions they take on a life of their own and become a mood. For example, if you don’t effectively deal with your sadness and loss, it may become a mood of depression.

Your emotions and moods shape the way you learn. If you’re negative, and self-defeating, your learning and productivity will suffer, regardless of how skilled you are. On the other hand, if you’re open and curious you’ll be receptive to learning and increase your creative and innovative skills.

Learning with the Body. To manage your own emotions (not repressing them or becoming victims of them) you must approach them from a somatic perspective. How you organize your body produces certain moods and emotions, both positive and negative.

The body never lies. You may say you’re ready for a presentation to a room full of clients, because you know your material inside and out. But when you stand in front of them and you stammer and stutter and forget key points, your body is telling the truth – that you aren’t ready emotionally.

Embodied learning means there’s a congruency between your intellectual thoughts, emotional state and your body organization. And you only achieve this harmony through practice. For example, when you learn to model confidence behavior, you’ll feel confident. And as you repeatedly practice it, you will become confident. You will have learned this new skill so well you embody it in all you do. It will come to you easily. As you perform these actions in a graceful manner, people will see you as a master of your craft.

Are you seeing areas in your own life that can benefit from embodied learning? I would be pleased to partner with you as you discover how to become more mindful and aware in your approach to life. Please contact me and we can schedule a time to work together in person or via Skype.

Which of These 25 Emotional Intelligence Competencies Will You Master Next?

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Emotional Intelligence.

“What is it you’re really good at doing? What makes you unique?”

Do these questions make you squirm and think, “I don’t know…I’m just me?” Surprisingly, most people struggle with this. They do what they do without much thought. Of course you’re aware of your technical skills, people skills and personal work ethic. Yet, this barely scratches the surface of who you are.

With so many people feeling lost, unfulfilled and wanting to “find my true self”, it’s important to take time to mindfully define in great detail your core values, strengths, and emotional intelligence competencies.

When you do, a magical thing happens. You become empowered to break out of your comfort zone and excel beyond what you ever imagined possible. Like all top performers, you’ll finally know exactly what you’re capable of doing. You’ll know what to improve to achieve excellence. And while no one can master all 25 emotional intelligence competencies, you can significantly improve on some of them.

Daniel Goleman writes about the 25 emotional competencies in his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence. (I really enjoyed this book. You should check it out!) They fall into five categories, under two main headings – Personal and Social – as the following outline shows.

1. Personal Competence – how you manage yourself.

Self-Awareness: Know your internal states, preferences, and resources.
- Emotional awareness – recognize how emotions affect your life.
- Accurate self-assessment – know your strengths and limitations.
- Self-confidence – embrace your self-worth and capabilities.

Self-Regulation: Manage your internal states, impulses and resources.
- Self-control – keep disruptive emotions and impulses in check.
- Trustworthiness – maintain standards of integrity and honesty.
- Conscientiousness – take responsibility for your personal performance.
- Adaptability – be able to handle change, flexibility.
- Innovation – be comfortable with new ideas and ways of doing things.

Motivation: Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.
- Achievement drive – strive for excellence.
- Commitment – wholeheartedly support group or organizational goals.
- Initiative – be ready to act on opportunities.
- Optimism – remain positive despite obstacles and setbacks.

2. Social Competence – how you handle relationships.

Empathy: Have an awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns.
- Understanding others – sense others’ perspectives.
- Developing others – actively bolster their abilities.
- Service orientation – anticipate, recognize, and meet others’ needs.
- Leveraging diversity – Cultivate opportunities through diverse people.
- Political awareness – reading power relationships and undercurrents.

Social skills: Proficiency at stirring up desirable responses in others.
- Influence – effectively persuade others.
- Communication – listen openly and sending compelling messages.
- Conflict management – negotiate and resolve disagreements.
- Leadership – inspire and guide individuals and groups.
- Change catalyst – initiate or manage change.
- Building bonds – nurture instrumental relationships.
- Collaboration and cooperation – work toward shared goals.
- Team capabilities – create group synergy, bring out their best.

Why not copy and paste this list into a Word document and print it out. Then score yourself from 1 (very limited) to 10 (excellent) on each one. But don’t stop there. Ask someone who knows you well to review it and get their viewpoint. It will be an eye-opening exercise for you and give you a basis for where you want to start improving.

And if you want to open your own private practice this exercise will keep you from floundering, because it helps you identify your unique selling proposition (USP) or unique value proposition (UVP) – the things that make you and your services unique. And when you identify that factor, your business will excel.

Would you like me to help you assess your emotional intelligence competencies and give you proven ways of getting out of your own way so you can excel? Then contact me and we can set up an in-person session or one via Skype.

Feeling Trapped in Life? Master Your Inner Game to Free Yourself

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Controlling Stress, Fearless Mindset, Life Coaching, Life Skills, Mindfulness.

“There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How aware you are of this game can make the difference between success and failure in the outer game.” ~ Tim Gallwey

Do any of the following statements describe how you’re feeling right now?

I’m feeling stuck in a rut.
I feel trapped in my job.
I’m feeling trapped in a relationship.
No matter how hard I try nothing seems to go right.
I used to be really good at this, but now I just can’t make it work, so I end up trying too hard and second-guessing myself.
My fear of failure makes me default to “I can’t” before I even try.
I thought I was over that, but it keeps resurfacing again and again to gnaw at me.

The good news is…YOU don’t have to stay feeling trapped in life. You CAN free yourself from these negative mindsets and limiting beliefs. And while it does take some effort, it really isn’t that hard. Especially when you realize you already have the skills, you just need to make the connection between your two selves.

What do I mean by saying you need to connect your two selves in order to free yourself from feeling trapped in life?

Along my personal and professional journey, I discovered a book that helped me transform my inner environment to one that is more nurturing, supportive and all in all more conducive to learning and growing. It’s The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. The core message of the book is that in tennis like anywhere else in life we usually play two games, an outer game with our opponent (self 1 – some people describe it as the body, which acts), and an inner game with ourselves (self 2 – some people describe it as the mind, which instructs).

We get into trouble when Self 2 (the mind) tries to tell Self 1 (the body) how to do something the latter already knows how to do. This disconnect spirals into second guessing yourself, trying too hard and feeling like a failure (In my opinion, the only failure is giving up. Nothing else is a failure. It’s simply a life lesson).

For example, when you learn to play tennis, your instructor tells you to “keep the eye on the ball” and your brain instinctively positions your arm and moderates your stroke speed to lob the ball back over the net. Later you forget this advice and start missing, so you think your form is off. To compensate, you swing harder or hold the racket differently, and it just makes it worse. Whereas, if you would go back to keeping your eye on the ball and let the brain do its thing, you’ll be better than ever.

We must quiet Self 1 (the body) and let Self 2 (the mind) do what it knows how to do. The best way to quiet the mind is not to tell it to shut up or force it or criticize it. What works best is learning to focus it. Focus means mindfully paying attention to only the aspects of a situation that are necessary to accomplish the task at hand. This requires that you become an observer of your own behavior.

There are four important steps to connecting your two selves:

Step 1: Observe in a non-judgmental way, simply seeing the situation as it is, rather than judging it to be good or bad. Being judgmental only leads to self-doubt and anxiety.

Step 2: Visualize your desired outcome.

Step 3: Trust yourself.

Step 4: Observe the outcome and results in a non-judgmental way. It’s neither right nor wrong. You did your best at this point and time, and that’s good enough.

Learn to be aware of your feelings and your body’s responses so you can overcome the self-doubt, nervousness, anxiety and lapses of concentration that keep you from performing at your best. Master athletes and business professionals know that they can’t win the outer game if they lose the inner one. They know the value of having someone coach them as they Master the Inner Game. If you’re ready to make the commitment to a richer experience in life, please contact me. I would love to partner with you as you learn to get out of your own way to let your best game emerge.

Supercharge your Power of Concentration by Learning How to Focus Better

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Controlling Stress, Health and Wellness, Life Skills, Mindfulness, NLP, Private Practice Advice, Somatic Coaching.

Are there times when you struggle to focus on the task at hand? Perhaps that’s because there’s too much going on in your attentional field. What’s that? It’s a term used to describe everything within your attention span – your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, sights and sounds around you. Right now your attention is on the website reading this, but you may at the same time be distracted by other things like the mug of tea you’re sipping, the sound of your child or pet in the background, the thoughts of a deadline looming later today.

Focus is the ability to attend to internal cues (what’s going on inside of you, your feelings and thoughts) and external cues (what’s going on around you, like the knock on the door) in your attentional field. In all areas of life, whether you’re giving a presentation at work, having an important conversation with your spouse or training for a marathon, in order to excel you need to be able to focus.

What can you do to learn how to focus better? Here are two main skills you’ll need to master:

In order to tap into the tremendous power of concentration, determine what the relevant cues to the task at hand are and learn to focus only on them. We learn to selectively focus on or block out cues every day, otherwise the background noises and activities would drive us crazy.

Think about a star ball player. He must be in tune to his technique, his opponent, the score, the referee, the coach, and time remaining on the scoreboard, to name only a few cues vying for his attention. What would happen if his focus shifted to the pretty girl in the bleachers? He, in all likelihood, might miss the ball flying towards him. Hence at this point and time, that pretty girl would be considered a performance-irrelevant cue that must be ignored.

So the second skill for achieving better focus is determining what the performance-irrelevant cues are so you can ignore them as you strive to excel. These would be anything that would hurt your performance when you must accomplish a task.

There are two types of harmful cues that you’ll encounter:

Interfering cues are those that directly hurt your performance such as negative thoughts, anxiety, and concern over what others think.

Irrelevant cues are those that distract you from an effective focus including what restaurant you’ll go to tonight, the project that you must finish by tomorrow, or that pretty girl in the bleachers.

Each of us has a different dominant focus style, which is what we default to under stress. We pay attention in two distinct ways. These two focus styles are…

Internal-focus style. These people are totally and consistently focused during a specific activity like a presentation, a practice session or a competition. They need to keep their focus narrow, thinking only about their performance all the time. The down side of this intensity is that they also tend to be easily distracted by their surroundings.

External-focus style. These people only focus on their specific activity when they’re about to begin the event or competition. They function better by taking their mind off of the activity at all other times, because they tend to over-think, becoming negative, critical, and anxious. For them to excel, they must focus on other things when they’re not actually performing.

Would you like assistance in utilizing your personal style to excel at everything you do? We can work together in person or via Skype. Please contact me and I’ll be happy to help you identify your weakness and learn how to tap into your strengths.

A good place to begin is by taking my 7-Point Wellness Assessment. You can download your free copy by clicking here.

Seven Ways to Break Free from Being Too Busy

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Controlling Stress, Life Skills, Mindfulness, Private Practice Advice.

When all is said and done: “I wish I had spent more time…”

When was the last time you sat in silence and thought deeply? Chances are you’re feeling overwhelmed as you juggle everything in your life. So you write lists and schedule calendars to get everything done. You try to keep the important things front and center, yet as the days and weeks pass, you get sidetracked by the busywork that seems to accomplish a lot, but in reality doesn’t get you closer to your goals. You’ve been sucked back into the vicious cycle of being too busy.

Being “too busy” is a symptom of the much larger condition – that of reacting to situations instead of making good choices. What can get you back on track? More lists? No! You need a solid foundation for change, and practicing mindfulness is a great way to do that. Mindfulness is the antidote to “too busy”.

Let’s examine seven ways you can replace busyness with mindfulness:

Slow down, concentrate on one task, and be fully present and engaged. For example: How many tabs do you have open in your browser right now? Shut them all down except for one and fully concentrate on the information before you. Or when you converse with someone, give your entire focus to the person and listen closely to what’s said rather than looking around the room or thinking about something else.

Stimulate creativity by being open to the possibilities. Your brain needs to relax to switch into its creative mode. When you’re “too busy” you’ll dismiss a new idea or opportunity as a distraction. Instead, carefully contemplate if it’s a way for you to grow and advance. If it’s not, dismiss it, or write it down for later consideration, and move on. If it is, spend time with it.

Set priorities so you can engage in life more efficiently and effectively. Start each day with a review of what you want to accomplish and end each day with what you have accomplished. This will allow you to do the things you really want to do, giving you a sense of satisfaction.

Build a routine that supports your health and minimizes stress. To live an incredible life, you’ll need to be committed to the wellness of mind, body, and spirit. Some people choose to stay “too busy” so they don’t have to confront or resolve issues in their lives. When you’re mindful, you enhance your ability to perceive what is experienced through your senses rather than building fear and stress over something that isn’t real, only a mistaken notion in your mind. So add one supportive activity to your routine until it becomes your habit.

Renew motivation by sharpening your vision, the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’ll be able to replace “I can’t” or “Why try?” with “Yes, I know I deserve to make a success of this and I have the resources to do so”. As events unfold, observe the experience instead of always engaging in it. This will increase your emotional stability and vibrancy, as well as, open up to you a full range of options.

Establish good self-relations so you can think, plan, and dream. Depression and anxiety are signs that something is trying to wake up within a person. By acknowledging the purpose of a symptom, you are in a much better position to seriously reexamine your life and begin the process of living with renewed purpose. Taking time off is essential for recharging your spirit, mind and body. Even when you’re working, be sure to set boundaries and don’t be available all the time. This will help you keep your passion alive and discover your extraordinary purpose for being.

Become centered through connections. Everyone needs cherished family and friends. Instead of being so focused on doing and accomplishing, mindfulness keeps you centered on being the person you want to be. Your family and friends can help keep events in perspective. At the end of life, no one ever says, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

Mindfulness provides access to powerful inner resources so you can change the way you see and ultimately experience each situation. It puts you in a better position to do something different. It empowers you to participate in the world at large, as you work with what arises instead of trying to escape. Is that what you desire? Are you ready to develop a more mindfulness and meaningful life? Please contact me and we can discuss the best way for you to do that.

Tag: Focus

Embodied Learning – A Lifelong Practice that Leads to Excellence and Mastery

Which of These 25 Emotional Intelligence Competencies Will You Master Next?

Feeling Trapped in Life? Master Your Inner Game to Free Yourself

Supercharge your Power of Concentration by Learning How to Focus Better

Seven Ways to Break Free from Being Too Busy

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