5 Practices to Get From Noise to Focus

How Listening with Love Can Transform your Performance

This is part 2 of the fall series, Come ALIVE and Stay ALIVE: 5 Simple Practices (Activate, Listen, Internalize, Visualize, & Execute) to help you start strong and stay focused for life. Subscribe now to receive these free principles delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.

Photo by Jacob Rice on Unsplash

Last week, we activated by learning to practice appreciation. Hopefully, you’re still activated. If not, go reread last week’s post in preparation for today. The next step in our growth process to Come ALIVE is Listening with the intention of love.

Listening with love can make a difference in how you receive your opportunity. If you can’t love yourself, you’ll hear all the negativity and lies about yourself, and there won’t be anything anyone can say to convince you that you can do what you’re more than capable of accomplishing.

I’ve coached many athletes across the spectrum of sports (football, basketball, track, golf, cross country) who’ve talked themselves out of competing and giving all-out effort before the opportunity even presented itself. I tried desperately to act as their personal sports psychologist and give them affirmations, breathing exercises, and mental tools to help them overcome the moment. But I was fighting an undefeatable opponent—themselves. Without the capacity to reach inside, learn how to love themselves, and then extend that love to others, we were both losing an un-winnable battle.

Most of us do a great job of listening to the Chatter¹ in our minds, but we fail to listen to the right voice—the voice empowered by love. Before you assume I’m talking about the mushy, ethereal stuff when mentioning love, I’m not. I’m referring to the stern and relentless commitment to sacrifice your excuses for your mission.

What is it that you’ve set out to do? What are the desires of your heart? Where do you want to finish? If the Chatter you’re listening to fuels your fear, you’re listening to the voices that hold you back from your mission. The naysayers² and built-in excuses will always hold you back and deactivate all the activation practices you put in place if you give all your attention to them.

So, the key to listening—whether to your coaches, mentors, teachers, or bosses—is to key in on love. If a coach gives directions or explains techniques, listen because you love yourself and your teammates enough to focus on understanding how to be the best athlete you can be. Listen because you love what you do. Listen because you love your life and are grateful for the opportunity to make the most of it.

How to Listen with Love

1. Close your eyes. You may be an auditory learner, and listening with your eyes could distract you from how you process information from your coach.

2. Make eye contact. If you’re like me, you’re more of a visual learner. But we still need to listen. When we allow our eyes to wander while instructed, we find other things about our environment to learn from that distract us. We’re not purposely trying to tune out information; we’ve subconsciously deactivated our focus. This is why Activation is a necessary first step to Come ALIVE.

3. Listen to your heart. Listen to your heartbeat. Your heartbeat is a gift of life that keeps giving over and over again. A rapid heartbeat isn’t a sign that you’re overly nervous or unprepared. It means the opposite. It means your engine is warmed and ready to execute. So, listen with gratitude. Listen to your heartbeat during warmups or moments right before your big event. It can be a great way to stay activated and focus on the competition.

4. Listen to your coaches/mentors/leaders. What are they having you to focus on? This can be good for getting out of our heads for a moment and thinking about the bigger picture. What commands or advice are they giving or gave you for the moment? Verbalize them. Maybe you can be the leader leading your team with verbal positivity.

5. Re-verbalize commands. Again, audibly speaking to yourself—talking through what you’re about to do—can be all the assurance you need to center yourself in the moment and stay activated. “Get out fast. Pick your knees up. Be aggressive. Refocus. Reload.” You’ve heard all the quixotic cliches, but they can Come ALIVE if you start to verbalize them to yourself.

Bonus Practice: Re-read this post to yourself again sometime this week, but read it aloud so you can hear yourself. It’s self-love practice and great preparation for next week’s ALIVE principle: Internalizing your Intention.

Listen to this song:

1. I highly recommend reading Chatter by Ethan Kross for a fuller context of the voice in our heads and how we can calm it.

2. We’re usually the number one naysayer, our own worst enemy