Blog 1: Faith, Fire, Focus. The delightful and instructive Alan Fine, in You Already Know How to be Great, talks of removing the interferences that get between our faith, our fire, our focus and our performance:

“… much of the interference that affects our performance is internal. A good deal of it comes from our response to external interference. It’s reflected in the stories we tell ourselves, the way we approach situations in watch-our mode, the way we worry about the past or the future or think of all of the things we should be doing instead of focusing on the present.”

To be able to challenge the process effectively, to search for opportunities to innovate, or to experiment and take risks, what better mindset than to be as free as possible of both internal and external interferences? As Timothy Gallwey, Inner Game creator and author, says:

“Focus is what distracts us from whatever is distracting us.”

Personal example of an interference: I have set myself a goal of becoming a more skilled golfer and for those of you who share this goal, you will know how challenging it can be to have to clear a water or sand hazard. For me, it turns out that my major interference has been my lack of faith in my own ability to accomplish the task. My head would fill with images of what not to do … and guess what, that’s exactly what would happen. I have since taught myself to focus on the landing zone and to picture the sequence of getting there. Thank you, Alan!