What Does Focus on the Process Mean? 10 Coaching Practices to Try

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What Does Focus on the Process Mean, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Practices that may help

1. Use a process goal as an in-performance attention anchor
   Convert your most important process goal into a single attention cue that runs during the performance.
   Process vs. Outcome Goals in Sport and Performance
2. Focusing and the Felt Sense, Made Practical
   Focusing, developed by philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin, is a structured inner-listening practice that attends to the "felt sense" — a bodily, pre-verbal knowing about a situation. Small clinical studies and therapist-outcome research suggest people who can access the felt sense make more therapeutic progress, though large controlled trials are lacking. The self-inquiry skills Focusing teaches are low-risk and widely applicable.
3. Direct attention to the effect of the movement, not the movement itself
   Attend to where the ball goes or where force lands — not to how your arm or leg moves.
   External Focus of Attention, Made Practical
4. Use more distal external focus for greater performance benefits
   Focus further from the body (on the target, not the implement) for the largest attention benefit.
   External Focus of Attention, Made Practical
5. External Focus of Attention, Made Practical
   External focus of attention — directing attention to the intended effect of a movement (where the ball goes, where force is applied) rather than to body mechanics — consistently outperforms internal focus for both skill learning and execution. Gabriele Wulf’s OPTIMAL theory proposes two mechanisms: external focus activates automatic motor control processes, and it enhances competence need satisfaction. Effect sizes in controlled experiments are moderate to large.
6. Make process goals behaviorally specific enough to direct attention
   A vague process goal ("try harder") is not a process goal — it must specify what to do with your body and attention.
   Process Goals, Made Practical
7. Switch to process-only focus when competition pressure peaks
   When the outcome feels most at stake, deliberately redirect attention to the one next process action.
   Process Goals, Made Practical
8. Process Goals, Made Practical
   Process goals focus on the specific behaviors and techniques under the performer’s direct control (how you execute) rather than on outcomes (whether you win). Sport psychology research consistently finds that process goals maintain attention on controllable actions, reduce anxiety, and improve performance consistency — especially under pressure — while pure outcome goals can undermine both.
9. Keep an attention capture list during hyperfocus
   Write down every impulse, distraction, and off-topic idea that arises during a session rather than acting on or suppressing it.
   Hyperfocus: Directing Intense Attention to What Matters Most
10. Debrief against process goals, not just the outcome
    After performance, evaluate whether you executed your process goals before evaluating the result.
    Process vs. Outcome Goals in Sport and Performance

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• In the middle of performing my mind is so crowded→
• When it counts, I’m in my head about my own body→
• I’ve stopped obsessing over my body, but I’m still fixed on the club or the racket in my hands→
• I keep telling myself things like "try harder" and "stay focused," and then in the moment those words give me nothing to actually grab onto→
• It’s match point, the moment it matters most, and that’s exactly when my head floods with "don’t blow this"→

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