SGM October 2011 Insight of the Month: “Pitfalls of Focusing on Results”
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Welcome to the October 2011 Edition of SGM. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s good to have you with us.
This month on SGM, we’ll explore the book “The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life,” by Thomas M. Sterner.
Do you ever find your mind scattered from juggling many demands at once? Do you live on an energy and motivation rollercoaster? Are you checking off all the things on your “TO DO List” without much joy in the process? Are you often frustrated in your attempts to change or grow something new in your life?
In this month’s messages, we’ll discuss the fundamental reason behind those experiences. You’ll also learn how to make inner shifts to become laser-focused, relaxed and calm, while getting more done and having more energy and enthusiasm. You’ll be able to apply this information immediately to your own efforts with exercise, meditation, being a better parent, building your business, or whatever you want to grow in your life.
Before we get to that, I’d like to take a moment to welcome any new members that have joined us at SGM this month. Let me briefly go over a few details about our site.
If you haven’t done so already, make sure that you visit our “Getting Started with SGM” page for tips on how to get the most out of your membership. The link is located in the top right-hand corner of the SGM website. Make sure to check out the “Toolkit” in the right sidebar which has a wealth of mind-body practices and tips along with a Practice Log to keep track of your efforts.
Also, in the right upper corner of our website, you’ll find an “Ask the Instructor” link. You can use that to ask me any questions about your personal practice that you do not want to ask in the general Discussion under the Weekly Messages. You’ll also find a Client Support link in that same corner. Use that for any billing, site admin, or ordering questions. We’re here to support you in your personal practice . . .
So, this month, we’re focusing on “The Practicing Mind,” by Thomas M. Sterner. Sterner is a life-long student of the piano as well as Western religion, Eastern philosophy, and meditation. He has created several products for quieting the mind including “The Meditating Mind,” and “The Total Mindset.”
By pursuing his interests, Sterner has become an expert at what it takes to practice anything successfully. I think you’ll find his insights empowering in your personal growth, business, and relationships. You’ll be able to immediately use this information to shift your perspective and realize greater relaxation, happiness, and success.
In “The Practicing Mind”, Sterner takes us inside the mindset of engaged, process-oriented, present-moment awareness. In this first Weekly Message, we’ll learn exactly what that means and why it is so important. We’ll also discover a common mindset that leads to stress and frustration instead—and how to recognize that, so you can shift out of it.
In Weekly Message Two, we’ll explore Sterner’s four S’s—the keys to downshifting into present-focus in anything you are doing. In Weekly Message Three, we’ll explore Sterner’s three steps to releasing yourself from self-criticism and self-sabotage. And in our “Meditation of the Month,” we’ll apply these principles to the most basic and important event that is happening right now—your breathing.
Let’s begin with a couple brief stories from Sterner.
Sterner describes how, in his early twenties, he had many interests. He would often go into these interests with a full head of steam, but he would quickly lose interest or enthusiasm. This would lead to drifting from one thing to the next without ever really accomplishing what he had hoped. One of those activities was exercise.
When Sterner got the exercise bug, he really got into it—at first. He was excited to join a gym, get all the right clothes, and learn a new routine. Yet, after only a few sessions, his enthusiasm would taper off and he would have trouble maintaining his interest and discipline. He’d find himself coming up with countless excuses to miss an exercise session, such as, “I’m too tired,” “I can do it tomorrow,” or “I really have to get this other work done instead, right now.”
Soon, he’d find himself out of touch with his motivation and enthusiasm. He would have a nagging sense that he had failed and let himself down, but this wasn’t enough to keep him going to the gym. Before long, he’d be off in search of the next thing that caught his interest.
As he noticed this pattern repeating again and again, Sterner decided that he needed to gain some insight into what he was doing. Why did he never stick with anything long enough to get the results he wanted? Why was he continually frustrated in the process?
As Sterner studied himself in his most longstanding practice, playing the piano, and in his aspiring career as a top-level concert piano technician, he started to have some “Aha” moments. He decided to try these insights out on a new interest—learning to play golf.
You’d be hard-pressed to find an activity that requires more practice and offers more opportunity for stress and frustration than golf. It is one of the most precise and exasperating forms of recreation humans have yet invented. Golf would be a good test of his new-found insights.
So, Sterner joined a 6-week, group, golf class. There were five adults in the class. The setup was to meet for one hour of instruction per week followed by one hour of practice on your own.
By the third week of class, Sterner had gotten into the habit of showing up a little early so he could watch some of the class right before his. Sitting next to him was one of his classmates who had also gotten there early. He knew from their first-day introductions, that this woman was a corporate executive who wanted to learn golf to relax and to further her business career.
As a way to break the ice, Sterner asked her if she had gotten a chance to practice what they had learned last week. She replied, that she hadn’t because she just had too much to do. She sounded a bit down about that and said, “I guess I was just hoping to wake up one morning and be able to play well” (p. 13, TPM). Golf was harder than she had thought and she just didn’t know how she was going to get good enough to enjoy it.
When class began, the instructor asked all the students the same question and found out that only Sterner and one other had practiced what they had learned the week before. In fact, only those two had even stayed the hour after class to practice what they had just learned. No wonder the others were frustrated.
Here is what Sterner had done. He had stayed after class for an hour to reinforce what they had just learned. After that, before driving away from the range, he sat in his car and wrote down the key points describing what he had learned that night.
During the week, he broke the swing points down into several small parts and practiced one point every night for a few minutes in his basement until he felt comfortable with it. This might be a few swings up to a hundred. He would do each small motion very slowly and precisely at first, noticing how every little part of it felt. He would only speed up to real-time swing speed once he felt completely comfortable with the point he was focused on at the moment. He also swung a club in front of a mirror to check his form and match it with what it felt like inside.
Sterner then went to the driving range and repeated what he had practiced by hitting real golf-balls. However, at first, he didn’t focus on where the ball went. He just focused on mastering the swing points he had been taught that previous week. That’s it. Sterner understood that by focusing on mastering the small pieces one at a time that the results would come later. He knew that the flight of the ball would come once he mastered each swing point.
Sterner discovered that this type of practice was actually very soothing. It actually didn’t take very long and it was a great break from the stresses of family and work. Rather than sitting in front of the TV or surfing the web, he could take 15 minutes in his basement, let everything else go, and enjoy being involved in the fine points of the golf swing.
He found that being immersed in the learning process took all his attention and released him from thinking about all the other things that he had to do. He came away from his practice sessions refreshed and ready for his other life activities. Instead of practice being “boring,” he found it absolutely fascinating to really understand and fully engage in the fine points of what he was learning and how it felt inside.
Soon, he realized that not only could he practice present-moment engagement in something like golf, but he could also apply the principles to anything that he was doing. He applied his “practicing mind” to tuning pianos, to relating to world-class pianists and conductors, to parenting his kids, and even to enjoying time with his wife. Relaxed, focused, present-moment engagement soon became a way of life.
As a result, not only his golf game, but also his business, and his family life became more relaxing and enjoyable. However, the most surprising thing was that he not only got more done in less time, but he had more energy and enthusiasm than ever before. Rather than living his life in fits and starts, he could sustain focus and enthusiasm over time to grow what was most important to him.
Sterner summarizes this approach as “focusing on the process and not the end-product.” He calls this developing a “Practicing Mind.” A practicing mind has a conscious learning perspective and is fully engaged in the process. Sterner defines practice as “the deliberate repetition of a process with the intention of reaching a specific goal.” (p. 16, TPM)
The paradox of the practicing mind is that you achieve the goal, the end-product, by staying in the process rather than obsessing about the result that you are trying to achieve.
As Sterner says, “When you focus on the process, the intended product takes care of itself with fluid ease. When you focus on the product of your effort, you immediately begin to fight yourself and experience boredom, restlessness, frustration, and impatience . . . When you focus your mind on the present moment . . . your energy goes into what you are doing. However, when you focus your mind on where you want to end up, you are never where you are and you exhaust your energy with unrelated thoughts instead of putting it into what you are doing.” (p. 17, TPM)
If you find yourself constantly falling short of some idea about where “you should be,” you may be falling into the “end-results trap.”
We get caught in this trap because, on the one hand, most of us have never been taught how to practice effectively. Secondly, our culture reinforces an obsessive, bottom-line, results-oriented approach that leads us into stress and frustration almost before we even get started. With that approach, we not only lose our goal, but we end up being disheartened, disempowered, and exhausted in the process.
Here are a few examples of how a “results-are-all-that-matters” mindset is crippling:
If you want to lose weight and you constantly focus on how you want to look in the end, you may get discouraged with where you are now. If you want to meditate and you focus on an idea of having a quiet mind, you may get frustrated when you find your mind filled with thoughts every time you sit to meditate. In both those cases, you’re efforts may feel hopeless.
If you run a business and all that matters is the bottom-line, you may disregard your workers job satisfaction or the toxic chemicals that you are pumping into the environment. If you focus on winning at all costs, you may miss the experience of the game itself and rob yourself of the joy in the process. Recently I found that I was reading the box scores of sporting teams, but rarely going to watch the actual games, much less having the experience of playing the game myself. With an end-results focus, you may find yourself more interested in browsing information about life than in actually engaging in it yourself.
We could go on and on detailing the effects of an end-results-oriented mindset. In whatever way you fall prey to this mindset, learning to have a “Practicing Mind” is the cure. In this month’s messages, you’ll learn how to master a “practicing mind” in whatever is most important to you. If you apply these insights to whatever you are doing at the moment, I think you’ll find yourself immediately less stressed. And, ironically, you’ll find yourself much more productive and successful. Stay tuned to learn more.
In next Week’s Message, we’ll explore the four S’s of the “Practicing Mind.”
Until next week,
Notice if you are “present” in what you are doing right now,
Kevin