What You Focus On Grows
Breathe
So simple, and yet so effective. Take a few deep breaths, and then for a few minutes, just focus on your breathing. Concentrate on your breathing as it comes into your body, and then as it goes out. It has a calming effect, especially if you continue to return your focus to your breath when your mind strays. It also allows other thoughts to just float away.
Note: some people might call this meditation, but that word scares some people off, so we’re just going to call it breathing.
Focus!
Remember, what you focus on grows!
Untangle Your Thinking
Creating Zentangle art provides a fun and lighthearted way to relax and intentionally facilitate a shift in focus and perspective. The Zentangle Method of creating art is unencumbered by dogma and cost which can weigh on other approaches. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently structured and organized so you can enjoy and benefit from an activity that otherwise might be considered whimsical.
Here’s a link to a website with lots of information and ideas: Zentangle.com
The image I shared with this post is the first zentangle I ever made. It is surprisingly easy to do, and really does help with focus and mental chatter.. worth checking out and trying. All you need is a pen and a piece of paper… so it’s really easy to try it out.
Take A Walk
Get in touch with nature. Take a walk, just go outside for a few minutes and smell the air, feel the ground under your feet, look at the sky…
Maybe you might like to go somewhere with water … the ocean, a river, a lake, even just a man-made fountain if nothing else is available.
Take a walk in the rain, or just watch the rain – does it make the leaves dance? Rain can be calming and focusing at the same time.
Making a connection with the earth herself is a very effective way to get centered and refocus your thoughts.
The Sweet Spot
Isn’t it an exhilarating feeling when you are able to blur the world around you and calibrate your brain to get lost in the work you’re doing? Whether you call it concentration, focus, escapism, flow, meditation or even work-induced trance, you have to admit that it’s a sweet spot.
If you are having trouble finding a focus, or if it seems hard to focus your energy with any intensity, here is a simple exercise that I found at Moksha Mantra.
A simple concentration exercise
You can practice the following concentration exercise to hone your focusing skills.
Sit in a quiet room or a quiet place and make sure you will not be interrupted. Focus on any object or image. It could be a painting or a photo or even a candle. But, ensure that the object you focus on is not repulsive. Expect that your mind will mind wander. This is fine. Whenever you get distracted, gently bring your focus back on the object. If you find yourself becoming tense, simply relax and breathe. And gently bring your focus back on the object. Practice this exercise for at least 15 minutes a day.
Note:
This could be tweaked a bit for the project by using an image or collection of images that symbolize or identify those circumstances, situations, and things you’d like to bring more of into your life.
Losing Focus?
Maybe these inspirational and motivational quotes will give you a boost when you need it most.
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
~Bruce Lee
When life gets blurry, adjust your focus.
~ unknown
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
~ Winston Churchill
You can never achieve what you want if you do not focus entirely on your strength.
~ unknown
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.
~ Tony Robbins
When you are hitting a brick wall, focus on one brick.
~ Tyler May
Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.
~ Denis Waitley
By celebrating the small stuff and feeling gratitude for it, things you never noticed before will come into focus.
~ Jane Trumbull
A Mental Rental
I found this idea in an article about Techniques For Recovering Your Happiness When Life Knocks You Sideways. I think it’s worth a try. It’s tip #5, called “Get a mental rental”
Here’s how it works:
Sit in a quiet place and consciously think about optimistic future goals or happy memories. Make a list of five great moments from your past and five future events you’re psyched about. Envision as much detail as you can. Try to engage all of the senses. What are you wearing? How are you standing? What scent is in the air? By tapping into positive thoughts, you can actually change your body chemistry.
Notes:
I love this idea, and I think I’m going to try using it at night when I can’t sleep because I’m either hating the idea that I have to go to work in the morning, or worrying over stuff that I don’t know how to deal with yet. I’ll let you know how it works for me. And if anyone else has success (or failure) with this technique, I’d love to hear about it!
A Simple Game
Sometimes, it isn’t that simple to just change your thinking, especially if it’s something you are in the habit of obsessing about, or a thought pattern or a focus that you’ve been engaging in for a super long time. This easy exercise can help to interrupt the pattern, giving you a chance to step away for a minute or two and refocus.
Try a simple game.
Simplicity can ground you and bring you right back to a sense of who you are and where you’re headed. It will also help clear what seems complex and put it in a simpler context. The purpose of this exercise is to distract your mind and give it something else to focus on. This is particularly useful when you find yourself in an obsessive loop of negative mind chatter.
Here’s how it works:
- Write a number of different shapes and an equal number of different colors on slips of paper.
- Pick one at random.
- Look around the room and look for everything that is either that color or that shape.
- Do this for a few minutes.
- Now, pick a different slip of paper.
- Close your eyes and try to remember everything that is either that shape or color.
Note:
You could make the slips of paper in advance, and have them on hand for when you have a really strong need to distract yourself.
Feeling Good
Today I thought we could explore all the things that if feels good to think about. Of course this will be different for everyone. Possibly it will be helpful to make a list and post it somewhere as a reminder. To help us get started, I’ve put together a collection of feel good happy stuff that I enjoy thinking about. Enjoy!
Playing in the rain… so much fun!
Simple creative projects… I love to think about them!
Oooh! Yummy food!
Fun times with family and friends.
If I was an alien… one of my favorite mind games.
Interesting factoids… very mentally entertaining
A road trip… always something fun to think about.
I love to think about books I’m reading, have read, or plan to read.
Funny memes… a great mental distraction.
Fur babies are a great source for happy thoughts.
Home sweet home is always a nice thought.
Finding A Better Focus
I have been reading a lot of articles on how to change your focus, and so far they all seem to have missed the most important point. And that is, if you are going to redirect your thoughts – it’s very important to direct them towards something that you enjoy thinking about, something that you find pleasure in contemplating.
So many of these “self help gurus” get really invested in telling us that we should be focusing on the “good.” Well, OK, I can agree with that, but I also think that the “good” has to be interesting, it has to be true, it has to be pleasurable, it has to be seductive to the mind. Because if it isn’t any one of those things, you’ll meet an inner resistance and it will all be for nothing.
So, for example, if you are constantly finding yourself focusing on “I don’t have enough money.” It’s not going to be very helpful to say to yourself “The Universe provides for my every need.” or “I have enough money for today.” or other so called positive statements. It’s not going to be helpful unless you really believe it’s true. And if you really believe those statements to be true, probably you aren’t spending most of your day telling yourself that you don’t have enough money.
Here are some ideas for how to refocus that thought:
- My daughter has been switching her “I need more money” mantra to “I want more money.” This makes her feel more “in control” and less needy. So far, it’s working for her.
- “I love my money.” I’ve been using this one a lot. I think about how fun it is to have dollar bills in my hand, and I imagine myself petting them, and kissing them. It sounds really silly, and so it makes me smile because I know it is silly. And now I’m smiling instead of whining.
- Changing the subject altogether. This is a good one. Just bring something completely different into your mind. For me, this usually consists of ideas about my website. But it could be anything, something funny that happened, something interesting that you read or heard.
- Distract yourself with a mind game. For example “If I was an animal / plant / vegetable / etc what kind would I be?” And then extend the game to your family, friends, co workers, people on the street… etc..
- Imagine wild scenarios. Here is another thing I do to distract myself from too much negative mind chatter. I start imagining “Boom! and then the crazy mean dog I’m bathing exploded into a shower of butterflies and diamonds.” or “Holy Moly! Everything suddenly just turned yellow! WTF?”
Just because it works for me, doesn’t mean it will work for you. Spend some time today coming up with your own ideas for alternative thoughts when your mind chatter goes south. Just remember, whatever you use to refocus your thoughts and redirect your attention, it must be something that feels good to think about. If it doesn’t feel good to think about it – find something that does.
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