What is the real target?
Dec 26, 2021What is the real target?
We tend to think about goal setting in this way: I set a great goal, work for it and once I achieve it, I will feel great, I will be happy, I will be complete. My experience and science says that we have it the wrong way. The first work we need to do is to create the inner environment of feeling great, being happy, connected and complete. Then and only then we have a better shot to achieve our desired outcomes. We need to learn how to create our Zone of Genius and practice from there.
And if we think, it is pretty obvious, nature shows us that every day. Every tree depends on the quality and characteristics of the soil to bear the desired fruits. If the soil has a bad inner environment, the tree will most probably not bear the expected fruits.
Mr. Joseph Campbell”s in his book Companion, wrote that once you embark in your Heroe's Journey and come back from it, you realize that the majority of people are not ready to understand or receive what you have learned and experienced. The GIFT you bring back from your journey might end up in the hands of just a few that are willing to listen.
My personal Heroe's Journey was played in the role of an aspiring young tennis professional. When I started to compete, I thought I could just say that I was going to be a top 10 or 20 in the world's ranking. The truth is that I had no plan or strategy to even develop my best self. After bouncing around for a few years from one frustration to the next, I decided that I had to make a change and I asked for help!! A tennis coach, Patricio Cornejo and a psychologist, Enrique Aguayo, came to my rescue and support.
It was in that period that I understood, that the GOAL of the journey was not only one of external achievements but also one of internal transformation. The pain that I experienced for not achieving my external results turned out to be the source of the alchemia that transformed my journey as a tennis player into a beautiful experience. I needed to redefine the “meaning" of high performance for me, which in my opinion is not made only and exclusively of the outer results but also of the quality of your inner experience.
This inner transformation made me develop new PRACTICES around my BREATH, my SENSATIONS, a closer connection with my BODY and a sharper and better directed mental focus.
MASTERY, is the ritual of creating the internal body-mind state to perform at our best to the requirements of the situation. This ritual is a PRACTICE, practice as a NOUN. Something we need to repeat in order to get better at it. Developing a consistent intentional practice of being in the PRESENT moment, is the GOAL and it will increase your chances to achieve your external goal.
Slowly I realized that my sense of "presence" was improving and that I was able to get into my ZONE OF GENIUS with more frequency. Until it became a habitual ritual of connection and I could do it at will. The feeling of joy was a more common one while performing or practicing. From that moment onward I had a clear target of what I wanted to achieve internally when I stepped into the court and the necessary steps and sequence on how to activate the GENIUS mode. We need to focus on the aspects we can control and our inner environment is one of those aspects. When the archer Apollo, God of Philosophy throws an arrow, he focuses on doing the best possible job at preparing but once he let go of the arrow, he can only trust and wait for the outcome to materialize.
This process not only transformed the quality of my inner experience while playing tennis, it also improved my external achievements and it had an important impact in my life as well. I consider this to be my biggest GIFT to the younger players.
The question is:
Being in the ZONE OF GENIUS produces the outcome or is the outcome?
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