When you're trying to improve your basketball shot, where should you turn your focus? On your elbow position? Your shoulder alignment? Your knee bend? Or should you ignore your body and focus on the rim instead?
According to research, it's actually better to focus externally – on the target rather than your technique.
When you focus internally on body mechanics, your movements become tense and constricted. You create additional unnecessary micro-adjustments as your conscious mind tries to micromanage what your body already knows how to do. You're forcing your working memory to override your procedural memory. Like trying to consciously control your breathing while you sleep.
But when you focus externally on the basket, your movement becomes more fluid and automatic. You're trusting the muscle memory you've built through prior repetition. You're getting out of your own way.
This works the same everywhere.
The pianist who focuses attention finger positions plays more stiffly than the one who focuses on the music they want to make. The politician who obsesses over their posture and gestures comes across as rigid and robotic compared to the one who focuses on connecting with their audience. The writer who monitors every sentence for perfection produces stilted prose compared to the one who focuses on the story they want to tell.
Expertise comes from competence more than conscious control. The master chef doesn't consciously monitor every seasoning decision while cooking. They just know. They've developed mouthfeel.
They've moved beyond the need for internal monitoring because they've trained their bodies and minds to respond automatically to external cues. The chef can tell from the smell, the taste, the bubbles in the water exactly what to do next and how to fix a problem.
But when we're learning or when we're nervous, instinct to retreat inward. We become hyperaware of our technique, posture, and breathing. We try to control every variable, thinking this will improve our performance. Instead, it usually makes us worse.
Peak performance paradoxically requires both preparation and nothingness. Practice the fundamentals obsessively until you can forget about them entirely. Build muscle memory.
