Focusing on the past splits your focus and what happens? You have less energy to focus on the here & now. Which increases the risk of making more mistakes. The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason – so you can focus where you want to go.
That’s not to brush the reality of the past aside. There is a time & place to judge it. Is assessing it immediately going to help you to be at your best at this moment? Probably not in the intensity of the moment. Later when things have calmed down, you can learn from it.
Peak Performance
This is simply performing at your best. No matter what it is that you’re doing. Look at the best athletes, surgeons and financial traders. Bomb disposal experts. Competitive shooters.
They all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. But if they spend time dwelling on the mistake they’ll mess up the next moment. You miss a shot, dwell on it and you’ll mess up the next play. Lose money on a trade, dwell on it and you’ll lose more money.
I have a friend who’s an OB-GYN. One day a week during his training he’d have to perform a number of surgeries.
Most of the surgeries went well, some not so well. Through no fault of his own. Complications would arise during surgery. Sometimes the previous surgeon would have done a poor job. And a patient would die on the operating table.
He taught me an important lesson. If you spend time dwelling on the ones that died then you’re going to mess up all the ones that come afterwards. That mindset will affect your performance. When all the surgeries are finished, that’s the time to go back and learn what went wrong.
Let’s Talk About You
How does this relate to you? How many times have you had something go wrong and it threw you off track? Was the whole day a write-off? Did it affect your mood? Did you ignore all the other good things that happened that day?
Did you really have a bad day? Or did something happen that you dwelled on and made the focus of your day?
The Purpose of Mistakes
Mistakes are a normal part of life. It’s not a sign that something’s wrong. It’s an opportunity to do better. Focus on what you can control when they do happen. What can you control? Your actions, attitude, focus and language. Nothing else.
Focus on making the next moment better. Focus on where you want to go. Not on what you’re afraid of. Focus on your goals and mission in life. It’s not a question of whether or not you’ll make mistakes. That’s unavoidable. What matters is how you’ll deal with them.
You could pack up your belongings and travel the whole world. On your travels you could search the whole world over, and not once would you find your past…
Zen Transformation Coach 