How to Perform Better in Whatever You Do by Shachar pan

Stress suffocates creativity and paralyzes productivity. My husband struggles with remembering what he reads. Understanding how he thinks, I realize his biggest impediment is divided attention. He thinks more about his inadequacy than about the text in front of him. As I often tell him: “What doesn’t get in won’t get stored.” I reassure him that he doesn’t have a memory problem; he has a focus problem.

I’ll blunder more in mt chess games if part of my attention is on the effect on my rating if I win or lose. I don’t play competitive chess; I simply enjoy the learning and improvement process.

I have many interests that I cycle through. I lack the confidence and inclination to focus on excelling in any one of them to the exclusion of the others. I don’t expect to perform beyond adequacy in most of them.

I don’t want to tie my identity to excellence in any one thing. My identity is tied to my Carmelite vocation and my Catholic spirituality. My activities are driven by my level of interest, not by feelings of guilt or obligation. I’m retired and not interested in any “hustles”.

My goal for chess is just to engage regularly with specific activities such as playing, doing puzzles and watching chess videos. My goal for Latin is to understand the Latin prayers I’ve memorized, to translate other prayers from English to Latin, and to read Church documents in their original language. Notice the lack of a time frame. I’m completely process-oriented and detached from the timing of the results