Target Fixation: In times of uncertainty, look where you want to go
From where you sit, from the socially distanced vantage point of your interet-connected home, you can collect anecdotes from history and from Italy. You can get data from China and from the CDC. You can look at the tea leaves and ascertain a possible outcome. You can be an analyst by dint of making a prediction so that you can decide how to act. It is a process of setting up imaginary dominoes from the present to an outcome. That outcome is your target.
Do you believe that you help to determine what that outcome is, or do you believe that you are doing passive, armchair analysis? If the latter, stop reading now. This blurb is a waste of your time.
It has been 10 years since I have had the pleasure of owning a motorcycle, but I take with me an important thing that motorcyclists and fighter pilots learn. The magic of target fixation.
When I first got my motorcycle license, I hit a mountain. Frought with anxiety about riding, I stared straight at a hill that the road cooly curved around. My bike crossed the yellow and went into the ditch. My friend Adam was riding with me. He was flummoxed. There was no reason for me to miss the curve. I could see what he could not: my mental state. I had fixated on what I did NOT want to hit, so I hit it.
Fighter pilots train themselves to avoid target fixation problems because the results of a mistake is deadly.
I had the bad kind of target fixation the other night (March 17, 2020). I was thinking about how badly this global pandemic situation can get. Soon, I was considering if I was properly armed. I was thinking if I had enough food. I was thinking about who I could trust and who I could not. My internal narrative went from planning to plotting very quickly.
Predict-and-plan or prepare-and-pilot
I have worked through a bit of anxiety response in my life. These days, while practicing social distancing and watching financial markets (both local and international) collapse, I am quite naturally seeing signals of anxiety in my own state. This sort of “predict and plan” is text book; I was trying to solve problems that are (a) very extreme and decisive and (b) not currently happening.
While still being able to plan for the future, I avoid predict-and-plan behavior. It is an ever-increasing flywheel of anxiety. Predict-and-plan lowers my ability to love people and to perform well. It also, I believe, makes those dreadful outcomes more likely. It creates a negative target fixation.
I suppose I could say that instead of predict-and-plan, I prepare-and-pilot. I get my gear and do my best to fixate on where I want to go.
On a motorcycle, target fixation is how you know that you are riding a magical device. It teaches you that your will and your body are one circuit. Your instructor (or if you are self taught, your instincts) tell you that as you enter a corner, just look to the exit. That is all you need to consciously do. Your body hears your will and you push on the inside handgrip. You read that right. You push the handlebar the opposite direction than you want to turn. Counter steering is a magical gift from God, but to your intellect, counter steering is counter-intuitive steering. Your will, not your intellect, directs your body into that flow. You gotta turn the analysis off to get to the exit. Watch GP racing. Look where the racers’ helmets point. They are upright and locked in on where they want their will to take them.
Target fixation is your greatest enemy and your best friend when situations get complicated. It can direct you to the exit of the curve, or it can direct you off course and on an imminent collision with a very avoidable obstacle. Like, say, a whole mountain. I am pretty sure every new rider has had the experience of drifting towards a curb, a rock, or another vehicle they are trying to avoid. We concentrate so hard at not hitting that item that we stare at it and trigger the bad kind of target fixation.
What am I looking at?
Learning to ride a motorcycle is learning to focus on where you want to go. It is learning to accept the things you can not control — after donning all your safety gear, training regularly, and maintaining your machine to peak performance.
Today, I have noticed that I have a great girlfriend, a great dog, and that people are being more kind and graceful with each other in this situation. I am seeing that although I complain as much as the next person, I really appreciate my life and want to put energy forth to keep serving as I have been able to. I have what I need and I am going to aim for the exit of this curve. I invite you to join me in the good kind of target fixation.
