Focus on performance
I and my wife had been to our daughter’s school for a Parent Teachers Meeting yesterday. An otherwise “uneventful ritual” turned out to be a shocker. Our daughter, who performed really well and even excelled in some subjects had fared badly in the recently held examinations. Her marks were a let down and considering that she will sit for the boards of Class XII just 9 months away, we got very much worried. While going through the reasons for this unexpected performance, we learnt that there was a singular uncontrollable distraction.
There is this boy (“the distraction”) in my daughter’s class, who constantly teased my daughter and her friends. This boy was unruly, bossed around, made friends fight with each other by spreading rumours, taunted fellow students and of late had started showing unethical behavior like copying in examinations. Not sure, why in spite of so many complaints, the authorities remained silent! My daughter’s focus on this “the distraction — the boy”. She kept complaining to her teachers and most of her time went in consoling her friends and herself.
We decided do make some urgent changes. I and my wife made some promises to each other that we would sit with our daughter in shifts to help her study. I strongly advised her not to spend her time focusing on this distraction. While I went through all this, I could not but correlate this situation with our professional lives. We meet lot of people in the market. Many would try to do or say things in order to distract us.
What is happening inside you is more important that what is happening outside you. You cannot avoid looking at things happening outside you, but it is very important to understand how we process those things in our mind. We can either be attentive to them or we can concentrate on them. Attention is like water flowing in the river — there is a constant flow of water — nothing stops and hence you bring in lot of energy. Concentration is like water in a stagnant lake — there is no movement and hence the water gathers lot of moss, dirt and sludge. We should train our mind to be attentive to distractions and not concentrate on them.
It is wise to brush away distractions than brood over them
People who follow and play cricket would know that today’s teams had to put through lot of sledging once. The superpowers once, especially the Australian team had been well known to involve in sledging, calling names in order to distract focus of opponents.
In business too, we see this. Distractions are plentiful. Some ex-colleagues, gossip mongers, company-haters all pursue the same line — to distract us. Their words and actions are concentrated towards instilling doubts, bad-mouthing organizations, self-boasting. They always find a way to catch us off-guard. They try to show that we or the company we work for has a bleak future. They seed thoughts about rivalry within us. “Oh! He got promoted. What about you” or “Oh! That is not right”. They play in our minds. Their actions disconnect us from our goal and we eventually we perform badly. You cannot avoid them. The best way is not to concentrate on what they say or do. Do not behave as if “they” never existed. But be more attentive on what you have to do. This will help in training your minds to build more confidence on yourself and the company you work for.
Focus is the most important factor for performance. If we train our mind to give zero importance to distractions, our performance will improve. I have lived this way all my life. I advised my daughter to do so. And I want all of you to practice doing this. Ignore the distractions, perform well and live a life that you deserve.
