Last weekend, I went bowling with my family. I’ll tell all of you right now that none of my family members, including me, are bowling masters.
Not even close.
Bowling for us consists of getting to throw the ball straight, and hope to God it doesn’t go to the gutter. You can probably guess where most of our balls ended up going. But that’s not going to stop us from having fun!
And so we played. I hoped I got a score above a hundred. I thought to myself I’d be fine with that.
And after all the throws and frames, let’s just say I was really surprised.
By the way, I’m the one with the letter B.
I can’t remember the last time I bowled, and believe me, I was really happy with this result! I think I didn’t even break a hundred last time I bowled, and that was quite some time ago. Years, even. And here I was bowling ten frames, each frame with two throws to knock down 10 pins, for a maximum of 21 throws (because the last frame has a bonus throw, if you get to knock down the first ten pins)
In the middle of the game, there were several things that I realized about the way I was bowling that day, and how I was able to not only achieve, but exceed my goal of getting a score of at least a hundred.
I figured I bowled well that day. I figured I executed well, and got the result I wanted, but how did I get there?
Set The Goal. It was at least a hundred pins in a game. This can be the answer to the question “What do you want to achieve?” or “What do want as a result?” Set a purpose and focus for the actions that you plan to take, and to serve as a framework and filter for your decisions.
Find Out How. In order to reach the goal, what are the specific action steps you need to take to achieve the result you want. In bowling, it’s to throw the ball down that lane and get the most pins with each throw, or pick up pins left over after your first throw every frame. If it’s a seminar, what are the components and preparations needed to prepare and create a sold-out, bestselling seminar? Or even if it’s starting a business. What’s the first actionable step you can take to starting your own business? How do you know you have a winning idea on your hands? Put in the work, do your research, plan and execute the action steps.
Visualize Success. When I stood on the lane, ball in hand, before every time I let that ball loose, I visualized myself walking down the lane, releasing the ball, the ball going where I want to go, and all the pins flying about in a gajillion directions! I visualized the sequence about two or three times, breathing in and out deeply. Then I bowled.
More often than not, the ball did follow the path, and the result that I visualized.
Visualization is a very powerful tool. Now, I’m not an athlete, and I know I’m not that good at controlling my body, (I can’t dance to save my life!) but I somehow trust my body to get it together to get the result that I wanted. Now it wasn’t perfect every time, but it was definitely better than my previous games where I just said I’ll throw the ball straight and hope to the stars above I get a strike!
Visualization also helps you feed yourself the image and the belief that you are capable of doing and getting the result that you set out to do. Sort of a mental rehearsal, where you see yourself as confident and capable, and see yourself taking the action steps, and getting the result you want.
Believe in Yourself and Your Abilities. Now along with the visualization, comes the fact that it’s me who was bowling, and I had to trust myself, my body, my arm, to get the result that I wanted. This wouldn’t happen if I constantly fidgeted about and questioned how I was going to throw, or kept telling myself that I wasn’t sure how to do it, or that this wasn’t the right way.
Part of the belief comes from preparation and confidence. You’ve got to prepare well given the constraints you are given, and you’ve got to have confidence in yourself to execute what you have prepared. I just prepared the best I can in the moment that I had, and just rolled with it. For this bowling game, it was the few practice throws to figure out how I was throwing that day, and the visualization.
Focus On The Moment. Not on the future. In the moment that I walked, bowled, set the ball loose, I made it a point to focus as much as possible on the moment. Focus on doing what I visualized, and just focus on that one throw. Don’t try to think of anything else. Just do it and get it done.
Yes there were many things that could go wrong with that sequential motion of walk, swing arm, release ball. (bowlers out there, any better way to say that motion?) But in focusing on the moment, I focused on the things that I can control that went right. Where I was standing, I was looking at the spot where I wanted my ball to go, swing the ball, and let go towards the spot.
I realized that to get to at least a hundred pins, I needed to get as many pins as possible with every throw. So to get to my goal, I had to focus on making the most of every throw.
Just like the excellent execution needed for success, with a focus on each action of the many small actions needed to get to the big result.
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