Focus is essential if you want to be at your best. Focusing is critical if you're a business owner, manager, employee, or parent who must juggle multiple items simultaneously. If you're a competitive athlete or want to outperform your best friend for bragging rights, then focusing on the task, excluding everything else, is crucial.
No matter who you are and what you're doing, we all want to focus better and perform at our best. Focus encompasses several key aspects, but I want to stress the three C's—clear, concentration, and calm.
Clear of mind means you understand the task or the goal. You can outline and detail what you have to do to get to the end and compartmentalize each task, focusing on what's most important. Clearness is more than "I want to win." You can see your destination on a map but understand that no goal is reached before the first step. So, you focus on each step, each mile, and every milestone, creating a clear path to success—pun intended.
Process-driven people tend to have higher levels of performance than outcome-driven people. The reasons are multi-fold. Process-driven people tend to focus on one activity at a time, while outcome-driven people are forced to think about the totality of the situation and the intricacies driving that outcome. Focusing on outcomes can produce uncertainty, anxiety, and even fear. The rationale is that so many issues and items are involved in an outcome that it can drive you to 'analysis paralysis.' Compartmentalization and clear thinking counteract negative emotions and unwanted behavior.
Concentration is the ability to direct your attention to one thing. A perfect representation is a tennis match. I can think about winning the game or even a point or focus on each stroke and its production. If I hit every shot the best I can, the score will take care of itself. I'll either win or lose, but how can I do better than hitting every shot as well as I can? Concentrating on individual items and doing them to the best of your ability centers you and removes ambiguity.
In a competitive sport like tennis, you don't have the time to think about the ramifications of every action and how it will impact your opponent. At most, you might be able to consider, perhaps, two options. However, decisiveness produces the best outcomes, and concentration is critical. You can't write an article without writing the first sentence. You can't give a speech by trying to speak every word simultaneously. Don't get me wrong; knowing what you want and where you want to go is essential. That's being clear. But before you can get to the end, you have to start at the beginning. Concentrating on the key aspects of your task and performing them at your highest ability provides the best chance of success.
Calm is the ability to remain 'cool' under pressure. You're centered and collected, even though everything around you is chaotic. Have you ever been in a heated meeting with group members going back and forth with one another while one person is sitting there calmly waiting to make the salient point that re-focuses the team? Have you ever watched Roger Federer play tennis? No matter the tournament or the score, his body language and facial expression are unaffected by the circumstances. He understands that internal pressure feeds chaos, can make you act irrationally, and destroys focus. Calm is vital to maintaining a state of being that allows your body and mind to react, anticipate, and calculate the best course of action.
In summary, focus is a clear vision of the task or goal, the ability to concentrate on one thing at a time, and to remain calm throughout the process, not allowing your emotions to divert you. We all strive for it, but achieving it is not always easy. However, being aware of the focus components and what to direct your thoughts and attention to is the first step to more consistent success.
Let me give you a real example of using Somulis and how it can benefit focus. I coached a young man named Stevie, a nationally-ranked junior tennis player, for two years. A short while after I started coaching Stevie, I told him I wanted to try something. Before a practice session, we sat down next to the court we were about to hit on. Other people were around us, and the tennis club was beside a busy street. So, these are not ideal conditions for relaxation, but they aren't required for Somulis to work effectively. I said, "We're going to try a technology on you today that I've been using for a long time. I want to see what effect it has on you."
I got him ready for a short fifteen-minute session on Somulis. Before we started, I queried him on his mental and physical well-being. Here are the notes from the first two sessions using our technology.
Day 1:
Pre-practice and pre-Somulis (Stevie): Tired (weary), not purposeful, good attitude, calm.
Pre-practice and post-Somulis (Stevie): A definite difference, feelings of narrowed focus, less tired, more visual focus.
Note: After some discussion, what he meant by "more visual focus" was that his field of vision seemed to narrow. This finding was something that was not anticipated, but it is intriguing.
Post practice and post-Somulis: Coach: Got off to a stronger start than usual—fewer errors. The ups and downs were more level.
Stevie: Focused, Locked-in, positive outlook, quick turnaround off the lows. I Closed strong.
Day 2:
Pre-practice and pre-Somulis (Stevie): Well-rested, feeling heavy in the legs, positive outlook, calm.
Pre-practice and post-Somulis (Stevie): Centered, locked-in, raring to go.
Post-practice and post-Somulis:
Coach: Another practice session where Stevie got off to a better start, with cleaner hitting. Stevie had a consistently higher hitting level.
Stevie: I felt better after I started; I felt more energetic, positive, motivated, content, and purposeful.
Stevie generally felt better, was clearer-minded, had better concentration, and remained more emotionally level than in our other practice sessions. The effects of vagus nerve stimulation on focus are varied—not everyone will have a profound impact. However, even the slightest improvement can mean a lot, especially for performance athletes. A 5% bump can mean the difference between winning and losing. Somulis gently stimulates the vagus nerve through the earlobes and gives your mind and body the tap on the shoulder it needs to do its job. That simple tap creates a parasympathetic reaction, releasing oxytocin and acetylcholine. The result is greater focus, enhanced calm, and feelings of well-being.
Life is hectic, and everyone is time-constrained, leading to pressure and stress. Give Somulis a try and get the focus you need to be at your very best!
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