Concentration in the Workplace

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset App podcast where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete, brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment applications. Healthy Mindset course Meditation and Goal Setting Technique for the Athlete and workplace athlete. We're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And today I'm going to discuss why concentration in the workplace really matters. And concentration just isn't about working harder or longer or putting in the hours, but it's about being fully present. And we've talked about mindfulness, especially within our 14 day system. We talk a lot about being mindful. Wherever your two feet are is where, where you are being fully present. But really it's really what's in front of you. It's like the task that's in front of you and be fully focused in on it. It's the mental discipline to direct your attention to where it needs to go and not worry about so many other things. Like we somehow want to get distracted within our work, but we really want you to stay focused. We learn as I believe, that the athlete and the workplace athlete, it's the same thing. So in sports we talk about playing in the mom, like being in that moment and the workplace is the same thing. And the rule applies, you perform your best when you're centered, calm and intentional and nice and relaxed. That's why we talk about meditations. We're not going to get into too many things or imagery or visualization and how that's the same. We use it in sports, we use it in the workplace. But just going to go over just a couple of these ideas that that may help you. I really believe that true concentration is a skill that can be developed just like mental toughness. Someone says, well, I'm not mentally tough. Well, mental toughness can be trained. It's the same as concentration and it starts with awareness. So why focus matters more than than ever before? We have so many different distractions in the world. We live in an age where there's always constant alerts, emails, multitasking, so many things going on. And to me multitasking is really a myth. I can't multitask. I can't. If I don't stay focused on something personally, then then I'm in trouble. No matter if it's in the workplace or even in my professional career. So I always made sure that I wasn't able to multitask. And those that say they can multitask, you can't do that. Well, I'm a, I'm a true believer in it. There's been a lot of arguments around that. But I believe every time you switch from one task to your brain burns all this energy. We talk a lot about energy, and it's trying to refocus. So if you're ultra focused on something, you're. You're dialed in and you're ready to go, but all of a sudden you're doing something else, then you lose that focus. And that energy and that mental reset could take up to sometimes 20 minutes to. To refocus. So that's why I'm not so sure about multitasking. Some do it better than others. But high performers know this. They protect their focus the way that athletes protect their body. And that's why we do a lot of the same things within sports. We do a lot of within the workplace. Because if you're really focusing and you're concentrating deeply, you produce a higher quality of work in less time. And also, I truly believe this, you end up making better decisions and reduce stress. Because when you're multitasking, you're adding all this stress to yourself. Think of focus as your internal edge. It separates those who react from those who create. I used to say in sports, like, and I still do, either you act or you react. So if you're acting, you're onto it, you're in. But if you're reacting, in most cases, you're behind the play or a mistake has been made, same thing. Another thing we want to focus on is the, you know, the mindset behind concentration. We talk a lot about mindset, but concentrating on the willpower alone isn't just about your mindset. You know, to me, when, when you're just focusing on, you know, so many different things, I call it a scattered mind. Somebody once called it monkey mind, and I use that too. It's like you have to do too much a focus mind says, I'm doing one thing and I'm going to do it really well. And I had that problem even with my business. At one time, I was in a business where I was selling many assessments, and we had like 74 assessments, and it was really hard for me to focus. One day we're talking to companies about leadership and mindset around leadership, mindset around workplace mindset for athletes. And we had so many different assessments that's why I narrowed it just to a few now and it's really helped me and I not afraid to share my mistakes because we learn, we learn from mistakes, we learn through stories. So just really being aware of your thoughts, catching distractions early. So if you get distracted, try to redirect the attention to something that's purposeful and meaningful. It has to do a lot about managing emotions. We talked about that. Like sometimes we get stressed, we get frustrated, we have anxiety and we compete for focus. Wait a second, I want to be focused on this and all of a sudden something happens and then you get stressed. To me, this is how we bring stress on ourselves. This is how we end up setting ourselves back. So this is something that I really believe in. When you practice emotional control, you reclaim your ability to concentrate. Remember, your attention follows your energy. I've always talked about energy and recovering energy. To me it's everything. Like energy to me is everything. When you expend your energy, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're scattered and guess what happens? Your focus will go right with it. So we always, we use mindset tools is what we want to use practical tools to improve your concentrations. And I'm going to give you just a few strategies along the way that may help you in sharpening your focus every day, even taking one of these and trying to see if it helps you. But start your day with clarity. Spend five minutes a day writing down your top three priorities. And I don't mean 20 or a whole list of 30. To me that brings stress on. I've tried that. I've tried to write down about 10 things I'm going to do and you start getting the stress and you start saying, wait a second, I'm expending too much energy. So just spend five minutes a day, write it down, not in your phone, the three top priorities that you want to get done. Within our healthy mindset, you know, 14 day system we use, we talk about time blocks. Focus on, you know, focus for 25 to 50 minutes, then take a short break or rest. So time blocking is really important. I found it very effective. It's helped me at one time when I was, let's say I was studying for this, I studied what is called axiology as the axiom of value and studying the mathematical mathematics behind the assessments of values and how the algorithm works. But to not get too, too far off track. It was like, oh my gosh, I didn't take a break and I only retained a little bit about what I read. It wasn't until I started taking those little breaks that I started feeling better. So one thing I've tried to do and I have, I'm, I'm at fault with this, I'll be the first to tell you, is eliminate digital clutter. Especially at the end of the day. I catch myself and I teach people don't be on the phone, but we're a creature of habit. So sometimes I'm on my phone scrolling through social media, doing things and I know it's not good for me and I have to catch myself. I have to silence that notifications. I have to put it away. I have to say, okay, I'm shutting this tab down right now. I'm going to keep my phone out of reach. But I only answer it in case I have a family member calling or my kids are calling. You know, I have, you know, my better half is calling if she calls me. But for the most part put it away. It can go to voicemail. You could always check your voicemail. A friend who actually was introducing me to a bunch of businesses, he's a great friend and he called me at 9:30 the other night and I was and I promised myself I'm not going to answer the phone, I'm going to let it go to voicemail. I'm one that's a creature of habit. I'm up every day at 4am and I try to be sleeping by 9:30, 10, but I just happen to look at the phone and he left a message and I called back the next day. Things will wait. I mean some things obviously can't wait and that's your business. But for the most part try to be very mindful of that. I think it would help you. And that leads me to practicing mindfulness. It's helped me out so much within even in my business, even one minute of slow breathing between meetings could bring your attention back to center. Just the littlest things like that. Somebody asked me how do you reset at work? Well, we could work on breath work. We're not going to go through that here. We have a lot of those within our podcast for free. We have a lot of meditations. You can look those up. Even going into a meeting, we have going pre meeting meditation just to work on your breath a little bit box breathing. And the other thing I do, I just was with a friend, we were having a coffee and I said, you know what, you have a pretty good life. Reflect daily. Ask yourself what helped you focus today? You know, I ask is there anything to help you focus today? Well, I'm not sure. We'll think about it. And then when you put your thought to it, then you, what happens? You start to refocus. And sometimes you can say, well, what distracted me today? What was that? That got in my way. And I just went through that a couple days ago. I was deep into my work, putting something together, studying this assessment that I was reading for one of my, my clients and ready to put them through, through our system. And I, I got distracted from something I shouldn't have gotten distracted about. Doesn't have to have to get into it here. And I had to catch myself. So be aware, be in the moment. That leads to better improvements. We always talk about habits. One thing we use is a mind map. So if you ever worked with me, we use. I love mind maps. And you could look that up. We've done a lot on mind maps with that podcast. On mind maps, you can go back and listen to a mind map. We talk about a plan, habits and goals. But small habits really build, like to me, mental stamina that, you know, the same way athletes build their physical stamina. It's super important. So I focus on little habits. You could write that down. We could talk about mind maps a different time. You can message me, send me an email through our website and I could share. I can give you our mind map that we use and it's actually in the book as well. Mind maps to me are good because it just keeps you really organized and focused and then we list our habits there. But we also have to put action behind that. So for us, like looking at the ripple effect of focus. So when you train your concentration, everything else improves because you're ultra focused. Your communication, you're more creative. Even relationships at work, when you're, when you're concentrating, when your mind is scattered and you're all over the place and you're gonna find yourself setting yourself back, you become more reliable and less reactive and more confident under pressure. When you're, when you're feeling like this, you stop chasing tasks and you start leading with the purpose in the workplace. I'm going to talk about, I want to close out here. And one thing I want to focus on is just so you know, and I'm going to put this, I'm going to try to make a little bit of clarity around this. But concentration is more than a skill. It's a choice that you make. You choose to focus more. You're going to choose to concentrate each day to be better. You choose to be fully present. It's always easy to get distracted and look at that shiny object, or no matter what it could be, but stay focused. When you master your focus, you will master your results, and I promise you. I hope you enjoyed the show. Any question, please feel free to reach out and have a fabulous day.

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast with your host, Mike Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program, or to get in touch with Mike, please Visit our website, healthymindsetapp.com thanks again for listening and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.