Shifting Laziness to Spur Motivation

I’ve been reading about people’s ability to focus on their single most important task.

I finished Jobs by Walter Issacson.

Jobs had a powerful ability to eliminate the noise and focus on his most important task.

I've also been reading Quanta Magazine.  It’s heavy into computer science, math, physics and biology.  

(A lot of the articles are over my head...)

Quanta had an article about Alan Turing.  Turing was an influential engineer (among other things) back in the World War II era. 

He was responsible for the way we communicate.

Shannon figured out the foundation for all this more than 70 years ago. How did he do it?

By focusing relentlessly on the essential feature of a problem while ignoring all other aspects.

The simplicity of his model of communication is a good illustration of this style. He also knew to focus on what is possible, rather than what is immediately practical.

(There’s an Amazon Prime documentary about him called The Imitation Game.)

. . .

This IDEA of Focusing on One Thing got me thinking about Lacrosse...

More specifically, how it can be applied to become a better player.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the many buckets involved in becoming a well-rounded player.  

So focusing on one thing to get some momentum has some merit.

And for lacrosse, I would focus on your stick skills.

A dramatic increase in your stick skills will provide the most value.

I’m convinced you'll see a massive benefit in your game if you time-block six to seven stick skill sessions each week.

Here are your hurdles...

Avoiding procrastination is very challenging.

Putting stuff off until tomorrow is very easy… (Remember what Coach Starsia says about STARTING TODAY!)

Focusing on only your stick skills is easy, and the friction to find a wall with your stick and a ball is minimal.

Hopefully you can keep some momentum and look back after 3 weeks to see that you got 18-21 sessions.

If so, you’ll start to observe other benefits...

The first will be to use your current momentum to do more.

Now you can start tackling the other buckets to becoming a better lacrosse player.

You can start weight training.

You can schedule more conditioning.

You can work on other lacrosse related skills.

The entire experience will be very rewarding.

You’ll discover the powers of focus and concentration on a single task.

Cal Newport will be proud!

Keep me posted and good luck!