Why Can’t I Focus? How to Get Your Brain Back Into the Zone for Peak Performance
- Sonjali Di Guida
You sit down with every intention of getting something done, and two hours later, you wonder what you actually accomplished. You’ve read the same paragraph four times, checked your phone, answered an email that probably could have waited, started one thing, jumped to another, and somewhere along the way remembered five other things you need to do. Meanwhile, the clock keeps moving, your stress starts climbing, and this lack of good focus begins to have a very real cost.
Maybe something that should take you three hours is taking six. Your workday gets longer, you’re bringing work home, and the time that was supposed to be yours—to exercise, see friends, spend time with your family, go golfing, or simply do absolutely nothing—is slowly disappearing. You may even find yourself feeling more tired at the end of the day, despite wondering what you actually managed to accomplish.
For a student, the cost might be different. You know you’re capable of better academic performance, and you may even be putting in the hours, but when it’s time to study, your brain doesn’t seem to cooperate. You reread information without retaining it, get distracted easily, or sit in front of your books thinking about everything except what is actually on the page. When stress starts interfering with good focus, spending more hours studying doesn’t necessarily translate into better academic performance.
Professionally, the stakes can become even higher. Maybe you’re doing well, but you know there’s another level available to you. There’s a promotion you want, a business you’re trying to grow, more money you’d like to make, or simply more responsibility you’re capable of handling. The problem is that getting to that next level usually requires greater output, and if you’re already feeling stretched, working longer and sacrificing more of your personal time isn’t exactly an appealing solution.
So, what if the answer isn’t necessarily working more hours? What if part of the solution is learning better stress management and discovering how to get yourself in the zone for peak performance, so you can get more out of the hours you’re already working?
Getting in the Zone for Peak Performance
Consider a golfer standing at the tee. They’ve practiced this swing thousands of times. They know where their feet belong, how to hold the club, and what the movement is supposed to feel like. Under the right circumstances, much of it happens almost automatically. There’s a rhythm to it, a flow, and maybe even a little zing in your swing.
Now imagine that, just as they’re preparing to swing, their thoughts start firing. Don’t hit the water. Keep your elbow straight. What happened on the last hole? Everyone is watching. Don’t screw this up.
Suddenly, something they’ve done thousands of times feels strangely complicated. The golfer hasn’t forgotten how to golf, and their ability hasn’t disappeared. What has changed is their state, and what state is controlling the output.
Something very similar can happen when we’re studying or working. You may have the intelligence, the knowledge and ability to do the task in front of you….but stress, distraction and mental overload can make accessing those resources considerably more difficult. This is true whether we’re talking about academic performance, performance at work or sport performance.
This is also why trying to force good focus isn’t always the best first step. Sometimes the better strategy is managing stress, changing the state you’re in and allowing concentration to follow. In other words, before worrying about the swing, perhaps we need to work on getting you back into the zone.
Stop Swinging Harder
If you’ve ever watched a golfer after a particularly bad shot, you may have noticed how quickly they can begin analyzing everything that went wrong. Was it the grip? Their feet? Shoulders? Club position? Head movement? Before long, the next swing has become an engineering project, and any zing in their swing has been replaced with overthinking.
We can do exactly the same thing when we’re struggling with good focus. You notice you aren’t accomplishing enough, so you begin adding pressure. You tell yourself to focus, stare harder at the screen, reread the same paragraph and start thinking about how much time you’re wasting. You may start shaming yourself, or even trying bullying yourself into compliance. Then, because that isn’t stressful enough, you mentally calculate everything else you still need to finish.
At that point, you’re no longer simply distracted; you’re also experiencing stress about being distracted.
This is where stress management becomes part of performance. Sometimes the more useful response is to interrupt what you’re doing for a moment. Get up, walk around the room, stretch, move your body or take several slower breaths. This isn’t about abandoning the task or procrastinating for another half hour. It’s simply the equivalent of a golfer stepping away from the ball, resetting their stance and approaching the shot again rather than continuing to swing harder from a poor position.
Whether you’re improving your golf game, studying for an exam or preparing for an important meeting, sometimes peak performance starts with knowing how to reset.
Play One Hole at a Time
Imagine standing on the first tee while mentally worrying about what you’re going to do on hole seventeen. It wouldn’t improve the shot you’re about to take, yet this is often exactly how we approach our workload.
You might be studying Chapter 3 while simultaneously thinking about Chapter 4, Friday’s exam, the paper due next Tuesday, the email you haven’t answered, what you’re going to make for dinner and everything else sitting on your to-do list. Physically, you’re sitting in front of Chapter 3, but mentally, you’re trying to play the entire golf course at once.
That creates stress, and stress can make good focus increasingly difficult.
Interestingly, when we stop asking the brain to keep track of everything at the same time, it often becomes considerably easier to achieve good focus and start getting in the zone for peak performance.
Training the State, Not Just the Skill
We spend enormous amounts of time developing skills. Students study, professionals take courses, athletes practice, golfers work on improving their golf game and entrepreneurs learn their industries. What we sometimes forget is that knowing what to do and being able to access our best performance when we need it are not always the same thing.
Peak performance also involves becoming better at accessing useful states such as calm, concentration, confidence, curiosity and determination. Stress management therefore isn’t simply about feeling relaxed; it can also become part of how we prepare ourselves to perform.
Hypnosis is one tool that can be used to work with automatic patterns and rehearse different ways of responding, allowing us to become more intentional about the mental and physical cues we associate with good focus, stress management and peak performance.
And this idea extends far beyond studying. Your golf course might be an exam where you want better academic performance. It might literally be a golf course where you’re working on improving your golf game or trying to enhance your sport performance. It could be a boardroom, an important presentation, a difficult meeting, a business you’re trying to grow, or simply a very full Monday morning.
Whatever your course happens to be, you don’t need to mentally play all 18 holes at the same time. Sometimes getting in the zone for peak performance simply means noticing where the ball is, deciding where you’d like it to go, settling yourself into the right state and taking the next shot.
And who knows? With a little less stress, a little more good focus and the right state of mind, you may just discover a whole lot more zing in your swing.
Having trouble getting into the zone?
Whether stress is interfering with your concentration, academic performance, work performance or sport performance, hypnosis may be one tool worth exploring. Contact us to book a free screening and discover whether hypnosis may be a good fit for you.
