High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 460: Dominate the Controllables

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

As humans, our default is to focus on the uncontrollables. It is much easier to blame, complain, and make excuses than to take a close look in the mirror and examine ourselves and our actions.  In this episode, Cindra talks about the foundation of performance – focusing on what you can control and how to do that.   Power Phrase of the Week: “I dominate the controllables.”  Quote of the Week: John Maxwell said, “Life is 10% of what happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it.” 

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We check in with Cinder Kampoff. And Dr. Kampoff, let's talk a little bit about dominating the controllables, which is something that it's been a while since we've spoken on. You usually start us off with a quote. I love this quote by John Maxwell. He said, life is 10% of what happens to

me, 90% of how I react to it. So how do you want to start today with dominating the controllables? Well, this topic is a really essential part of high performance and just us reaching our potential in general. And so maybe the way to kind of think about it is life can be divided into two areas, things you can control and things you can't control. And there's so many things, Lisa, that we can't control, like change, our competitors, the economy, the weather, technology, even pandemic. Our clients or who we interact with, we can't control other people's thoughts or actions or perceptions. And I listed change as part of that because that's an uncontrolled lie I really see people struggle with in general the most. Yeah, change is hard. Why is it important for us to focus on what we can control? Because when we focus on what we can't,

we tend to experience frustration, blame, fear, anxiety. And when we stay focused on things we can't control, it just negatively impacts our happiness in general. We can't be as creative or innovative. We can't really move forward with our own vision. And it's hard for us, you know, to stay focused on things that give us energy. When we focus on what we can control, however, we're more likely to lead intentionally, to be excited and passionate. We can really fuel

ourselves to overcome obstacles. And today we're going to use the acronym APE or APE to understand what we can control to help us focus on that APE or APE to understand what we can control to help us focus on that. So what's the first thing that we can control? So the A stands for a few things. It stands for our attitude, our actions, and our attention. And I just want people to kind of think about, you know, our attitude. We can actually control that in every single minute of every day. Our attention is also really important because it's like we have to really stand guard to what we pay attention to. And our actions, you know, our attitude

and our attention drives those actions. So A stands for attitude, actions, attention. That's one thing we can control. And what does the P stand for? That stands for our passion and our purpose and our preparation. And our preparation, we know that, we know that high performers really dominate the process and how they prepare. Our passion is really our energy, what lights our fire in our belly.

And then our purpose is what also lights our fire, what makes us unique. And those are things we can control in getting connected to those, our purpose and our passion. Cinder, the last letter is E. What about the E? The E stands for our effort and our energy and our emotions. And those are all controlled by our attention or what we're focused on. That was part of the A. And we know, you know, that high performers just don't go through the motions. They really stay fully engaged and deliberately pursue their best. And our emotions really just give us clues and information on what, you know, what's going to help us.

And our energy is important to think about because we don't just have energy. We generate it sort of like a power plant. And we're, you know And we're similar to that. We generate energy. So these are all things we can control, which is all about us, Lisa, and our mindset. And focusing on us being our best every day is one thing that you can control, which helps you reach your potential. So, Sandra, how do you wrap this up for us? Do you have a final point?

Well, I think our default is to focus on things we can't control. It's much easier to blame and complain and make excuses instead of really focused on what we can control. So, you know, for people who are listening, you want to stay focused more on things they can control. The first step is just to notice where your attention is in a compassionate and a non-judgmental way. And just, you know, notice, is this something I can control or not? And the sooner that we focus on what we can control, it helps us be at our best and then direct your attention to what you can control.

You could even just ask yourself, what can I control right now? And bring your attention to that. Well, what is our power phrase for this week? Pretty simple and easy. I dominate the controllables. Control your controllables. Dominate them.

Cindra, how do we get in touch with you or follow along with whatever it is that you're working on? You can head over to DrCindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. And you can find my book, Beyond Grit, in there or on that website. I have a chapter in the book about controlling the controllables. So we're going to outline all of this, what we talked about today. Thanks so much for checking in with us, Sindra. Thank you, Lisa. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for

high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's Dr. Sindra.com. See you next week.