Top Performance when a Black Cloud is over you

[practical_man]

Lanny Bassham talks about calling mental attention to what you do right because you will repeat the performance you think about. That concept stuck with me.

Dr. Tim --

Thanks. I haven't read that book, but will put it on the list. I completely agree that you must focus on good performance in you after action review and training. Don't think about what went wrong, think about what goes right and how to repeat it m

- john

[toothguy]

Lanny Bassham talks about calling mental attention to what you do right because you will repeat the performance you think about. That concept stuck with me.

Dr. Tim --

Thanks. I haven't read that book, but will put it on the list. I completely agree that you must focus on good performance in you after action review and training. Don't think about what went wrong, think about what goes right and how to repeat it m

- john

The best resource books I have found so far are:

Practical Shooting, Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos, (need to read it again every year or so).

With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham.

The Mental Game of Golf, a Guide to Peak Performance by Patrick J. Cohn, PH.D., (same mind set as shooting).

Mastering the Mental Game by Saul Kirsch, (DVD).

Edited February 23, 2013 by toothguy

[SouthpawG26]

I agree that shooting under a black cloud takes away that conscious expectation out of your performance, (you're now shooting without giving a flying ef..), allowing you to free yourself from this parasitic mental baggage.

Thus you revert to just shooting them one at a time...

Thus you rock...

Just like Manti Te'o right after.........Nevermind.

Edited February 23, 2013 by SouthpawG26

[practical_man]

Thanks Toothguy! I will add a couple of those to my reading list.

- john

[CHA-LEE]

Abnormally Exceptional performance coinciding with exceptional mental/emotional events is pretty common. We get so focused on the mental/emotional event that has nothing to do with the task at hand that we simply let the task at hand happen unedited or judged. There are no "can I do it, I want to do it, maybe it can be done, I don't want to fail, etc" noisy thoughts getting in the way of you simply letting it happen at its own pace. So the task at hand simply happens to the best of your ability.

We are our own worse enemy. 99% of the time you are holding yourself back by some artificially created road block. When you don't have the time or the effort to create these artificial road blocks that is when the exceptional performance happens. How do you replicate it? Eliminate the road blocks by honing your skills so you know you can execute what you are trying to perform, then build confidence in your skills so you know that if you "let it happen" it will get done the best it can be done.

[toothguy]

Abnormally Exceptional performance coinciding with exceptional mental/emotional events is pretty common. We get so focused on the mental/emotional event that has nothing to do with the task at hand that we simply let the task at hand happen unedited or judged. There are no "can I do it, I want to do it, maybe it can be done, I don't want to fail, etc" noisy thoughts getting in the way of you simply letting it happen at its own pace. So the task at hand simply happens to the best of your ability.

We are our own worse enemy. 99% of the time you are holding yourself back by some artificially created road block. When you don't have the time or the effort to create these artificial road blocks that is when the exceptional performance happens. How do you replicate it? Eliminate the road blocks by honing your skills so you know you can execute what you are trying to perform, then build confidence in your skills so you know that if you "let it happen" it will get done the best it can be done.

When I was a kid my grandfather rebuilt player pianos as a hobby. You could play the piano in a traditonal way or you could put in a paper roll that the piano played like a music box. I always wanted to play with the piano at the same time as the piano was playing a role. My grandfather told me that the role was a perfect music copy and to just let it play.

[benos]

Is there a "right" care? In the absence of any care (wrong and right), will the performance be better, meaning as close to our current ability as we can get? Or, are there just levels of care, keeping the "wrong" out as best we can?

I think we have to care in one sense, or we would never go to the range.

And we care to care about improving our skills, or we never would.

And we have to care about calling our shots, because if we didn't we would never master the most important job a shooter should never stop doing,

But if you care too much about calling shots, you will get tenative, stiff, and jerky.

So we have to learn to just shoot, just call the shots, without any attachment. Or with as little attachment as possible.

be

[StraightUp_OG]

Sweet!

An old VP of sales of the group I work in used to say about the sales cycle and the pitch was , "You need to care but not that much". He believed that caring to much about the outcome restricts creativity. Funny how you can apply this to sales. ;-)

[benos]

Sweet!

An old VP of sales of the group I work in used to say about the sales cycle and the pitch was , "You need to care but not that much". He believed that caring to much about the outcome restricts creativity. Funny how you can apply this to sales. ;-)

And to EVERYTHING!

[jkatz44]

So in essence, the only aspect your mind should be focused on is calling your shots and you should let everything else go? Is this the consensus?

[CHA-LEE]

Yes

[Steve Anderson]

Yes.

I have tapped into that hyper-emotional state of distracted non-caring a couple of times, and it was just as likely to yield a bad performance as a good performance.

On one stage I was too worried about heroin girl to care how I shot. (shot very poorly)

On the next stage I wanted to get it over with so I could get back to worrying about heroin girl. (shot brilliantly)

And, even if it is proven to be good for performance, I cannot recommend becoming involved with a heroin addict under any circumstances.

You can't afford it.

(btw, this was a long time ago... these are not recent events or recent ex-wives. )