Performance = Potential − Interference

Have you ever had one of those weeks when you just don’t feel like yourself?

You’re more tired than usual. Your patience is shorter. You can’t concentrate. Your body feels tense. You’re reaching for another coffee by mid-afternoon, scrolling your phone when you should probably be sleeping, and wondering why everything suddenly feels harder than it should.

Maybe the problem isn’t that you need to try harder.

Maybe there is simply too much interference getting in the way.

Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Tennis, introduced a wonderfully simple equation: Performance = Potential − Interference

In other words, what we are capable of expressing is affected by everything that gets in the way. We often approach health and life by asking, “What else should I add?”

Another supplement.
Another workout.
Another productivity strategy.
Another self-help book.
Another thing on the to-do list.

But perhaps there is another question worth asking: What could I remove?

Your Body Already Has Incredible Potential

Your body is constantly doing things you never consciously have to think about. Your heart beats. Your lungs breathe. Your digestive system processes your last meal. Your immune system responds to the environment around you. Your brain receives and processes enormous amounts of information while your nervous system coordinates communication throughout your body.

The human body has an incredible ability to adapt. But adaptation requires resources.

When we continually pile stress onto the system, we create interference that the body has to manage. Think about your own life for a moment. How much interference are you carrying right now?

Lack of Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important recovery periods we have, yet it is often the first thing we sacrifice. We stay up finishing one more task, watching one more episode or scrolling for “just five minutes” that somehow becomes 45. Then we expect our bodies and brains to perform normally the next morning.

When sleep is consistently inadequate, everything can feel harder—concentration, emotional regulation, physical recovery and making good decisions. Sometimes improving our health doesn’t require adding something new. Sometimes it means going to bed.

What We Put Into Our Bodies

Food can be another source of either support or interference. Our bodies need protein, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, fiber and adequate hydration to function well. Yet busy schedules can leave us relying heavily on packaged foods, sugar and meals eaten quickly between activities. 

This isn’t about eating perfectly. It is about asking whether the way we are eating is helping our body do its job—or creating one more challenge for it to overcome.

The Constant Noise

We live in a world with almost unlimited access to information. News alerts. Emails. Text messages. Social media. Podcasts. Videos. Notifications. Our brains rarely get a moment when someone isn’t trying to tell us something.

And although staying informed can be valuable, there is a difference between being informed and being constantly immersed.

Ask yourself: 

• How often do we pick up our phone without even realizing it?
• How often do we start our morning by reading bad news from around the world before we’ve even spoken to the people sitting at our own breakfast table?

Sometimes interference isn’t physical. Sometimes it is simply too much noise.

Turning off notifications, putting your phone away during meals, taking a break from the news or spending an hour outside without earbuds may seem insignificant. But creating periods of quiet gives our brains something increasingly rare: space.

What About Physical Interference?

This concept is also one of the reasons we find chiropractic so fascinating. Your brain and body are in constant communication through your nervous system.

Every movement you make provides information to your brain. Your joints, muscles and other sensory receptors continually tell your brain about movement, position and what is happening around you. Your brain processes that information and creates an appropriate response.

When movement isn’t occurring as well as it should, or when pain, tension or altered movement patterns are present, the quality of information coming from the body can change.

From a chiropractic perspective, this is where we think about interference within the nervous system and how well the body is moving and communicating. Our goal isn’t to somehow give your body potential it didn’t already have.

Instead, chiropractic care aims to improve spinal and joint function and support healthy communication between the body and brain. In many ways, it comes back to that same simple idea: Reduce the interference so the body has a better opportunity to do what it was designed to do.

Sometimes We Are Our Own Interference

There is another kind of interference that can be harder to recognize. Our own thoughts. The pressure to do everything well. The belief that everyone else has it figured out. The voice telling us we should be accomplishing more, exercising more, earning more, parenting better, keeping a cleaner house or somehow managing life without ever feeling overwhelmed.

This is where the work of researcher and author Brené Brown offers an important reminder.

Her work has explored how perfectionism, shame and fear can affect the way we show up in our lives—and how courage, vulnerability and connection allow us to live more authentically. Sometimes the interference isn’t our schedule, our diet or our phone. Sometimes it’s the impossible expectations we have placed on ourselves.

What would happen if we removed some of those too?

Instead of Adding More, Try Removing Something

When people want to feel better, the instinct is often to create an enormous health plan.

Starting Monday:

Exercise five days a week.
Drink eight glasses of water.
Meditate.
Meal prep.
Take supplements.
Read before bed.
Stretch every morning.
Never eat sugar again.

And by Wednesday we’re exhausted.

What if you tried something different?

Ask yourself: What is creating the most interference in my life right now?

Maybe you need to:

• Go to bed 30 minutes earlier.
• Leave your phone outside the bedroom.
• Stop checking the news throughout the day.
• Drink more water and eat more real food.
• Get outside and walk.
• Say no to something that doesn’t need to be on your calendar.
• Create some quiet in your day.
• Address the aches, tension or movement restrictions you’ve been ignoring.
• Give yourself permission to do fewer things well instead of everything poorly.

You don’t have to overhaul your entire life. Remove one source of interference and see what changes.

What Could Your Life Look Like With Less Interference?

We spend a tremendous amount of time trying to increase our potential. We want our children to reach their potential. We want to perform better at work. We want more energy. We want to be healthier. We want to be more present with our families.

But perhaps we don’t always need more potential. Perhaps there is already far more potential within us than we realize.

At Elmira Family Chiropractic, this is one of the things we love about chiropractic care. We aren’t trying to make your body something it isn’t. We are working with a body that already has an extraordinary capacity to adapt, move and function, when it is free from nerve interference.

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is simply identify the interference—and start removing it.

Performance = Potential − Interference

So this week, instead of asking yourself, “What else should I be doing?”

Try asking: “What could I remove?”