My oldest son asked, “Dad, why do we have practice shirts for baseball?”
I love that he asks these questions because it forces me to put principles into words.
Here’s the reason (and it applies directly to you):
It keeps coming back to one thing, FOCUS. Without focus all of the time, skills and preparation are wasted.
I used to coach my kids’ soccer team. Out of 12 kids on the team, we had at least 5 “not show up” for game day. Oh, they were physically present, but mentally…not so much. And it wasn’t always the same kids. You never knew which version of each kid you were getting. Any kid can be a space cadet on any given day, and guess what? So can you.
Without focus, you don’t accomplish anything. Practices without focus are frustrating, and we don’t learn anything. Games without focus are infuriating.
The practice shirts are there to set a precedent for your mind. When you put on your practice shirt, your baseball pants, your cleats and your hat, your mind starts to think, “Ok we are playing baseball.” And it starts to gear up to play baseball.
Think of a space shuttle before liftoff. The switches are getting flipped. The buttons are getting pushed. The smoke starts pouring out of the rockets. No liftoff yet, just getting ready. Your mind works better with a little prep work. A little direction.
With the practice shirt, you have a small but significant increase in the chances that you’ll be focused at practice. If you’re focused at practice, there is a significant increase in the chances you’ll be focused on game day. And if you’ve been focused at practice and you’re focused on game day, the rest should take care of itself.
My version of practice jersey is how I pack and set out my materials to get work done. My laptop comes out open or closed. I have coffee/drink of some kind. I have my planner out on the table open or closed. I have a pen and a pencil handy.
Setting things up this way sets the tone. These little things get my brain thinking, “Ok it’s time to focus on writing.”
Your brain relies on cues from the outside world to shift into different thinking modes too. The simplest one is sunlight. The light that is bluer (morning sunlight) gets your brain up and moving. The sunlight that is more toward orange makes your brain start to shut down and think it’s time for bed.
That’s one of the reasons in the new Mac operating system the colors will change throughout the day. And why you shouldn’t be on your phone before bed. The blue light will push your buttons and make your brain start waking up.
These external cues play a major role in how we function. Exam day is one more example. Setting your brain up with the right cues might just get you those few extra points. You’d be surprised how “hackable” the system is.
I cover a few other techniques in the March edition of the Physician Assistant Exam Scholars Newsletter. If you aren’t getting the scores you deserve, you may want to pick this one up. We’ll go through how cut through the clutter and the misdirection going on in the test questions, so you have the best chances of getting a score that reflects what you know.
You can get better at taking tests. I can help.
Physician Assistant Exam Scholars Newsletter
Brian