On this week's episode of the Building Championship Mindsets podcast, Dr. Amber Selking shares why prioritization is crucial for achieving our goals and living authentically. Dr. Selking emphasizes the importance of focusing on the process and effort rather than merely the outcomes, as this shift can lead to better results and reduced anxiety. Matthew 6:33 encourages seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, suggesting that when we prioritize our spiritual and personal values, everything else falls into place. Listen as Dr. Selking illustrates how putting what matters most first can create space for the joys and pleasures of life. 

About Building Championship Mindsets

Welcome to “Building Championship Mindsets. | the Podcast!” From the LockerRoom to the BoardRoom, our purpose is to help individuals, teams, and organizations understand and leverage the power of Mindset and Leadership to drive results and achieve sustainable performance excellence. 

As a leader in the field of sport and performance psychology, Dr. Amber Selking has been fiercely devoted to optimizing human performance in people and systems throughout her entire career.

Dr. Selking is the founder of Selking Performance Group, a leading performance consulting practice that helps individuals, companies, and sports teams achieve sustainable results. She has served as the Mental Performance Coach for professional & collegiate sport programs across the country including the Denver Broncos, LSU Football, ND Softball, and Notre Dame Football during the winningest five years in program history! She is the Chief Culture & Leadership Development Officer for Lippert, a global, publicly traded manufacturing company whose corporate vision is to change the model of work, demonstrating that business can and should Be a Force for Good in our World. She has also served as an adjunct professor in the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. Dr. Selking holds a Ph.D. in Educational and Counseling Psychology from the University of Missouri, a master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, and an undergraduate degree in Management Consulting from the University of Notre Dame. At ND, Amber played soccer for the Fighting Irish before an injury ended her career, after which she founded Notre Dame Christian Athletes (NDCA) in the ND Athletic Department. She currently resides in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Aaron, daughter Elleeanna Belle, and their Doberman Pinscher, Rockne.

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Building Championship Mindsets, the podcast.

This is your host, Dr.

Amber Selking, where we are in season 15 entitled Sports Psych and Scripture.

At the Selking Performance Group, we are really focused on helping individuals, businesses and sports teams really tap into the power of mindset and leadership.

So how our systems ran, right, and that system could be your team, your business, your family.

And then how do people inside of those systems learn to think right, and see things clearly so that they can show up and be their best selves and deliver their best when their best is needed?

And so in this season, we've really been exploring how what we know in brain science actually is confirmed or supported by scripture.

Or you could say what we know in scripture is confirmed and supported by brain science.

And really just taking micro snippets, right?

So one piece of information from brain science or the field of sports psychology and one little scripture and seeing how they really intersect and support one another to really reflect how human beings have been created to operate at their very best.

Because I fundamentally believe that that's what people really want, right?

How do I be all that I've been made to be?

How do I explore, discover, find, live out my purpose on a day to day basis?

And so in episode 10, today we're looking at the topic of priorities in the sports psychology side of things, then looking at Matthew 6:33 and showing how those support and intersect.

And so what we know from a prioritization standpoint is that what we put our focus or attention on is what we give power to and how we organize those things in our lives in terms of what comes first, what comes next, what comes last really is important to how we allocate our time, energy, attention, and therefore, in terms of the results that we deliver.

And so a couple ways to think about priorities.

First of all, what are you prioritizing in the moment?

Right?

Are we prioritizing the process or are we prioritizing the outcome?

Right?

And so again, what we know is that what we put our attention on gets dominated and is what we give power to.

And so if we're constantly thinking about outcomes, right?

And results, that's what we're thinking about and giving power to.

And the reality of it is outcomes and results have so many variables that are a part of them that often they can create anxiety and simply distraction when we're trying to deliver our best.

And so what we know is that we need to actually prioritize the process because the process comes before the outcome.

We need to Prioritize effort becomes.

Effort leads to the results that we really want.

And guess what, we can control the process, we can control our effort, while we can't necessarily control the results or the outcome.

So from a prioritization standpoint, prioritize what comes first, right?

What's important.

Now, if you listen to any of our previous podcasts or episodes, you've understood that WIN stands for what's important now.

And when we give power and emphasis to the process and to effort, man, that increases our probability of getting what we want from an outcome or a result standpoint.

The other way to think about prioritization is putting the big rocks in first, right?

I'm heard.

I'm sure if you've listened to any big business prioritization stuff, you've heard that idea of the big rocks in first.

But we've actually done some really cool activities and sort of interactive aspects with this, with some of the teams that I've worked with, where we give them various sizes of rocks, right?

From big, big rocks to small pebbles, down to sand.

And we give them, and then a big jar that they have to fill them first.

And what they realize through this activity is if you start putting the sand in first, then the pebbles, then the big rocks, and then fill it with water, one, it doesn't hold as much water, and two, oftentimes the big rocks don't fit.

They're sticking out and sort of piled on the top and don't fit within the container or the pitcher.

And so if the analogy is that the pitcher is our lives and the rocks are the most important thing to us, whether that be family, faith, your main professional emphasis at the time, whether you're a student or an athlete or a business professional, then it's demonstrating to us that if we don't prioritize those big rocks first, man, we don't even have room for them in our lives.

Because the small pebbles are things that are maybe important and maybe urgent, but not important.

And then the sand is just kind of the fun stuff in life, right?

The icing on the cake, if you will.

And so if we start with filling our lives with the ancillary things that aren't even relevant to who we've been created to be or what we claim is most important to us, and then layer in the things that are maybe urgent and then try to stack in the things that we say are deeply important to us, there's not enough room in our lives for it.

We've prioritized the wrong things.

But if we flip that and we put the big rocks in first, then we put the small pebbles and stones in, then we put the sand in, and then we fill it with water.

Now all of a sudden, guess what?

The most important things in our lives are accounted for.

And then, interestingly enough, we can actually fit more pebbles, more sand, more water, which is the icing on the cake of life, right?

Things that we get to enjoy the pleasures of life.

And I'm not saying pleasures aren't important, because I really think that they are.

But to be able to savor them and to truly appreciate them and not let them dominate your life, they have to be the things that are layered in lastly, not the things that come at us firstly.

And the cool thing is that Matthew 6:33 shows us the same thing.

Matthew 6:33 says, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything else will be given unto you.

And so seek first his kingdom, his will, his plans, his purposes for your life, and his righteousness.

Now, this is an interesting one, and I actually haven't thought a ton about this in my life prior to doing the prep for this episode, but the idea of righteousness has been interesting to me because, you know, as you go through different seasons of life, you know, when you're younger, maybe you.

You.

You lived a relatively good life when you were younger, and then all of a sudden you got into your teens or 20s or early 30s, and something got you off track, and you started to make decisions that you were like, holy smokes.

Like, I am not a great person.

Like, I've been there and I've.

I've realized, like, wow, I am a sinner, right?

And I thought righteousness meant that you were perfect.

And I kind of had this, like, sinking feeling in my heart of, well, I'm never going to be good enough for God then, because I'm not righteous anymore.

But what I learned through some deep mentoring that I did with an amazing.

The wife of one of my pastors when I lived in Detroit, what I learned through that study that I did with her, that righteousness simply means right with God.

It doesn't mean perfect.

And so that gave me so much hope.

And then again, as righteousness came up in this verse, seek first his kingdom, his will for your life, and his righteousness and being right with God, then everything else can be added unto you.

And I think that's so powerful and such a testament that if we really want to live full, productive, meaningful, blessed lives, then we need to prioritize our lives first.

And prioritization above all according to scripture, is that we seek his will for our life and his righteousness.

So that means that if we're off in any way, whether it's sin in our life, whether it's just simply distractions, right?

We're filling our lives with the water and the sand first, instead of the things that we know in our hearts are most important to us.

Our faith, our family, our friends, the depth of intimacy with people that are most important to us.

If we're not doing that, then we can't have all those other things added unto us, however, right?

If we simply make the choice to shift that right, dump out that pitcher, pour out that sand, and then put those big rocks in first, man.

Now, all of a sudden, he can add so much more to our lives.

And that's my hope and intent.

That is, you seek to prioritize your life again, whether it's through the lens of sports psychology, understanding that when we direct our attention to the process, the effort before the outcome, and we put the big rocks into our lives first, that we can actually live fuller lives, or that if we align and truly understand with what Scripture tells us about seeking first his will for our lives and being right with him, he can layer on his blessing and lavish his love upon us.

I hope that this episode inspires and encourages you as much as it does me.

If you're listening to this in sequence, we're listening to this and recording this in December, right?

Which is a beautiful holiday and Christmas season.

Well, how do I prioritize my life, my purpose, my meaning, so that I can not just get the depth of the good things in my life, but also get to experience the blessing of the sand and the water that is the icing on our cake of life.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Listen, I'd love to hear what you thought about it.

You can follow us on all the social media platforms, on Twitter, on X and Instagram, at Champ Mindsets, on Facebook, at Selking Performance Group and LinkedIn Selken Performance Group as well.

And then on our website, selkie performance.com you can find a ton of free resources and ways to reach out to me directly.

My email is doctorsalkingperformance.com so if there's any keynote needs or one on one performance coaching that we might be able to come alongside you on your journey, please feel free to reach out directly.

Thank you again for tuning in.

You've been listening to Building Championship Mindsets, the podcast.

This is your host, Dr.

Amber Selking.

And from the locker room to the boardroom, I want to challenge you to continue building your championship mindset.