Martial Arts is Focus and Concentration
I am so overwhelmed! So many responsibilities! Adulting is hard! That is a phrase I had never heard until maybe two or three years ago. It drives me crazy as the only people you hear saying it are, well…. keep reading. When most of us start feeling overwhelmed our defense mechanisms kick in. Excuses designed to make us feel better about failure or to find support from others start building. Martial Arts training creates focus and concentration!
I am going to start this discussion on focus and concentration with a paragraph created inside the head of someone who is truly overwhelmed and trying to figure out what to do next. Enjoy the next two paragraphs but read it as fast as you can— out loud!
When you have a goal you don’t have time for excuses. Make a list. One task at a time. Prioritize. Eliminate negativity. One day at a time. Make more lists. Organize your lists. Start a new list of lists you need to list….omg. Where do you stand with this issue of being overwhelmed? Maybe you are in the list making mode to help you manage. Maybe you are in the brain-storming mode? Maybe you are just ready to RELAX! Maybe.
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
Concentration and focus!
Even if it takes lists!
Are you like me in that you make lists but then can’t remember which list you were working on or where you left the most recent list? I have gone so far as to make voice recordings of myself since I am driving when I have my best ideas. The look on my face years later must be priceless when I hear these voice messages for the very first time. Most of the time I completely forget I made them in the first place but simply making the written or verbal lists helps stick them in the priority buckets I need to so all is not lost.
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
We learn perseverance and indomitable spirit which better positions brainstorming as a tool for reaching our goals
Brain storming is one way to help reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed. It can also take the level of stress through the roof briefly as you learn how to do it and how to control it. Brain storming is great in concept and is great in action too. Unfortunately, it is overwhelming at the start, which makes it less likely for people to stick with or use correctly. My suggestion here is to keep trying and the first step of how to manage it is to use it in direct cooperation with the list making phase.
Martial Arts is focus and concentrations
Concentration!
Taking a play on the Aaron Rodger quote R.E.L.A.X.
Maybe, just maybe you are in the phase of just R..E.L.A.X. Take a deep breath and move on. Don’t dwell. Recognize wasted effort or drama and walk away. Accept what you can accomplish and let the rest go and sometimes you can find yourself on the right path, getting things done. Some of us are goal oriented and ready to simply keep on keeping on. This one is not one that consistently works for me, but maybe for you. Or you could just keep reading.
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
Focus!
Get over yourself!
One thing you may not have accepted about yourself that may help; You are just like everyone else yet nothing like anyone so get over yourself. What I mean is that you are not alone. Many many people are crazy busy, overwhelmed and at times feel completely lost. You are like everyone else in that feeling and you were not the first, the worst or the last. Get over yourself!
You are nothing like anyone else in that what makes you tick is yours and yours alone. You may be like one person in one habit or behavior while being like a totally different person in another. Get over yourself and accept your uniqueness as a strength.
You must accept your traits and while you should never make the mistake of thinking no-one can understand, you must also be okay with finding the solution that works for you, not the solution that works for someone you are not! The phrase get over yourself simply means open your mind and stop accepting what you think or feel as the only plausible truth or path.
Before Martial Arts is focus and concentration
Martial Arts builds better leaders.
We need to be honest with ourselves
Do you have a lot on your plate? What does it mean for you to be “busy.” I absolutely hate it when someone tells me they are too busy to do something. Do you play games on your phone? Do you watch TV? Do you talk to friends? Do you eat breakfast, lunch or dinner? WHY? I thought you were too busy? You are never too busy for what you really want to do or maybe mistakenly think you must do. Rarely is someone who says they are too busy actually too busy. Usually they are just exhausted from trying to figure out how to break unnecessary habits in order to better fit in what they would be better served doing instead.
My previous white collar career fed me this tidbit of knowledge.
Busy is as busy does and is
never lazy
A mentor once asked me who I had tried to delegate a responsibility to. In response I told him I had picked the one leader who always seemed to be having fun and seemed to always have excess free time, or at least acted that way. This leader informed me they would not have the time to complete my required task and therefore could not accept the task.
My mentor asked me why I had not asked the busiest leader on the team. I looked at him with questioning eyes as I thought the answer was obvious. I said, she clearly was too busy and was always out performing everyone so I did not want to over burden her.
My mentor smiled and said “ask someone who is clearly busy to accomplish a task and that person will inevitably find a way to get it done, but ask someone who says they are busy to accomplish a task and that person will inevitably find a reason that they can not. These people are self createdly too busy and not only will they not accomplish the task but they will make themselves sound perfectly legitimate in their rationale. The unprepared leader would believe them and continue to suffer in productivity until the truth is discovered.
My mentor asked me to approach the always busy high performer, while she was actively busy, and ask her to accomplish the same exact task. I did just that. That high performer looked at me sideways as she did not want to stop what she was doing, but she agreed to accomplish the task with nothing more than one question. When do you want it done? Wow! She accomplished the task in half the time I allotted and a long story short she was promoted and eventually took my job when I left. The person who was too busy? He job hopped for years and I have long since lost track of him.
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
Open minded thought
feeling pressured is a privilege
I heard this today; “feeling pressured is a privilege.” I wish I could remember who that is quoted from but I heard it from a NFL quarterback approaching the superbowl in less than one week. He believes that people who feel pressure to perform feel that way because they put themselves in the position to have high expectations from those around them and those who follow them. Therefore feeling pressure is a privilege and one you can lose.
Lose your focus, lose your concentration and make a mistake and that privilege of people expecting big things from you can be instantly revoked. I love his attitude of earning that privilege and driving to maintain it. Yet one more reason that martial arts training is such a wonderful thing! In martial arts training you are constantly encouraged to produce something YOU would be proud of and therefore those around of you would as well. We are trying to generate this pressure is a privilege mindset but in a quietly humble approach at times.
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
Martial Arts builds focus and concentration
Which builds better leaders
Leadership is not about titles, superiority or advantage over others. It is much more about one life or way of life positively affecting another. Learning how to focus takes an incredible amount of focus. Martial arts is a wonderful platform to help with this. AKF Lexington Martial Arts helps students learn or improve focus by repeatedly putting the students in a position where they must focus. Rather than constantly commenting on the failures to focus a practice of again and again being put in the position to focus will help the student slowly develop a self expectation in order to see even the smallest sign of success. Success is complimented, praised and even celebrated by name and example.
For those who this process comes easily they may not even notice it is happening, like me. I have for years not realized just how I have learned to focus my mind when I need to but the more I teach others the more I realize that I have developed an uncanny ability to do just that.
You may not even realize it is happening
Me too!
Not perfect! I am like everyone else!
When it comes time and I recognize the need, that is where my years of training become obvious. For those who this process is difficult or nearly impossible the first level of reward is usually school grades showing a bump in the right direction. They may wiggle. They may hop. They may fidget, but they are starting to see what is expected in the larger picture and find a way to focus long enough to get it done. When the day happens when they start getting recognized for a noticeable change in ability to demonstrate focus or concentration in their physical actions the ball starts rolling faster and faster!
Martial Arts is focus and concentration
- YES I CAN!
- YES I AM!
As they see it and others say it, the rewarding feeling of YES I CAN and YES I AM is too big for them or us to ignore. Focus and concentration start to become something they recognize and want. Amazing things start becoming possible where they once feared nothing positive would come. Try our classes and see how all of this happens within AKF Lexington Martial Arts and do a little research of your own about Kyuki-Do in general! It might just change your life!
Amazing things start becoming possible where they once feared nothing positive would come.
