What is “The Zone”?

Being in “the zone” does not only occur in athletics. We can get in the zone at work, when coaching, teaching, or even at home. The zone is that moment when everything that is happening in the moment becomes clear and all distractions disappear. All worry and fear leave the mind, anything that is not relevant fades out, and only that one thing you are performing exists. High performance lives in the zone.

The zone is all about balance

When an athlete gets overly emotional and begins to lash out you know that he is not in the zone. The zone is not about being emotional. Yes, emotional energy is needed to get in the zone, but that is only when it is in balance with our spiritual, physical, and mental energy. Being extreme is not where the zone is. The zone calms and allows us to focus no matter how crazy the world is around us.

Finding the Zone

I bet most of us have been in the zone at one point or another in our lifetime. Sometimes it happens on accident, meaning that it happens and we don’t know why. To find, or re-find the zone we do not need to make big changes in our performance or our routine. Most of the time the zone is right in front of us, and all that is required to enter it is to make a small tweak or adjustment to our performance.

The Zone can be trained

The zone, like most skills, can be trained. However, this training requires a great deal of repetition and experimentation. The greatest athletes and performers in the world have learned how to harness the zone to their benefit. The zone is trained as we experiment with our natural routines that increase our focus. Such routines could include listening to a particular song, resting in a particular way, even going through a personal meditation exercise. Proficient authors have mastered the zone by training their routine. William Faulkner once said, “I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.” Just as excellence is mundane so is getting in the zone. 

One of the most famous rituals to get in the zone is done by LeBron James. Before each game James will scoop a small amount of chalk, rub his hands in it, and throw the remaining chalk in the air creating a small white cloud.

Maybe you have also seen the movie Gladiator staring Russell Crowe. The main character, played by Crowe, before a battle or fight in the Colosseum he would always take a bit of dirt from the ground, rub his hands, and smell it. This simple routine like James’ started with a practical purpose (drying the hands of any sweat to improve grip), but grew into a specific stimulus that would trigger the brain into a deep focus—into the zone.

No matter what we do, it is important to develop the ability to enter the zone when performance becomes more important than ever. Businessmen enter the zone when about to work with a client or make an important presentation. Athletes enter the zone when about to enter competition. A parent enters the zone to coordinate the insane bustle of preparing a hand full of children in the morning to go to school. A student enters the zone just before starting an exam. We all need those moments of intense focus because the essence of high performance lives in the zone.

The Fearless Mind resource center is a critical mental tool for any individual wanting to improve their performance in athletics, business, or personal achievement. Each subscriber gets over 32 individual mental training videos, access to the Mental Strength Journal, the statistics page, and The Zone, a special area with exclusive video content uploaded weekly all for only $20 a month. Click here to sign up The Fearless Mind also offers personal mental strength coaching. To inquire about getting a Fearless Mind coach to work with you personally click here: http://thefearlessmind.com/personal-coaching/

Is watching TV or surfing the internet bad? Will taking an extra 15 minutes on your lunch break make us unproductive? Is the time we spend not working a waste of time? Not at all. What makes activities of leisure like taking a longer lunch, watching a TV show or scrolling through Facebook dangerous to our mind is worry.

Worry is thinking about the past or the future instead of focusing on the present moment. If we are watching a movie and worrying about what might have happened during the day, or about that project we haven’t finished we are just adding extra anxiety to our life. The same is true if you are taking a lunch break but continue to think about what will happen if you do not finish that project on time. The best way to control the anxiety in life is to be aware and make sure we are participating one of three actions at all moments: doing, learning, or relaxing.

Doing

Doing leads to progress. Thinking about a task does not get it done. We can spend hours contemplating what to put into a report, but nothing happens until we open up our notepad or computer and start writing. Doing requires physical engagement, it is execution. The process of acquiring the mental abilities to do something is through learning.

Learning

There are times that we will be presented with a task that we cannot perform simply because we do not have the knowledge to do so. Learning does not only take the form of reading a manual, or taking a class—it also takes the form of being physically engaged in an activity. In this way it is similar to ‘doing.’ Learning requires of complete mental attention and that is why we need to let our mind rest at times and relax.

Relaxing

I hope I don’t have to explain much about relaxing. Relaxing is a very important process in maintaining high performance over a long period of time. Everyone relaxes differently. The one commonality of relaxing all individuals share is that it acts as a mental recharge. Relaxing helps us be more productive when we are doing or learning. The biggest mistake individuals make when relaxing is letting their mind wander to what they could be doing or learning. They leave the present moment and lose all the benefits relaxing gives us. If you watch TV to relax then focus completely on the TV when you are watching. When you are eating a meal, focus on the meal and how good it tastes instead of thinking about what time you need to get back to working on that big project.

The one common component of all three—doing, learning, and relaxing—is that each requires us to live in the present. If we are truly focused on the moment it is impossible to do, learn, and relax at the same time. Most importantly, it becomes impossible to worry. Almost every activity has its place, the trick is knowing where and when it belongs and not to worry.

The Fearless Mind resource center is a critical mental tool for any individual wanting to improve their performance in athletics, business, or personal achievement. Each subscriber gets over 32 individual mental training videos, access to the Mental Strength Journal, the statistics page, and The Zone, a special area with exclusive video content uploaded weekly all for only $20 a month. Click here to sign up The Fearless Mind also offers personal mental strength coaching. To inquire about getting a Fearless Mind coach to work with you personally click here: http://thefearlessmind.com/personal-coaching/