Much of mindfulness involves being aware of your surroundings and experiencing the present moment.  It helps us accept everything that comes into our consciousness, regardless of what it might be. This is consistent with the first two steps of the AAA model—Acknowledgement and Acceptance.  But while awareness and acceptance are vital first steps to improving your mindfulness, they alone are not enough to optimize your performance. We have to redirect to the task at hand.

Consider the golfer in our earlier example.  Being aware of her anxiety and accepting that her heart is racing may bring our golfer some relief, but it will not bring her any closer to sinking her putt.  Instead, it will diminish her distractedness for long enough to refocus on the task at hand.

It’s the refocusing on the task, the final step of the AAA model—Acknowledge, Accept, And Refocus—that allows us to use mindfulness to springboard past our distractions, and improve areas of our performance that might otherwise be difficult to execute under pressure, on demand, or when fatigued.  Keep practicing mindfulness, grounding yourself in the present moment, and developing a healthy separation between yourself and your experiences, and its benefits to your performances and overall well-being will follow in kind.

Keep going.