Go with the flow
Focus, decision-making, mindset, learning — even your physical skills — are all part of “the mental game,” and when you put it all together in the right way, you’ll feel as though you’re in the zone, or in flow.
Being “in flow,” or “in the zone,” is that state when you’re absolutely absorbed in the activity, everything feels almost effortless, you’re confident (without realizing you’re confident), you’re focused, time seems to slow down, and nothing else matters other than what you’re doing.
The highest levels of high-performance driving are done in the zone.
Learning to Improve
Learning theory tells us there are four stages to mastering an activity:
Unconscious Incompetence (you don’t know what you don’t know);
Conscious Incompetence (you know what you don’t know);
Conscious Competence (you know what you’re doing, but you’re having to think about it);
Unconscious Competence (you no longer have to think about it – you just do it).
Consider an additional fifth stage that describes what “being in the zone” is:
Unconscious Competence with Conscious Awareness.
At this stage, you don’t have to think about the mechanics of doing something, but your conscious mind is fully aware of everything going on, and is thinking about how to do things even better.
Driving in the zone is a balance between thinking and not thinking too much. To do that, you need as many of the skills and techniques as possible practiced to the point of no longer having to consciously think about doing them; now the basics of driving are on auto-pilot.
ONE THING SEPARATES THE BEST DRIVERS FROM THE REST: A BURNING DESIRE TO LEARN AND IMPROVE, AND AN OPEN MIND TO NEW TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES.
If being a high-performance driver is all about performing at a high level, then being a high-performance learner is no different.
Plus, continual learning is part of what makes you a high-performance driver.
FOCUS ON LEARNING AND CONTINUALLY IMPROVING.
PRACTICE UNTIL THESE SAFE DRIVING TECHNIQUES BECOME SECOND NATURE.
Learning Steps
People talk about the “learning curve,” as if we actually learn on this smooth path. But we don’t.
Instead, we learn in steps: We make progress, plateau for a while, make another step of learning, plateau, and so on. That is, unless we get frustrated when on these plateaus, resulting in a digression in learning. The lesson here? Be patient if you’re on a plateau, as there is a burst of learning after every one.
Programming
Learning is programming; it’s when you’ve programmed your mind to the point where you no longer have to consciously think about how to do something, you just do it. You can think of habits as mental programs, since you rarely think about something you do habitually.
Mental programming is a result of repetition, either physically or mentally. In fact, you do what you do because you’re programmed to do so. The way you sit, walk, talk or turn a steering wheel is due to your mental programming. You sometimes don’t do what you want because you either don’t have the right mental programming yet, or — because you’re human — you access the wrong program at the wrong time and make a mistake.
Mental Imagery
If you can’t imagine doing something in your mind, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to do it physically. The flipside of that is also true: When you imagine doing something, you’re much more likely to be able to do this outside of your head. That is why every high-performer, from athletes to musicians and leaders to hobbyists, use some amount of visualization to develop their mental programming.
As you read this guide, imagine every part of technique and skill — and yourself actually doing these things — in as much detail as you can.
The more you imagine driving your car, using all of your senses and pre-playing your emotions and mindset, the more effective it’ll be.
If you close your eyes and imagine doing something — using your visual, feel, and auditory senses — with as much realism as possible, your brain won’t know the difference between a real or imagined event. Develop your high-performance driving skills in your mind as much as you do on the road or track.
EVERY HIGH-PERFORMER USES SOME AMOUNT OF VISUALIZATION TO HELP DEVELOP THEIR MENTAL PROGRAMMING
Sensory Information
As you drive, information is taken in through your senses (the input), then processed by your brain, which tells your body what to do (the output — brake, turn the steering wheel, squeeze the throttle, turn your head to look through a corner, etc.); you then react to the results of those actions, and the cycle continues.
This loop/process happens over and over, thousands of times per second, and as you improve, it happens faster and more efficiently.
Sensory Input Practice
On track, you’re constantly picking up information through your visual, kinesthetic (touch, balance, sensing g-forces pushing against your body), and auditory senses. The better the quality of this information, the better you’ll drive. That is why it is so important to pay attention to what you are experiencing through all of your senses.
If you take time to focus solely on taking in more sensory input — visual, kinesthetic, and auditory — you’ll be giving your brain better quality information to work with. Better quality information results in a better output, a better performance. When you specifically and deliberately spend time on the track to focus on these senses, one at a time, you’re doing what are called “Sensory Input Sessions.” The results are very powerful.
Here are two views of the same section of the track, and what two different drivers are visually picking up.
The driver A sees more; the driver B misses some of what the driver A sees.
WHICH DRIVER DO YOU THINK IS FASTER?
WHICH DRIVER IS MOST CONSISTENT?
WHICH DRIVER DO YOU WANT TO BE?
Getting Into the Zone
There is a fine line between not thinking enough, and thinking too much. There comes a point when you need to relax and trust your subconscious, mental programming to drive the car — letting go of the minute, detailed, analytical thought — while using your conscious mind to observe and be aware.
The right balance, which is a little different for every driver, leads to the zone — that almost magical state of mind where things just happen. You’re focused but not overly focused; you seem to have all the time in the world to do what’s next; and you feel confident and practically all-knowing.
Responsibility
As we said earlier, high-performance driving can take place on the track or the street. With that comes responsibility. You need to know where it’s appropriate to push the limits of your vehicle, and where it is not.
How many times have you spoken to a person who “brags” that they’ve been in a number of “accidents” — none of them their fault? It makes you think, doesn’t it?
Perhaps it’s about time these drivers began to take more responsibility for their driving actions, instead of feeling completely blameless when found “not at fault.” Many crashes in which a driver is found “not at fault” could have been avoided altogether.
High-performance drivers take full responsibility for their actions, whether “at fault” or not.
As part of this sense of responsibility, you need to know where it’s appropriate to drive fast, and where it is not.
Risk Perception Vs. Skill Level
Most drivers consider themselves to be “good” drivers. Just ask them! After all, they’ve earned a license that says so, right? Well, perhaps they are. But why, then, are so many involved in so many crashes?
When most people first learn to drive, they’re taught less than half of the necessary skills to become “adequate” drivers. Generally, they are left to acquire good driving skills through years of trial and error (often, the “error” part of this equation is tragic). This helps to explain why the more experience a driver gains, the more skill they acquire, the safer they become.
But that’s not the whole story.
THE OBVIOUS PLACE TO DRIVE FAST IS ON A RACE TRACK, AND WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING THAT!
Every time you drive, there is a certain amount of risk involved. Call this the Risk Level. This will vary with changing traffic volume, road, vehicle, and weather conditions, and driver distraction/awareness levels. For example, driving through an intersection in rush hour in the rain has a higher Risk Level than driving on a wide-open country road on a sunny day. Or, driving while your mind is still thinking about work, or while eating, or talking on the phone all cause a higher Risk Level than when you’re focused on driving.
How a driver assesses this Risk Level is the most important factor. For many, the Perceived Risk Level is lower than the Real Risk Level. In other words, the driver does not accurately assess how risky the driving conditions are.
Driving 70 MPH in a 60 zone in the pouring rain at night. Most people would think nothing of it. On a scale of 1 to 10, the driver perceives the Risk Level to be at 5, when in reality — accounting for the condition of the tires on the car, the amount of water on the road, the lack of visibility, the driver’s awareness level, traffic volume, etc. — the Real Risk Level may be an 8 or higher.
Now, when you factor in the driver’s Skill Level, you may have a formula for disaster. If, on that same scale of 1 to 10, the driver’s Skill Level is a 4 in this situation (understand that a driver may be very skilled — an 8 — at driving in good conditions; but through lack of training and experience, is unskilled — a 4 — at dealing with the rain and darkness), the only thing that’s going to stop them from crashing is good ol’ luck. If the driver doesn’t crash, would you say they were a “good” driver? Or just fortunate?
When a driver’s Perceived Risk Level encourages them to go faster than what would be appropriate for the Actual Risk Level, and with less focus than is needed for their Skill Level, all too often the result is a crash! The odds of collision increase even more if they “meet” someone in the same situation.
The ultimate goal of high-performance drivers, then, is to match their Perceived Risk with the Actual Risk, and to have a Skill Level that exceeds both. Such a driver will always have a margin for error, and therefore the chance of being involved in a collision will be extremely rare.
Being a good high-performance driver is not just a matter of increasing your Skill Level through experience. You also need to improve your ability to accurately assess Risk Levels.
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Chapter 1 - Responsibility & Driver Safety
Chapter 2 - Technique
Chapter 3 - Vehicle Dynamics
Chapter 4 - Handling Characteristics & Cornering
Chapter 5 - The Performance Driver’s Mindset
Chapter 6 - Putting It All Together
Chapter 7 - Let’s Drive
Chapter 8 - The g-Force™ Family Control Manual