Peak Performance Book Series FOCUS! Mental Strategies for Zone Concentration* Introduction Sample By: Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D.
Sample Introduction If you ve ever watched sports movies such as For Love of the Game, Mighty Ducks or Rocky, you ve seen how Hollywood capitalizes on the concept of zone concentration. First, everything appears in slow motion. Then, the crowd and outside distractions become silent just before the winning shot or punch. In the real world, however, there aren t always cameras and special effects to help an athlete concentrate and enter the zone. Instead, an athlete must learn the triggers that lead to complete and total concentration. Over the years that I ve worked as a mental game coach, I ve discovered that one of the main differences between mediocre athletes and great athletes is partially based on the ability of the athlete to concentrate. And, it is concentration skills which can help an athlete enter into the optimum performance area known as the zone. While I can t share with you all the concepts needed to refine your concentration skills in this short email, I do want to offer you some insights into the basics of concentration to help you give your athletic performance an edge over your competition. So, let s get started by defining concentration. (I use focus and concentration interchangeably.)
I define concentration as: The ability to immerse yourself in task-relevant cues that allow you to execute a skill while staying grounded in the present moment. Concentration also includes the ability to not attend to distractions or non-relevant thoughts and refocus when distracted. The common dictionary definition of concentration is: The act or process of concentrating, especially the fixing of close, undivided attention. Looking at the definitions of concentration, you can see that a keen focus has five basic elements: 1. The ability to direct attention to a relevant object, thought, or feeling 2. A present tense orientation 3. The ability to deflect or not attend to distractions, irrelevant thoughts 4. The ability to refocus on the relevant cues when distracted 5. The ability to fix or narrow attention When athletes describe a total focus during competition, they often talk about being in the zone. My extensive research into the zone revealed that a focused state of concentration is definitely a huge key to accessing the zone and in fact, it may be a prerequisite. When I first begin working with athletes who want to maximize performance, I ask them about how their concentration impacts their
performance. Some of my students tell me that a zone focus comes and goes during performance and others confess they never really felt like they had achieved a zone focus in the past. As a mental game coach, I have studied and researched a variety of theories about how athletes find, enter and stay in their mental game zones. Over the years I have been working in sports psychology, I have been greatly influenced by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihaly (I ll refer to him as Dr. C.). Dr. C, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, has studied the phenomenon of zone focus or "flow" throughout his career. Flow in my opinion, is the zone state in limited form, but has the same attention characteristics. I usually think of flow as a sample state of entering the zone that leads to optimum performance. Dr. C studied a variety of athletes--basketball players, dancers, rock climbers, chess players, factory workers and other performers--to understand why people enjoy activities even when there are no inherent rewards present. He hypothesized that when people become fully absorbed in an activity, they reach a state of flow. Based upon his research, Dr. C theorized that four elements must be present to get into the flow state: (1) the presence of a challenging activity; (2) the perception that your skills match the challenge; (3) clear goals; and (4) the availability of instant feedback concerning your performance. What Dr. C concluded was that when these elements are present, an "order in consciousness" occurs. And, it is this phenomenon that helps people immerse themselves in an activity and have fun doing it.
We certainly know that all four elements of concentration are present in sports. First, any sport is challenging by its very definition. Second, sports usually match the skills of individuals or teams in a competitive environment. Third, the goals of sports are clear to hit a jump shot or sink a ten foot putt. And lastly, because you get instant feedback related to your performance-- whether or not you miss the basket or sink the putt. My philosophy about helping athletes improve performance is derived from my experience working with and coaching athletes. This book was written based on my experience in a variety of sports, teaching sports skills to college athletes, and my own research on peak performance, flow, and the zone. The purpose is to give you practical information (the same information I teach to students I consult with) that you can apply to your sport performance immediately. But, in order to reap the rewards of great performance, you must apply my strategies in both practice and competition. ======================================================= *Excerpt from the Peak Performance Sports Book Series, Focus! Mental Game for Zone Strategies. This book may be purchased in its entirety by visiting http://www.peaksports.com Copyright 2003 by Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this book my be reproduced in any form without written permission from
the publisher. Published by Peak Performance Sports & Publications 7380 Sand Lake Road PMB 5012 Orlando, FL 32819 407-909-1700 To Order E-book in PDF format, visit www.peaksports.com Or call 888-742-7225 ISBN: 1-885999-11-9 56 pages.. $12.95