Attention

In this post, I want to discuss the importance of our attention. I personally feel it's a crucial lesson that leads to success in all aspects of life. However, especially in our society, it's something that is not only not taught, but actively abused. I hope to shed some light on this lesson and bring its importance to our conscious awareness.

Our attention is defined as the act or state of being present, especially through applying the mind to an object of sense or thought. Simply put, our attention is what we place our mind on. Notice that this can be anything from something in our physical environment to things in our mind such as thoughts of the past.

The act of placing our mind on something allows us to function in life. For instance, imagine for one day that you were unable to place your attention on any task for more than 1 second. What would you be able to do? You couldn't hold a conversation, read a book or get a project done. You'd lose your focus to fast.

The truth is, most of us have these problems. While not to the extreme above, we often find it easy to lose track of what we were doing. Have you ever read a page in a book or article, stopped and asked yourself, What did I just read? When our attention is not placed on what we desire, then it's impossible to reach our goal.

Knowing this about our attention, how often do we lose track of it? Take some time right now to close your eyes and focus your attention on only your breathing for a minute. Read the next paragraph when you've finished.

Hard right? How many distracting thoughts interrupted your ability to stay focused on your breathing? This example shows how easy it is for us to "lose track of our attention". As if our attention was an untrained dog or spoiled child. We have to understand that we ourselves have control over our attention. We hold the leash to directing our mind.

Granted, it's not an easy thing to do. We've been trained our whole life to let our attention go uncontrolled. In school, we learn very early not to focus on things too intently. After 50 minutes of class a bell rings telling us to lose our focus on the task at hand. TV commercials and shows bombard us with so many different advertisements and distractions that we learn to lose focus on any one thing for too long. Its been ingrained in us for the majority of our lives.

The bright side is that at any moment, we can decide to take back control. We can grab the leash of our mind and train it to focus on what we so choose. It's a tool for us to be successful in whatever task we desire to achieve. Imagine the feeling you get when watching a great movie. The way you focus so intently on the movie that you become a part of it. You feel what the characters feel and experience what they experience. Imagine having this experience in whatever task you choose; getting into it so deeply that you put all your effort into it. Wouldn't you get things done much faster? Wouldn't you be so much more effective in what you did?

All we need to do is practice training our minds. Simple exercises like the breathing one earlier are a huge step to achieving this. By doing that exercise for 5 minutes a day, you'll actively be training yourself to place your attention on what you want. You'll notice your thoughts and be able to put your mind back on the breathing. This skill can then be used everywhere in your life. When you decide to start a project, you'll notice when you're 'drifting' and be able to place your mind back on your task.

Your effort is essential to making this happen. The investment of these 5 minutes daily will pay off infinitely from the amount of productive time you gain from focusing your mind at will. Please, try this exercise with all your will for 7 days. You'll start noticing where your attention is and this awareness will reinforce your training of your mind. The feeling of regaining control of your mind will empower you to take more action in your own life, which is an excellent feeling.

Let me know what you guys experience, I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

-Bert