Distractions come in all forms. There are those which one might term ‘environmental’. During the Cricket World Cup of 2003, the Australian team was faced with some potentially very disruptive and distracting events prior to our first match. We had temporarily lost two players, Michael Bevan through injury and Darren Lehmann through suspension, and on the day before the game Shane Warne was forced to leave the team because of a positive drugs test to diuretics he had taken in Australia

In the 1994-95 Sheffield Shield season, my first season as coach with Queensland, we were playing our penultimate game against Tasmania – an outright win would guarantee Queensland a home final. Three other teams Western Australia and Victoria which were playing at the MCG, and South Australia which was playing in Sydney could force us out of the final if any two of the teams gained outright points and we did not secure a point in Hobart. At the end of the first day, West Australia was well on top of Victoria (and as both teams were still a chance to make a final, it was a given that one team would win outright). South Australia had dominated New South Wales with the bat on their first day and were setting up an outright victory. The Queensland story was gloomy with the Tassie Devils bowling us out for a score in the low 200’s and had wiped off about 60 of those runs with all wickets still intact by the time stumps were drawn at Bellrive.

Watching the players troop from the field that day, one could feel the weight of history being carried into a sullen dressing room. The ghosts of the past, of which a number of current members had been part, were haunting their every thought. In my opinion at the time, there was a huge ‘historical distraction’ which needed to be exorcised.

Then there are always the personal gremlins, ‘individual distractions’ that each of us have to deal with daily. As a profile athlete, the doubts, anxieties, questions are always reinforced or magnified by external forces which seek to expose the vulnerabilities of the individual.

Steve Waugh, as I have mentioned in another chapter of my book, was one of the great masters of not allowing any distractions interfere with the immediate task required of him. Tugga’s great skill, and that which I believe belongs to all virtuosos in their chosen professions was his ability to compartmentalize his life. So when it was time for cricket, inside he went. And then once inside the main compartment, he then opened the necessary sub-compartment, time to bat, or time to captain, or time to bowl, or time to relax with teammates. There was no room for mind suffocating distractions. In fact Stephen would sometimes seemingly entertain distractions; however, these were solely used for the purpose of putting him in a fierce confrontation – one where he was under siege; one where he needed all his skill and resolve to beat off ‘Goliath’ type odds. It was from these positions of saving the team, beating the odds, conquering the unlikely that Stephen almost always thrived and played some of his greatest cricket for Australia.

Mental toughness or compartmentalization is an essential state of being for athletes to reach, if they wish to compete successfully over a long period of time. It enables the athlete to ‘play the moment’ while being aware of all that is around them. Everything that surrounds them then do not become distractions, simply a backdrop of information and signals which will be useful to another compartment when the athlete chooses to unlock them.

KEY MESSAGES:

Know what are distractions and what are controllables – then deal only in what you can control.
Find personal and group strategies which will allow the elimination of distractions.
If performance is not up to standard, more often than not, there are distractions interfering with your approach to preparation and ‘game play’.

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