{"id":61783,"date":"2022-03-06T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=61783"},"modified":"2022-03-14T13:40:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:40:30","slug":"achieve-peak-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/achieve-peak-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Achieve a State of Peak Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How do athletes achieve peak performance states? What are the two ingredients required to reach your peak performance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Joshua Waitzkin, the key to performing at your peak is to refine your skills until they flow seamlessly, intuitively, and effortlessly. Once you\u2019ve reached such technical automaticity, you’ll be able to access enhanced perception as your brain will be able to process more information with less effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn about the two ingredients for enhanced perception, according to Josh Waitzkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The 2 Ingredients for Enhanced Perception<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When you’ve refined your skill to automaticity, you’ve grown so sensitive to the minutiae of the techniques that time seems to slow down. Punches seem to come in slow motion, because you\u2019re intimately aware of every subtle movement\u2014the shift of weight that telegraphs it, the opponent\u2019s breath in to prepare, the shifting forward of his shoulder, and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you consistently “slow down time” and achieve peak performance states on demand? There are two ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingredient #1: Relaxed, Focused Presence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first ingredient<\/strong> is a relaxed, focused presence that allows the unconscious mind<\/a> to navigate your network of techniques and deploy them without conscious thought<\/strong>. Waitzkin argues that performing from instinct requires balancing conscious presence with unconscious, intuitive action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re building your network of chunks, you\u2019ll eventually reach a point where the layers of principles and patterns become too complex to consciously navigate. For example, think of spoken language. There are simply too many things to consciously consider\u2014word choice, grammatical patterns, tone of voice, meaning and subtext\u2014and everything changes depending on the context (you\u2019ll speak differently to your grandma than to your friends, or to strangers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Waitzkin says, you have to rely on your unconscious<\/em> mind to make sense of the information, and to effectively act. With language again, we\u2019d struggle if we had to consciously consider every principle that governed every sentence we spoke. But we don\u2019t\u2014we all speak from deeply instilled linguistic intuition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: While much of the information about the complex, contextual relationships between the elements of a skill is implicit, Nora Bateson of the International Bateson Institute has attempted to name the conundrum with her concept of warm data<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Warm data refers to that messy, ever-changing information that depends on context. In chess, any position involves layers upon layers of context-specific information: how the pieces could and should move given the opponent\u2019s pieces; which principles may apply, and which may not; and how the situation could evolve from its present form. Bateson\u2019s mission is to figure out how to generate and study this fuzzy, intangible data.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To navigate by intuition in high-pressure situations, Waitzkin says you need to relax your conscious mind<\/strong> and allow the mental chatter to recede. This state allows your conscious and unconscious minds to work in tandem. He describes it as follows: <\/p>\n\n\n\n