What’s Getting In Your Way? How To Turn Distraction Into Action - PHH 104

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Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Ann Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want me may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world, and I know what most harpists are never taught the secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about. Showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. What always happens is.

That statement is one that I ask each harpist who enrolls in our certified coaching program to complete. Some harpists have no idea how to complete the statement, and I tell them that if they needed to answer it, they would know how. The harpists who need to complete that sentence know it when they read it. These are the harpists who know that they have an issue with distraction. It's not a black mark against them. Of course, distraction is an issue for all of us, but sometimes distraction becomes a roadblock instead of just a minor speed bump. For instance, it's one thing to be distracted by a phone call from a friend when you were about to start practicing. It's very different if you miss several days of practice each week because of phone calls. If those phone calls always happen, you have a distraction problem. Naturally, phone calls aren't the only kind of distraction problem. And today I want to get crystal clear about several common and pretty sneaky forms of distraction. Why are they sneaky? Because they masquerade as important and valid requests for our time and focus. And occasionally they are valid and important, possibly even urgent. But your harp playing is important too, and you need to have tools to help you stay on track when you need to. We'll talk about the symptoms and alternative solutions for the three forms of distraction I encounter most the Shiny Object Syndrome, the Friend and Family Fixer, and the Perfect Procrastinator. Now, the solutions to these will give you the freedom and the power to choose your response to a potential distraction. When you have a way to easily Weigh your options in any given moment, like do I go out for ice cream or practice the conditioning exercises. You give yourself permission to choose what is right for you at that moment. By the way, I'm voting for the ice cream almost every time. I think you're going to find this episode has some very helpful tips and ideas for you, whether you're suffering from chronic distraction or maybe it's just an issue from time to time. And as I said before, it's an issue for all of us at one point or another, and it's important to have ideas for dealing with it. And right now I'd like to offer you an opportunity to eliminate distraction in a pretty fun and powerful way. We still have some openings for our retreat retreat in Tennessee in August, and if you have been procrastinating about making a decision about the retreat, or maybe you just have questions, I'd like to invite you to join me on a call this Wednesday, May 17th at noon Eastern time for a live Q and A retreat roundup. I'll be making this call to help the people who have signed up for our retreat already know a little bit more about what's gonna be happening at the retreat and you are welcome to join us whether you have signed up for the retreat yet or not. You are welcome to join us and find out a little bit more about what we'll be doing at this retreat. I certainly hope to fill up the few remaining spots that we have for the retreat because it's a fun time and it certainly is a time to be able to work on your harp. You distraction free. So that's one of the best things about a Heart Mastery retreat. And I can promise you we're going to be in a beautiful setting, a nice small group, lots and lots of time for focused work on your own. And of course with me, my certified coach who will be joining me, we'll be doing workshops and all kinds of stuff. So lots of stuff is happening and if you want to find out more about it, join me on our Retreat Roundup call this Wednesday, May 17th. You will find the link to join the call in our Hub, our free online community. And if you're not a member of the Hub, this is a great time to sign up. It's totally free and fun. We also have a challenge going in there this month which is kind of kind of fun too. So please join me for that call and I will look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, but I don't want to get distracted talking about the retreat when we have more Serious things to talk about, like the power of distraction. And I want to start with a story about the power of choice. The story I want to relate in an extremely abbreviated version is the story of the wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Richard Ragnel. Now, you may know your Arthurian legends, you may know the poem that this relates to. And so I'm just going to give you sort of a brief, the very briefest version of this story that I can. It's a tale from the Middle Ages. One version of it appears in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, but it's a 15th century English poem in its most common, common form. And briefly, it tells the story of King Arthur, who's been threatened by an evil knight. Sir Gromer Sommer, who challenges him, says, king Arthur, I'm going to cut off your head unless you can answer this question. And the question is, what do women really want? So King Arthur manages to get a delay of a year. He says, well, can you wait while I go figure this out? And so he sends all his knights on a search, and particularly Sir Gawain, who is known for his chivalry. So he goes around, Sir Gawain does everything. Finally, he comes across this hideous hag in the forest whose name is Dame Ragnel. Now, how he gets there is the subject of a lot of the poem, but however, we're cutting to the chase here. So Sir Gawain meets Dame Ragnall, who is totally hideous, and she says, I'll give you the secret. And he says, terrific. I need to save King Arthur's life. And Dame Ragnall says, well, the only catch here is that if I give you the, you know, I'm going to give you the secret. But for me to give you the secret, you have to marry me. Now, Dame Ragnall is so hideous that Sir Gawain really almost thinks this isn't worth it. Of course, Sir Gawain, being a chivalrous knight and loyal to King Arthur, promises that he will marry Dame Ragnel. And she says, fine, I will give you the answer you need as soon as we are married. So there's no time to waste. The year is almost up and Sir Gromer Sommer is threatening King Arthur again. So they go back to court and Sir Gawain holds his nose, probably literally, because she's no beauty, this Dame Ragnel, and he marries her. Then they get back to the. To the bridal chamber, and all of a sudden, Dame Ragnel turns into this beautiful, beautiful princess. Sir Gawain says, well, you know, what's the deal? Why should this be? And Dame Ragnell says, well, here's the thing. I'm under a curse, and I can look like my normal self, my beautiful self, half a day, and the other half a day, I have to look like the ugly Dame Ragnell. So I can look beautiful in the day when everybody else sees me and then ugly when you see me at night, or I can be beautiful at night for you and ugly during the day for everybody else. And she says, you get to choose.

And so he's, you know, trying to decide, and he's torn. And so finally he says, I think you need to choose. And this answer totally lifts the curse. And Dame Ragnell, the now beautiful Dame Ragnell, says, this is what women want. They want the power to choose. That's kind of a fun story, and I really have always enjoyed it. But our point today is that when it comes to distraction, you have the power to choose. And that's something you need to remember. And you get to choose whatever you want to choose. You have the choice. You. But you have to understand the consequences of your choice, both good and bad. And that's what we're talking about today. How to use distraction to help you when you need it, or how to resist it and take action in the other direction when it would serve you better that way. So that's the basis for our discussion. So let me talk first about what I identify as the big three kinds of distraction. The first type of distraction is one that's probably the most common, certainly to just about all of us. And it's, you know, often called the shiny object syndrome. Right. It's the kind of thing where, oh, well, I. I was going to do this, but you know what? I heard this great piece on YouTube. I heard this. Terrific. Or I just bought this new music, or somebody sent me a new piece of music. New music is such a tempt, isn't it? There's so much music in the world, and it's all wonderful. And we, you know, we all have. At least, I know I do piles of music that's just waiting for me to get to it at some point because I really want to play it. And it sounded wonderful when I heard it, and I got it, and it's just sitting there. And that's a big distraction, certainly. But there are other things like this that can distract you, too. It could be an interest in a new kind of music, whether it's therapeutic music or.

A certain kind of folk music, or maybe a different kind of harp. You Know, like, oh, I'd like to try the double strung. You know, something like that. Right? Something that's new and different. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things except when we use them to sabotage our plans. So Shiny object syndrome would be the first type of distraction. The second one is the one I call the friend and family fixer. This is more difficult because this is a kind of distraction that is very difficult for us to control. When somebody else needs us, they need us. Sometimes it's, you know, not. It doesn't feel like a real need to us at the time. Like, you know, oh, the. You know, somebody calls up and says, you know, would you bake a cake next Thursday for the whatever event? And it's like, oh, yeah, well, why did I take that call? Because I was in the middle of something, and now I have to get back to what I was trying to do. And remember that distraction costs energy, right? So, you know, all of a sudden you have something else to think about. So that's, you know, it's a hard kind of a distraction, but we'll talk about how to get around it. When you're caring for elderly parents and you need to answer that phone call because you don't know what it might be, or when you've got young children that you're responsible for and you want to be sure that you don't miss a call from their school or they come knocking on the door, that, you know, that they've had an accident or they've hurt themselves or something. You want to be available for that. You need to be available for that. But it still qualifies as a distraction, just one that perhaps has more urgency and importance than just a piece of new music.

And then there's the third type of distraction, the perfect procrastinator. Now, this is procrastination that is sort of part and parcel of distraction. It's hard to decide whether you know which one is masquerading as the other, but they go together. The telltale indicator of the perfect procrastinator might be this particular sentence. Oh, I'll just do this first. Like, I'll just dust the top of the piano or dust the harp, or I'll just put my music in order. But that just doing this one thing starts to become a bigger thing and actually eats into the time that you've allotted for your practice so that it actually helps you, if you want to look at it that way, procrastinate about your practice or perhaps just about a particular piece or a particular thing that you need to practice. So be very careful. It's easy to fall into that perfect procrastinator trap. So those are the three forms of distraction that we're talking about today. The shiny object syndrome, the friend and family fixer, and the perfect procrastinator. The thing is that none of those things are bad in themselves, right? It's nice to do new music. It's important to help the people who need you. And sometimes that one thing that you need to do first really does need to be done.

But when does it become distraction? When does it stop becoming helpful? Well, one of the things that is interesting to notice that might help give you just an idea that spurs some energy for you here is that the word distraction is dis and traction. When we think about traction, that's what we want from our practice. We want our practice to give us traction, to move forward, to make progress, to get something done. That's traction. And when we fall into these traps that I was just talking about, that is distraction. So that not only are we not moving forward, but we could potentially be sliding backward. One scary statistic is that according to a University of California Irvine study, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task. So think about that. If you let yourself be distracted, it's going to take you an additional 23 plus minutes to get back on board, to get your mind refocused and in that zone where you do your best work. So a two minute distraction could cost you 25 minutes of practice time, of quality practice time. So it's really worth thinking about distraction and recognizing it for the time thief that it is, for the energy thief that it is, and learning how to take action against it. So there are three categories identified of distraction. Well, I think there are three categories of action that you can take too. The first one of those, I think is subtraction, where we just take the distraction away. Simple enough to think about. You know, you can think about it with a, you know, with a cat or a dog, right? When they're, when they're playing with something you don't want them to play with, you simply take it away and they do something else. So it's a little bit harder to do for ourselves. But we'll talk about how that might happen for each one of the three types of distraction. But I'm sure you're coming up with ways right now that you could use subtraction.

Another category of action to help you conquer distraction would be redirection. We want you to put your energy into a plan, put it into something else so that the distraction doesn't take your energy. You're not looking at that shiny new object, perhaps, and feeling its magnetic pull, but you're going to re. You're going to reverse the polarity here and you're going to put your energy into something that is part of your plan. Now, maybe the shiny object should become part of your plan, but then it needs to be a decision. But if that's not the direction you want to go, then you need to redirect. And the third category of action is resolution. This has to do with commitment, your commitment to yourself or to somebody else. If your playing involves other people and you need to think about the distraction in terms of how it may affect the energy and time that you can bring to your. Your real purpose, your purpose for your practice today, your purpose in general, or just your commitment to yourself regarding your heart playing. So we're going to look now at each of those three distraction categories and look at some of the solutions that would employ subtraction or, or redirection or resolution as a tactic for eliminating the distraction. I think the choices are clearest when it comes to shiny object syndrome. For one thing, we all seem to understand that the idea here is that we probably shouldn't distract ourselves with all those new things. But there are some really good tactics you can use to give yourself the treat of playing new music, but yet still keep keeping with your practice purpose for the day. So, first of all, why don't you decide that even if you're not going to play new music today, you are going to have a new music day. Put it on your calendar, and then everything that tempts you during the week until your new music day, put it in a file, put it in a special pile, put it in a tray, put it in a drawer, but put everything in there. And then once a week on your new music day, play through the pile and let that be your treat for the practice you've done during the week. It's also very good for you. It's great sight reading practice, and it's nice to sort of have a break from the things you've been practicing. So that's a great way to sort of strategize your desire to play new music. An alternative to that would be to just make a list. You could keep it on, you know, on your phone or on a piece of paper. You could just make a list of all the pieces that you hear on YouTube or. And just adore it's like, oh, I want to take a look at that piece someday. So when it comes to finding that music, don't use your practice time to Google it and research it. Just make your list. And when it comes to your new music day or another time, that's not your practice, then start researching all those things. You know, save the title of the piece. Maybe even if you're doing a digital list, save the link to the piece on YouTube and make a note of what you love about it. This is also a really good plan for. If you. If you're trying to develop a repertoire and you're thinking, gosh, I need some kind of piece that would just fit this particular requirement, then you already have. Oh, yeah, here's a recording I heard of this piece that I loved and I wrote next to it. Oh, yeah, this would be terrific. Like, oh, this would be a great prelude piece for church in the summer. Okay, good, Put that in there. Or this would be great for Christmas. Or I want to remember this for that luncheon that I like to play. So, you know, put that next to it, and it can help you sort through that music and keep your shiny object syndrome a little bit in check. Even more importantly, I think that a shiny object syndrome moment can be completely.

Tamed if you have a plan, a practice plan, and you stick to it. You know, stick to that practice plan. And then if you have extra time later, of course, you can explore and experiment. And this is sort of the. The, you know, the best of all possible worlds, I think, because it reminds you what your practice is really for. But you have to have a plan. And if you have that plan ahead of time, it's much easier to resist. The shiny object syndrome. All right, so what if you're the friend and family fixer? What can you do about that? Remember, we decided that this is the hardest kind of distraction to control because it's about the needs of others. But there are a couple things you can do. Could you delay the distraction? I mean, can you buy yourself 15 minutes? You know that that phone call comes in and you take it and you think, ah, I shouldn't have answered the phone. Can you quickly say, you know what? I'd love to talk about this, but I was in the middle of something. Can I call you back in 15 minutes? In half an hour? And that will give you enough time to get back into what you were doing or at least somewhat. It may not be your best focus. We talked about the time it takes to refocus your attention and really get Back in that good work zone. If you can't delay that distraction, then go ahead and deal with it. But realize that it's going to take you that much more time to refocus. So perhaps in doing that, you're going to need to instantly sort of rethink your schedule. And this is something, if it's not an urgent need, if it is something that you can delay, then see if you can put that off to later in the day when you know you're going to have time to deal with it. And you can make the distraction from your practice as short as possible. You can also take some steps to create boundaries. You know, sometimes you can put a sign on the door. Little kids love this, especially grandkids, right? You know, it's a little sign on the door saying, you know, grandma's. Grandma's working at her harp right now. You know.

Don'T. You know, don't knock on the door or whatever you want to put. You can make it humorous and fun. Little kids love that. Now, of course, you can't do this if you're watching the little kids, but then your practice wouldn't be quality practice at that point anyway, right? So. But sometimes being able to put a sign on the door, even a sign in front of the room if you don't have a door, because little kids love that and they can be taught to respect that. Adults actually are a little bit harder. But you might put a little checklist on that sign by the door. You know, is the house on fire? Then, you know, let me know. Call, call 911 first. Maybe. Is someone bleeding? My mother used to have a rule. I think she just got tired of handing out band aids. So she told us that we were, you know, we deserved a band aid if we were bleeding down to our ankles, which was one thing if you had a cut knee. It was another thing if you had a cut elbow, right? But, you know, is. Is the house on fire? Is someone bleeding? Do I need to call 9? Those are reasons to interrupt. But there are some others, like, he won't let me watch my TV show. Or, you know, the printer isn't working. Something like that. So you could create those boundaries for when an interruption would be important for you. So that's, as I said, this is the hardest kind of distraction to control. But with a little bit of strategizing, you can perhaps minimize the distractions that come into you this way.

You know, it's. It's tough, but do what you can. On the other hand, distraction, that's really Procrastination. This is one that's a little bit harder to fight, and it's so important to fight. So let's talk about this. First of all, I want you to remember that your practice is your promise to yourself. You have made a commitment to yourself. And I would love it if you considered honoring your promise to yourself the same as you would for someone else. Consider what your priorities really are. What is the traction that you're looking for that distraction will destroy? Perhaps, right? Or perhaps you're avoiding something. Do you, you know, has your practice not been going well and so you really don't think you want to keep practicing? Or what is it about the distraction that's in front of you that feels more important than practice? But as critical as those questions might be, they can actually continue the distraction. So if you're having trouble fighting this kind of procrastination or just, you know, getting to your practice, here are a couple things you can do. The easy one, I think is to if you're distracted because you know that shelf is a mess, or there's dust on the piano or their plants need watering. Okay, Say I will allow myself to get distracted by this. I choose to be distracted by this. But set a timer for your distraction. Do you need 5 minutes, 10 minutes? What do you need? Because when that timer goes off, you're back at the harp and you're ready to go.

So limit your distraction. You can set your own boundary. Right? Perfect. Yes. Another tip. If that distraction is threatening you, like, oh, I have to remember to water those plants. Before you water the plants, distract yourself from watering the plants and do your hardest work at the harp first. Do your hard work your freshest. It's very absorbing and it may distract you from the distraction. In general. If you start your practice with too many short things and you do that first, it can SAP your energy as well as your time. If you're fighting distraction, do something that's really going to absorb you and get you into your practice as your first thing. And then allow yourself the distraction if you need to. If this sort of self distraction is chronically a problem for you, I recommend trying the Pomodoro method. If you haven't tried that before, the Pomodoro method, which was something coming, something devised by an Italian scientist. It's named for a tomato Pomodoro because he had a timer that looked like a tomato. And the idea is that you're going to choose a single task to focus on, a single thing to practice. I'm going to Practice this piece or this passage or this technique, whatever it is that you're going to focus on. Set your timer for a short period of time. I think the original Pomodoro method was 25 minutes. Maybe 25 minutes is too long for you. Maybe you just want to do 15 minutes. But whatever that is, set your timer for it. Work just on that one thing. Now the timer is helpful here because it's creating a sense of urgency. It's kind of redirecting your attention, it's bringing it to this short period of time that you're only going to do that one thing. And when the timer goes off, then take a short break. If you've done sort of a 15 minute work segment, take a 5 minute break and do something else. You could decide that you want your break to be playing through a new piece for five minutes, or it could be, you know, dusting the top of the piano or whatever it is. But put that timer on for five minutes and limit your break. Then come back and set your Timer for another 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 25 if you have that kind of time and energy. Right? But set your timer for that short period of time, focus on a different task, and then take a break. Those short bursts, like little sprints of practice with breaks, can be very helpful to distraction. That feels more like procrastination because you're going to be, you're going to, it's going to be easier to approach that small chunk of practice time than it is to think about, oh, I've got to sit there and practice for an hour. So the Pomodoro method is, really works wonders for some people. And if this sounds like it might work for you, do give it a try. It can be pretty powerful. As we wrap up our discussion of distraction, there are a couple points that I want to reinforce. One is that distraction is a choice and your choice is legitimate. You're allowed to choose to be distracted if that's what you need at the moment. What's important is that you don't let the distraction keep you from making the progress that you want. Remember, our job is so much of the time to turn distraction to traction through action. You like how those words are. We're turning distraction to traction through action because distraction is going to keep you from all those things. Now there are times that distraction serves us, that we need just a little break. We need to do something different, we need to do something differently. So there are things that, you know, there are times to let yourself be distracted. Just don't Let distraction be the accidental means of keeping you from making the progress that you want. And don't forget to do the easy things right, like turn your cell phone off so that you can't hear it, you can't see it. Don't let that be a distraction. Or ditto for the computer. If you're using your iPad, perhaps to read your music, be sure it's on airplane mode so that you don't have those notifications coming through. We have so many claims on our attention and finding that focus, finding the time to be be focused and to center on our playing is really important. Okay? So be very aware of those little ways in which you are distracting yourself and then make those plans to to resolve the distractions that happen to you so that what always happens is progress. That's what we're looking for. Okay, let me remind you again about the retreat roundup that is happening this Wednesday, May 17th at noon Eastern time. And I'll be talking to the people who have already signed up for the retreat about what's going to be happening at the retreat. But you, even if you haven't signed up, are welcome to join us, hear a little bit more about it. And of course we do have some spots open and I would love for you to join us at the retreat if perfect opportunity to get rid of some of that distraction and focus on your playing Next week on the podcast we're talking about communities, Harp communities. And not just the Harp Mastery Harp community, but the larger communities in the world that you can be a part of and why you should, what you can expect from them, what the benefits are, and all with the idea that you might find the perfect place where you belong. Doesn't that sound great? So Harp Community is on the podcast next week. In the meantime, remember, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.