Speed kills. This is literally true when it comes to driving. The higher the speed, the greater the chances of fatalities. It is also true that working with speed and intensity, without modulating your activity, contributes to a host of physical ailments leading to a variety of health problems and a shortened life.
But often life itself moves fast, and we are challenged to move fast enough to keep up with it. Whether we are a work-all-night CEO or a stay-at-home parent, our days can become filled with the nonstop challenges of business, home, parenting, and relationships: phones ringing, emails flying, reports piling up, meetings and deadlines, children needing to be picked up from school, dinner to make, laundry to do, bills to pay, and so on. When problems arise, we sometimes must make split-second decisions and adjustments.
We are, in fact, not unlike a major league baseball hitter standing at home plate waiting for a ball to be thrown. The pitcher stands just 90 feet away, and we don’t know what he’ll throw: a curveball, a fastball, a pitch high or low. However, we know the ball can reach speeds of ninety miles per hour, and we’ll have less than 1.5 seconds to decide whether and then how to swing.
Our margin for error is razor thin. Consider these numbers:
• Once a 90 mph pitch leaves the pitcher’s hand, the batter must start his swing in .13 second.
• When swinging at a 90 mph pitch, the difference between a hit and no contact is .003 second.
• When swinging at a 90 mph pitch, the difference between a hit up the middle and a foul ball is .001 second.
Decision-making doesn’t get much faster, but surprisingly, some of the most successful baseball players say that as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, it is as though the world slows down. The batter’s experience is that there is plenty of time to decide whether to swing, though the actual time is about a tenth of a second. To achieve this, batters try to feel relaxed, spacious, and at ease, rather than rushed or pressured. Batters need to react almost faster than they can think, and any tension, any distraction, will slow down their reaction time. Of course, baseball pitchers know this and so they vary their pitches in what they hope are unpredictable ways; all they need is to put a split second of doubt in the hitter’s mind.
As in baseball, I’ve noticed that many of the most successful people find ways to slow down their worlds in the midst of what appear to be highly pressured, fast-moving situations. How do they do this? There are three primary practices for slowing down your world: preparation, mindfulness, and focus.
Preparation
When a batter is “on deck” (or next in line to bat), he practices by getting used to the throwing motion and speed of the pitcher. The batter gets accustomed, physically and mentally, to the pitcher’s pace. The batter creates a “laboratory” for experimentation. Every time he bats he pays attention, both while on deck and while batting. Though no experience is exactly the same, the patterns are similar.
As Michelangelo famously stated, his vision when sculpting was to remove the unnecessary marble to expose the statue within. Similarly, our lives are endowed with tremendous unrevealed energy and possibility. Our challenge is to take away the distractions and impediments, allowing us to feel and enter the often invisible or hard-to-find current of our lives. Hitting, and sculpting, then become a lot easier.
Mindfulness
In the midst of challenging situations, pay attention to your breath and body as a way of grounding and settling yourself. Put your attention fully on your activity. As distractions arise, note them and let them go. Pay attention to the speed and pace of your activities, and allow your responses to come quickly and appropriately.
Focus
You can do only one thing at a time. Be aware of where you place your attention. If you become distracted, keep returning to your point of focus. Over time, you can increase your ability to stay with one thing, to concentrate and complete tasks. In some situations you may want to experiment with focusing on not focusing. This is a way of keeping your mind open and relaxed, while holding an intention to find a solution or perhaps to come to the right question.