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Home » The Art of Focus – a Crucial Ability: Christina Bengtsson (Transcript)

The Art of Focus – a Crucial Ability: Christina Bengtsson (Transcript)

Christina Bengtsson

Full transcript of precision shooter Christina Bengtsson’s TEDx Talk: The Art of Focus – a Crucial Ability @ TEDxGöteborg conference. Christina Bengtsson is a world class athlete, author, lecturer, entrepreneur, and military officer in the Swedish Armed Forces. She is the author of the book “The Art of Focus: 10,9.”

 

Listen to the MP3 Audio: The art of focus – a crucial ability by Christina Bengtsson @ TEDxGöteborg

 

Christina Bengtsson – World Class Athlete, Author, Lecturer

In the fall of 2005, I find myself at the Military World Championship in shooting.

I’m in the lead in the final, and I have one shot left to shoot.

The target is 50 meters away, and the ten is 10.4 millimeters.

What is it that determines if I shoot a nine or a ten? Is it the physics, the technique, the relaxation or the breathing?

No, those are abilities that everybody at that level has been training for years. It’s all about the thoughts I think and why I think them. This is what focus is about.

When I was 23 years old, I felt that I had a kind of capacity, an inner drive and an energy that I didn’t really know how to handle. And it frustrated me, not knowing what to do or where to go in this world.

I was completely lost. And the only solution I could think of was trying to become best in the world at… something. I had no idea in what. But I decided to become a world champion.

I was quite athletic, but my helpful brother pointed out that I was too old to become a world-class sprinter. So I choose shooting.

This determination brought me into the military arena, and since that very day, I started my practice. Thousands of hours were spent on the shooting range.