The more focused you can be during the crucial operating hours, the more and greater results you shall receive. How do some people manage to get so much done in so little amount of time? The key to success is to be in a hyper focused mode enough to get the job done and that’s it. Wouldn’t be cool if you could learn how to shut down all the surrounding world, people, noises, images, well, everything out of your mind and just focus on the task in hand. That feeling is like being able to fly above everything in a second and be in your very own world. This I’m calling a Hyper Focused mode. I learned that remarkable skill back in teenager when thanks to one smart teacher I was pushed to see the school psychologist. My problem was being completely frozen during the math exams like some unfortunate characters and basically all the buildings in the movie called The Day After Tomorrow. I consider that moment when I first time stepped into that psychologist office, the single most important moment in entire comprehensive school after learning to read and write. From that day started my never ending journey to discover secret powers of mind. This was in 1989.
Hyper Focus Example
Jump few years forward, in 1996 I was competing for the very last time in Powerlifting. It was a national championship games. Powerlifting competitions usually last a few hours depending on the hour many lifters there are in a specific class. In my part those championship games lasted around about three hours or so. During the entire competition including warm up I stayed in the hyper focus mode all the other times excluding one minute after each warmup set and one minute after each competition lift. All the other times I was staying in my world with one target in between the left and a right ear, lift! The real deal power of hyper focus mode had its change to have its very own show after first deadlift. Those of who don’t know, in powerlifting competition there are three form of lift, Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift. After two months of brutal diet (started to be too heavy for the -75 Kg class) and last week’s terrible stomach problems which really dried me up and dropped my weight a bit too low, I was like Tom Hanks in Castaway but with muscles. The first Deadlift attempt stopped just before my knees, and I dropped the bar to the floor. Failure came over me and through me like a damn cargo train. Wham! For the next minute the world around me was extremely dark and it seemed spinning. After that dark minute, I forced myself to calm down by breathing tactical breathing (every frogman’s favorite). After calming myself down, I analyzed the failed lift, what the hell went wrong? The problem was I was too hasty to lift the dam thing up. I screwed up the important 10 % of the lift, well, you could actually say that’s 90 %. Going the right way to the starting position. When you are doing maximum level job whether it is lifting the freaking iron bar or cracking the code of million dollar or multimillion dollar deal, you better get every single thing right. No room for screw ups! Let’s turn back to the powerlifting show for a little moment, shall we? After analyzing and discovering the error, I went through the next lift multiple times from the point of getting up from the chair. Every movement, even steps to the stage first to get magnesium powder to my hands to the bar and all the moments of the lift. That meant visualizing also the breathing pattern. Then finally it was my turn to step to the stage again. Two lifters prior I was already in such a hyper mode than nobody or nothing would disturb me, not God, not little devils or angles in the shoulder. Just one action in the mind. “You lift the bar and keep moving the damn thing until you are in the ending position and the judge signals that you can escort the bar down. My turn came. Every movement went like I had visualized, no extra bullshit. Walk to the magnesium powder plate, powder to the hands (the snow would have been jealous!). Extreme intensity and walk to the front of bar. Setting up the legs to their right positions, fingers took their hard grip from the bar, the whole body to the position to take all the possible air and the last inhales while going to the lifting position. Without even thinking the brains were shouting quietly but loud like a William Wallace character played by Mel Gibson in the movie called Braveheart. HOLD! HOLD! Then…NOW! Slowly but firmly lifting the heavy bar up and holding it for an extra second after judge’s signal to be sure that it’s a full three green lights for the lift, escorting the bar down. Then yelling from the top of the lungs to for the success and greet the audience. Afterwards…euphoria. The last deadlift failed, and had no power left enough. That second attempt was my very last competition lift ever. Nice memory and example of what hyper focus and help you to do.
Ways To Discover the Power of Hyper Focus
All these techniques below have been used by me personally thousands of times since 1990. That was the year I first times discovered hyper focus mode ,thanks to practicing.
Tactical Breathing
Simply, inhale through your nostrils and exhale through your mouth. When inhaling, your lower abs should fill up first, then upper abs and then the lungs, exhale goes rolling the same way but of course backwards compared to inhale. Tactical breathing imports fast and powerful oxygen into your body. Calms you and helps you to keep your mind right. Click the link to see how it goes.
Visualization
After calming your breathing, you start visualizing the issue in hand or just run the exercise. It’s good to break down the action into small parts, just like I described above. Practice makes master. If you practice on a daily basis, you can experience amazing results being able to focus just after few months. The longer you exercise the better you become. You can use visualization for everything. You can benefit greatly from regular visualization practice in your professional career. I guarantee you will get such a results you most likely didn’t imagine you could reach, all thanks to being able to hyper focus.
These two simple yet, great forms of exercising your mind and body are the most important tools to you to discover hyper focus mode. There are few others which you can use but I consider them as additional tools.
Music
Adding music into your cadre of tools to achieve hyper focus mode is one cool way. This is pretty much a personal thing. Nobody can say what works for you. You need to test and try. The only thing I will give you to guide you is this. Music can help you to reach the mental state that you are feeling you can do anything and nothing can stop you. For some it can be some song from the good old Aussie band, ACDC and for some it can be some song by Scooter. You should try to find out which works for you and most likely the best song changes.
Cold Therapy
Regular and by regular, I mean at least six times per week at least once a day cold therapy session. The best forms are ice swimming during the winter months (if a suitable and safe spot for ice swimming is reachable for you). Cold paths are great, if you fill up the bath or water tank with nice mount of ice , it’s awesome. The third option is to use a cold shower. After one month of practicing cold therapy on a daily basis, you will start to be on a level that results are good in a health wise and on a focus wise. There are some simple but important safety measures and techniques you had better follow not to play with your health and life. Cold water is an extreme environment, which always must be treated with absolute respect. Fool hardy acts are…well, just dump ass thing to do. You have only one life.
Regular Physical Exercising
Regular physical exercising helps you to discover the hyper focus mode. Again, you better think which things you like. I recommend trying out some new things if you already haven’t tried them. There are no one and only options in the category of physical exercising. Here’s some examples.
- Running
- Walking
- Indoor climbing and outdoor rock climbing (there are sub “cultures” inside these things such as bouldering)
- Cycling
- Swimming
- Ice swimming 🙂
- Skiing
- Roller skating
- Powerlifting
- Martial Arts (numerous options such as ju-jitsu, karate, taekwondo, kendo, kick boxing, krav maga…)
Fun Fact
Regular and long enough sleeping is vital for your health and life. It also helps you to gain hyper focus mode. If you are over tired, your focus is on the class of “Jack Shit”. So, sleep. Zzzz.
Sex. Yeah, having some “good old” sex can help you too. You may have heard goofy stories how many European Football (soccer) teams have been trying to force their national team players not to have sex during the World Cup. That’s a lot of shit I’m saying. More relaxed players are better than over tensed top athletes. As an argument I’d say, not having a sex can just screw up the focus badly. Those players are pretty young folks. Their hormones are running pretty wildly and chaining that is just dump ass thing. Ok, enough about sex.
Last words
Hyper focus is the state where you should get yourself regularly in order to achieve greater goals, faster and more smooth way. There are different ways to gain hyper focus mode. Happy hunting.