Gillingham FC apprentices attended a Personal Development session yesterday based on the importance of focus and how to counteract possible distractions.
The session covered:
- Exploring the characteristic skill of ‘focus’ in-depth and how it impacts performance both within and outside the game.
- Identifying potential distractions that could impact focus.
- Practical tools that can help deal with potential distractions and improve focus… i.e. triggers, routines, visualisation, reminders and effective goal setting.
- Accountability and being responsible your for own actions.
After the session, LFE’s Regional Officer for the south, Tom Palmer, caught up with a couple of the apprentices to get their thoughts on how the session will help them remove distractions going forward…
Toby Smith said: “We learnt about focus and how we can eliminate distractions, on and off the pitch. For example, having an issue in the game or the fans in the stand, just trying to eliminate that and play our game.
“If I make a mistake as a goalkeeper, nine times out of 10 it will lead to a goal. So if it does, I will have a sip of my water, unstrap my gloves and then strap them back on. That’s my way of removing that mistake from my body and then starting again.”
Damilola Taiwo-Pratt added: “First I need to identify what distractions are involved when I’m actually focusing. So the process I would use would be… say for example in a match, if I know what the distraction might be, I need to separate myself from that.”
