Page 6 - Mindfulness

If you were to ask Usain Bolt what can be achieved in ten seconds, he will tell you “a lot!”
Can we get into this mindful state when we only have a short time to move us from feelings of anxiety to be in the moment? For certain we can. Ten seconds is still a long time.
Over the last eight years, during our XVenture programs, we have many times taken hundreds of people, including two WBBL women’s teams, Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder and the first team at Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, the Socceroos and the Joeys on a simple mindfulness challenge. Encouraging people to notice a short period of time, varying this between 90 seconds and 3 minutes. After the challenge, many people comment how long what a short time appears to be. From there a natural progression moves to smaller time scales giving tips to those that are interested on how to be mindful in a much shorter time.
In fact, when he’s winning his 100 metre races, he is totally relaxed, focused, not distracted, and fully in the moment. “Worrying gets you nowhere. If you turn up worrying about how you’re going to perform, you’ve already lost. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself.” (Usain Bolt) Bolt is a master of preparation and of managing the pressure of a 100 metres Olympic final. In fact, he has said that he finds the 200 metres final more nerve racking.
I have never run a 100 metres final, nor have I faced a penalty kick or planned to save a penalty in front of a huge football crowd or faced a cricket ball at 150 km/hour and the need to score a six on the last ball! However, I have had moments where I could at the time have done with some techniques to help. The biggest performance of my life included playing to thousands of people in a band supporting The Rolling Stones in Hong Kong.