Choke by Sian Beilock
Good Morning, God!
I don’t think I’ll read this book, God, but I really enjoyed the article about Sian Beilock’s research in Discover Magazine.
Choke isn’t about failing to do our best — Choke is about falling into the abyss of suboptimal performance. A lot of her research shows that one cause of choking is having the Mind interfere with tasks that belong to the Body. Another point the article makes is that when we are doing a cognitively demanding job — like responding to on-the-spot questions — then if we add “worrying about screwing up,” we run out of brainpower.
That point really rang true for me, God. When I took tests, I tried hard to stay IN the test. If I let my mind step out to observe how I was doing, my performance DROPPED. It’s like we can only have ONE focus point.
But what I like BEST in the article, God, is the idea of writing out our worries. “The idea is that you cognitively outsource your worries to the page. Writing about worries for 10 minutes right before taking a standardized test is really beneficial.”
WOW! I LOVE that idea, God! I love the idea that I can clean up my mind by writing stuff down — OUTSOURCING IT TO THE PAGE! I journal, God. But, I haven’t ever considered the possibility of engaging in constructive worrying. That sounds like and oxymoron. But now I can see that it would be like vacuuming up my worries and depositing them on a page. Then, I would give the PAGE to YOU! Burning it?
Maybe the real value is that I would be LISTENING to MYSELF. Giving myself that Basic Respect?
Story teller,
A Moment with God 
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