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Distractions affect
performance
Marc’s frustration was
understandable. He’d been trying
to get support for a project
since long before our coaching
began. In fact, he’d asked for
the coaching to learn
influencing skills, hoping that
would help him generate traction
for the project.
The truth was he’d actually
moved the ball quite far down
the field already: two people
had been assigned to the project
and a cross-functional team had
begun to lay the foundation for
the work that would come. But he
wasn’t across the goal line yet
and he was getting impatient
attending endless meetings to
drum up support. What worried
him wasn’t just that he was
feeling impatient, but that he
was acting impatiently in those
meetings. Worrying about his
impatience had become a
distraction.
Jessica’s story was quite
different from Marc’s but her
frustration was essentially the
same. Entering her fourth month
of looking for work, she was
tired and beaten down. She
didn’t want to go to another
breakfast with a colleague or
attend another networking
meeting. In spite of feeling
that all her efforts were
hopeless, she knew she couldn’t
afford to get off the job search
treadmill. Like Marc, she
worried she wasn’t concealing
her frustration very well any
more, and that worry had become
a distraction.
A story about taming
distractions
Marc and Jessica’s struggles
were very similar. They were
both being distracted by strong
feelings—in this case,
frustration. I could empathize.
I’d had the same struggle and so
I told them both the same story.
Here it is.
After years and years of acting
in Hollywood, I had come to see
my job not as going to a sound
stage to perform in front of a
camera, but rather as going to a
small office to audition for a
group of producers. Flub the
audition and there would be no
job. And, as I had come to find
out, there were lots of ways to
flub an audition. After careful
examination, I began to see that
every way of flubbing an
audition essentially came down
to the same thing: being
distracted.
So I developed an image to help
myself stay focused.
I imagined I was standing at the
edge of a big pond, pitching
pebbles into the center. The
goal was to throw enough pebbles
at the exact same spot so that,
over time, they would pile up
under the water and, finally,
one of them would break the
surface. Pebbles that sank were
auditions that didn’t result in
a job—but they laid the
foundation for the ones that
did.
Of course I never knew which
pebble would break the surface,
so each pebble needed all my
accumulated skills and complete
focus because—who knew?—maybe
this would be the one.
This image of calm and focus was
sorely tested the day I found
myself alone in a cavernous
lobby waiting to audition in
front of network executives for
a role on a television pilot.
Although I didn’t have the job
yet, I’d had to sign a
seven-year contract that would
pay me more per week than I had
made in some years! Visions of
Malibu and People magazine
danced in my head, totally
removing me from the actual
event. Then, with a snap, I came
back to reality. I banished
those sparkling distractions and
put myself mentally back at the
edge of my pond, attentively
picking up the stone at hand.
Focus on the big picture, not
the distraction
It’s hard to stop thinking about
what might happen in the future,
which was Jessica’s struggle—and
mine in that lobby. And it’s
hard to stop thinking about all
the frustrations that have gone
before, which was Marc’s
struggle. But, in fact, those
distractions—any
distractions—reduce your
capacity to be your best.
Distractions actually make it
more likely that you won’t get
what you want.
Even though I landed that role
in the pilot (which never
aired), it was hard for Marc and
Jessica to hear the lesson in my
story. They’re both high
achievers who feel accomplished
when they achieve results;
attending to the process didn’t
feel like success to them.
Chances are, in these difficult
times, as everyone’s stakes are
escalating, you may be
experiencing distractions of
your own. And they may be
affecting your performance. If
so, that can’t be good for you.
Take the time to find an image
that will get you out of the
moment and keep you connected to
the bigger purpose. For example,
when Marc could remember how
important his project was to
him, he found he could tolerate
the small annoyances in all
those meetings. Finding an image
that keeps you focused on the
big picture will increase your
odds of achieving The Look & Sound of Leadership™.
Read related Tips:
Eliminating Distractions
Choosing Persistence
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