Training your mind for distractions

Jared Tendler is back with advice on how to stop the onslaught of distraction the modern world imposes on us while we are at the tables.

Modern tech has produced an onslaught of information from such a constant and varied range of sources that it can directly impact your performance, even when you are not actively engaged with it.

Consuming a random assortment of content on top of your personal and professional responsibilities, relationships, and interests, trains your mind to constantly seek out novelty – and this can lead to being more easily distracted when playing poker.

Have you found your inability to focus becoming a bigger problem? Does realizing this now make you uncomfortable and make you want to look for something else to read, do, or focus on?

I purposefully asked you to consider this as a test to see if you’re willing to keep reading. If you’re not, focus is either not a problem or you’re not ready to face the truth of your distractibility.

I realize that some distractions are unavoidable. You can easily get thrown by the flu, car trouble, a family crisis, you name it. Shit does, inevitably, happen. That’s not what has driven me to write this blog. I’m concerned about the increasing daily battle to preserve mental clarity and willpower for that which you care about most.

Technology has forced our hand

Trying to fend off the barrage of attention-grabbing stuff can wear you down mentally and make you more susceptible to emotional volatility. Mental energy fuels self-awareness, recognition, emotional control, and our ability to correct our emotional reactions. Dealing with distractions can directly lead to underperformance in poker when you arrive with less than ideal energy.

Plus, thinking can be more cloudy, fuzzy, and erratic. You’ll have more random and irrelevant thoughts. Your decision-making process can lack the usual depth and might. You’re also less likely to get into the zone and if you do reach the zone, you’re more likely to get pulled out prematurely.

In short, you’re either training your mind to be more easily distracted or you’re training your mind to have deeper focus. Technology has forced our hand – you must choose. There’s no in-between.

I hate to be a downer. I really try to be more positive and focus on opportunity. But I’m worried. Not just for all of you, but for the next generation – I have a daughter who’s clamouring for a phone and it scares me. I’ve found myself talking to more and more clients about the idea of dopamine addiction. So perhaps the better I can help you, the more confidence it’ll give me that I can help her to avoid some difficulty in this area.

Performance distractions

Everything I’ve mentioned so far addresses the general problems we can have with focus, but what about once you start playing poker?

As a poker player, you can generally cut off more of these external streams of data, but when you’re card dead or bored by the game, the allure of something more interesting can drive you to social media, or to play marginal hands looking for action. You can only go so long without anything exciting – it’s like watching everyone else have fun at an amusement park while you sit on the bench. There’s only so much of it you can take.

The reality is that a certain degree of distractibility is acceptable over the course of a poker session/tournament. There are usually natural waves of focus where it ebbs and peaks. The question is, how much do you open your mind up to extraneous distractions?

You already know what optimal focus looks like and that doesn’t include attending to things that are irrelevant to what you’re doing.

Start small

For those of you who are trying to level up your performance, there’s an opportunity to do some cross-training. Build some strength in both your personal life, and in your respective area of performance, and there will be an additive effect where progress can accelerate faster than if you’re only working in one area.

Try these steps:

• Start by finding a couple of instances where distractibility is a more notable problem in performance and in your daily life. Write down why these situations are harder to sustain focus and be clear on the importance to improve.
• At the start of every day, and when you start playing poker, remind yourself of the situations where you typically struggle and the reason why improving is so important. Don’t just go through the motions. Bring some urgency to your preparation, in the same way that you would if there was immediate danger. You’re going to be tested and taking just a minute or two to prepare can significantly increase your odds of success.
• When you recognize your mind is looking for a distraction, or already consumed by one, remind yourself of the reason why you want to improve and how your goals depend on your focus. The momentum from your previous habits is strong and to push against that is going to require some force. The motivation behind your goals is what is going to give you strength.
• You might fail – that’s OK. Keep at it. Like building a muscle it may take some time and repeated effort to build enough strength to hold your attention where it needs to be.
• Or, if you make some quick progress, don’t assume your focus has been quickly fixed. You’ll be tested again and again, and you need to prove that you’re strong enough every time. Do this enough and you’ll prove you have the command and control to tackle the next distraction.

Learn how to be bored

Sometimes your distractions aren’t really distractions. You simply don’t know how to properly use your time. That might mean learning how to be bored.

Think of boredom not as a problem in itself, but rather allowing your mind to rest so you have more energy for the things you truly care about. For instance, the next time you’re standing in line at the grocery store, don’t reach for your phone. Let your mind chill out for a little bit.

Lastly, remember, you’re not a superhero. You can’t be on top of everything, everywhere, all the time. And when you try, you lose focus, which hurts your ability to reach the goals you have a reasonable expectation of achieving.

Now go be bored. It’s ok. It might help you consider my words more deeply and finally take action on a problem that’s been steadily worsening.

How do you deal with distractions? Let us know in the comments: