I wrote this with my eyes closed

I am writing this with my eyes closed. Why you might ask? I mean I hope you are asking that question. At least I hope you want to know why I’m writing this with my eyes closed. So, yeah, I’m going to go back and look for major typos before it sees your eyes. That’s just to make it easier for you to read and get the point. So, I’m breaking my own rules that I’m about to get into here. But I’m writing this with my eyes closed because I don’t want to be thinking about what I’m writing, or rather, I don’t want to be overthinking what I’m writing. The point of this exercise for me is to not let my mind or brain to get in the way of my creative juices.

I was thinking about how I explain flow and how it works in sports or how to look at it from a coaching perspective, and it dawned on me that I’ve been practicing getting inflow with these writing exercises this whole time, which mind you, is not a lot of time. I just picked up this exercise where you just write for 15 minutes non stop and don’t let your mind get in the way no matter what words or thoughts come out. Scary stuff if I’m going to be publishing this for all the internet to see! Who knows what’s in my brain?! So what’s my point in talking about this at all. Ok, I just backspaced there while writing too because my brain got in the way and thought it had written the wrong word for the sentence, again with a breakdown of my owns rules, but, back to the point at hand for this post.

I am writing with my eyes closed because I’m good enough at typing already and thinking of cool ways to explain concepts that overthinking something just makes my writing and ideas not get to the paper. They never get to see the light of day because my brain is too busy trying to think of the “right” way to say it. But, notice the important point here. I AM ALREADY GOOD ENOUGH AT TPYING ;) AND WRITING!!! I know what I’m doing. That took a lot of practice. A lot of awkward...holy shit that word with your eyes closed is hard to type out! Did I do it right? I don’t know because I’m typing with my eyes closed. Maybe autocorrect will get it for me...Where was I? Ohh yea, I’m already good enough! If I had never typed on a keyboard before, this exercise would be way harder because I would need to be thinking through the process of the task itself instead of the (hopefully) cool ideas that are in my brain that I’m trying to get onto paper here. If I needed to consciously think about where the letters were within the words I was trying to type, not only would it be too slow for my brain to get into a flow of writing, it would be more cumbersome and frustrating to get ideas down because there would be so much mental distraction. But in an ideal world, like with my eyes closed, I’m not thinking about the mechanics of writing itself. That part just happens somehow, because I’ve practiced so much. This way, I get to think about the ideas and how I want to say it instead of the mechanics of the physical task.

So, what the hell does this have to do with coaching? Well, really this typing and writing exercise is about flow. It’s about shutting off your thinking brain once you are good enough to let your instincts take over and just let your body do it’s thing and think through the hard stuff, like what your opponent might do next, or how you want to attack your opponent on offense. Something like that. Ugh what a terrible sentence that was, but hey, I’m just writing here, no judgement. Ok, that was a little bit of judgement, but I’m back at the flow now, head shaking side to side as a I type because it’s like making music on piano once you’re good enough to play without thinking. This must be what it’s like to be able to improvise while playing an instrument. You open yourself up to create a lot more.

So, how many of us are still coaching or playing by thinking our way through ideas of problems to be solved? How many of us stop ourselves or the people we coach because we are thinking through the mechanics of a task, rather than trying to shut off the thinking part of the brain? Listen, there are a lot of young people out there that don’t have enough practice yet and need to think through the mechanics of a skull at the beginning. That first part of learning is necessary. I didn’t all of sudden become able to type with my eyes closed. I still needed the deliberate practice part. But, again, I’m good enough now. Could I be better? Definitely. But I’m not trying to become better at typing write now. I’m trying to become better at writing, at getting cool concepts and words down on a page. And, guess what? Because I’m good enough to do that, this writing exercise is ALSO giving me practice with the typing part, so I AM BECOMING BETTER!

What was my point here? To show off that I could type 800 words in 15 minutes (actually, it was 1084 today)? I bet there are plenty of people who can type way faster and more accurattley (just gonna leave that one there). But, part of my point was that I was way more productive in WRITING and getting an idea into the world by taking my mind out of it. I did not outline this post, I didn't think through it. I just thought it. I have enough expertise in the general idea (flow) and enough skill with the typing part that I could just let myself get into the flow of the post, without my brain, at this point, screwing it up.

In the last 15 seconds of my clock, I’ll end on a question, which is maybe thinking through it too much, but what can you do better, or more fluidly, with your “eyes closed?” What does “closing your eyes” allow you to do? Part of that answer is getting rid of the judge in your brain. It’s letting your mind observe what it’s thinking instead of judging what it’s putting out into the world.