Without This One Mastery, Greatness Will Be An Illusion
The concept of focus is one of the most profound skills to master in order to live a life of greatness. This article will go deeper into understanding the two most fundamental laws of focus which in an invisible way, influence every minute of our life.
Let’s understand the two laws.
Law 1. What you focus on, expands
An in-depth understanding comes to you, if you go deeper into understanding human beings. We are energy beings, continuously emitting energy in the form of our thoughts, emotions and actions. Scientists have been able to successfully measure the energy field around the body, and the energy we generate from our brain and heart.
When we focus on something, we literally send a lot of energy to that particular object of focus. As we keep focusing on it, it becomes the dominant object of attention for our brain and all our thoughts, emotions and actions are entirely driven by it. If focused for a longer period of time, the object of focus becomes the sole driver of our life. If the object of focus is positive, it can transform our life, like in case of a goal or dream; if its negative, then life can turn into a nightmare, say by focusing on a horrible experience or pain one went through.
For example, if you go out and focus on the garbage truck on the road side for few minutes, what will happen? Instantly you will have more thoughts about garbage and related ideas. Your emotions will change and you will start feeling suffocated from inside which will result in actions shifting. If on the other hand, you focus on children playing in park, then you will have a complete different set of thoughts, emotions and actions. Just by simply changing your focus, you tend to shift your internal and external reality. In more broader terms, your entire biochemical, physiological, psychological state gets managed by one single word and that’s your FOCUS.
It also influences the series of events in your life. If you are constantly focused on what wrong can happen, or on fear, then your brain makes you see more of such events irrespective of whether you like them or not. For the brain, what you focus on is a matter of priority. This is how it has evolved to be.
2. What you focus on, you feel
This is the second law of focus. For most people, it becomes impossible to do something greater than what they are feeling. If you are constantly experiencing the emotions of worry, anxiety, fear and sadness, then your actions will be in alignment with these emotions. Similarly, when you are experiencing positive emotions like joy, happiness, love, and gratitude, your actions are completely different. Think about a past situation when you were happy and when you were sad, and reflect back how your thoughts and actions were almost in alignment to what you were feeling. Only when you come back to the awareness in real time, can you change the course of actions.
The issue with the majority of the people is that they are only focused on their present emotions and their actions are a result of them. So, if the emotions are negative, the resulting thoughts and actions will be in alignment with this. When you are feeling fear, you will not go and do something great. You will take a step back. But only if you care to shift your focus, can your emotions take a shift. This is a skill to master.
Hence, to live a life of greatness, your emotions or feelings become very important. Feelings directly impact the results one tends to get in life. If I ask you to recall or imagine different situations from the past and future like: when you got appreciation, when you won in some competition, when you took a vacation with your family, when you achieved one of your goals, when you went for a party or when you experienced failure, when someone criticised you, or when you made a mistake etc., you will observe that in all these scenarios, you experience a completely different set of emotions just by shifting where you focus is. We know the effect of negative emotions in our life and almost always, negative emotions are a result of our focus.
How often we focus on some “what if - negative” scenarios from the future and our current choices or decisions, is completely influenced by it. What if we shift the focus to “what if - positive” scenarios? Suddenly our actions will completely shift and these may shift the complete outcome of our life.
What is your current scenario?
Reflect on your life. All that you are now is just a result of your focus from the past. Think about what you focus on now in your life? “Are you focused on how blessed you are?” or “how challenging life is?” or “how worried you are about your career or your child's career?”, or is your focus majorly stuck on what’s wrong in your life and in the world?
Given what you are focused on, your future is getting shaped accordingly. If in your day-to-day life, you hardly put your focus on achieving your goals, or becoming the best in your area, or creating the greatest possibility you can, or reaching your vision, then most certainly these will never take place. Most people are focused on merely what is happening now in their life and they never realise that if they are just focusing on what’s happening presently, they lose all the power to create a different future for themselves tomorrow.
How to Focus?
The process of managing your focus requires three things – Awareness, Instant Action and Regular Practice. I call this AIR.
At any given point of time, you need to be aware of where your focus has gone to and whether it is serving you positively or negatively. You may put a reminder on your phone for every hour just to ask yourself, “What am I focusing on?” Until you will not build your awareness, you will not be able to take any control over it. It’s like you are using your brand-new Ferrari to buy vegetables everyday.
Once you are aware where your focus is, the second important task is to take instant action to change it to something else which is important to you. How long do we keep thinking about things which have no relevance in your life? How often do we just get stuck in day-to-day firefighting activities at our office, home that we lose the focus from our vision? Hence, at any given point of time, when you become aware of your focus, you must take instant action to start focusing on better possibilities, outcomes which you want, and things you want to work on and get done.
The third important task is to regular, consistent practice the process of managing your focus following the above process. The more you practice, the more it becomes a habit for you and this will serve you amazingly well.
Master AIR and it will help you to master your Focus.
What to focus on?
This is a beautiful part. Your focus must always be on, “what is important for you?” In any given situation, ask yourself what is most important for me in this situation and then do whatever it takes to get that. With respect to your career, your focus should be on your vision, your dream, constantly every day, and you must schedule a part of your daily activities in alignment with it as well. In relationships, your focus for some time must be to know what is not going well, and it should majorly be on, how to make it a successful, fulfilling and joyful relationship.
A simpler way to understand this is that “What you focus on, you become”. Take an audit of your focus and check what all you keep focusing on, how much good and how much bad, how many positives and negatives, how much in the past and in the future, how much in improving yourself and how much in finding fault with others?
This is the most important resource you have got. Mastering this simple skill is difficult and champions go through proper training for it. But if you can get determined to start working on it, you can change the quality of your life in no time. You can make things happen which the world will not believe; the impossible will turn into the possible; difficulties will surrender before you; excellence will become your slave; being at the top will be your second nature.
Starting today, create a schedule and start working to master this skill, and witness the amazing time as you go ahead to create a genius life tapping your own genius.
Remember, the words of the Master Strategist and Coach, Tony Robbins “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."
