“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”
In our society, there are many sources aggressively competing for your attention and money. If you are not careful and intentional about where you direct your focus, this can lead to high stress, less sleep, poor health, disappointing results, financial struggles, and missed moments with family and friends. With easy access to 24/7 news, the internet, and social media, there is the potential for constant distractions. I believe your ability to focus on what matters is a bigger challenge and more important than at any time in our history.
For most of us, it is easy to fall into a pattern of allowing your attention to be scattered and this can result in negatively impacting your life. Every day you make choices on what you pay attention to, for how long, and how intensely you do so. The consequences of not focusing on the right things can prevent you from reaching your full potential and kill your dreams. If you want to improve your life, a good place to start is to take control of where you direct your attention.
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR THOUGHTS AND FOCUS
Tip 1: Improve your decisions you make every moment
The decisions on what you focus on, what meaning you give to your experiences and if you decide to take action will have a significant impact on your life.
What you focus on
What you give your attention to is often the precursor to your feelings and actions and is a good indicator of what direction you go in life. The good news is that you have the power to change your emotional state and actions immediately by where you direct your focus. To avoid having your mind and body revert back to your old, comfortable routine, establish a supportive environment and commit to your new focus. Plan your days and weeks in advance to help guide your focus. Focusing on your goals is an effective strategy to give energy to wherever your vision allows.
“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.”
What meaning you give something
Training yourself to improve how you respond to the external world will help your emotional state. You make the choice of what meaning you give to every experience and controlling your internal thoughts will improve how you define life events.
The Decision to Take Action
Your decision to act on something will define your life.
Tip 2: The power of questions
A very effective way to drive focus is to ask very specific questions. You should appreciate questions because they have the power to draw your attention and drive behaviors. As you ask questions, you begin to think in different ways and entertain new possibilities. You will begin to formulate answers and move in the direction of creating a new reality.
“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.”
These are examples of how questions can grab your attention and influence your feelings, emotions, and behaviors.
Bad Questions
If you wanted to be in a bad mood……..
- could you think of events that would make you view the world as an awful place and humans are evil?
- can you give examples of times when you were most disappointed in your loved ones?
- can you recall the worst thing a friend has done to you?
Or Ask Better Questions:
If you wanted to feel happy……
- could you think about all the wonderful things in the world?
- can you recall the memory of your first love?
- can you recall your favorite memory of your childhood?
- What can you be thankful about today?
Tip 3: Managing your attention is a balancing act of extremes
Too focused on one area can negatively impact other areas
Too broad of focus can potentially affect the quality and the completion of tasks
Too little focus can hinder your chances of ever mastering skills or achieving your goals
An excellent approach to counteract extremes in focus is a strategy proposed by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan in the book, “THE ONE THING”. They suggest using a counterbalancing method to accomplish extraordinary things. When you focus on the one thing you truly value, other things in your life will be underserved. To achieve your dreams, this is a necessary tradeoff and you should become comfortable with managing these extremes. The key is to not stay unbalanced for too long and make changes before you start seeing damage to your life.
Learning to identify how long you stay in a state of extreme focus will help you maintain the quality of your health, relationships and work. If you currently have extreme focus on one area of your life and you recognize this is causing damage to other areas, then you should identify a need to shift your focus.
Final Thoughts:
Where you direct your attention has a big impact on your thoughts, mental health and future actions. Because of this, how well you manage your focus is important to the quality of your life. Establishing self-awareness and assessing your current results will help determine how well you are managing your focus. If you are unhappy and determine your actions are counterproductive to where you want to go in life, an effective strategy is to redirect your focus.
