How To Develop Your Focus And Change Your Life

It just takes five minutes to discover the difference between what it feels like to be focused and being distracted – I’ve been enabling people to focus for over fifteen years and I know that it works. And each Monday and Wednesday, my personal development online readers receive simple ideas and exercises on how to focus their mind – and it’s free! Every week, people all over the world sign up to my online workshops to learn the same thing. So, what is focus all about?

First of all, you’ve got to realize that focus doesn’t happen naturally. The adult mind is either buried in the past or anxious about the future. The worry you already know about – surveys show that the majority of people are worried about their finances, worried about their kids, worried about work, worried about growing old. For every stage of life we’ll always find a set of worries. And all this worry is focused on things that haven’t happened yet – and, more importantly, stuff that we actually don’t want to happen! What type of idiot squanders their energy on stuff that they don’t want to happen? An ordinary idiot!

While we’re all aware of worry, we’re generally not conscious of the fact that our subconscious mind is buried in the past and it’s as a result of the past that we worry about the future. We all learned the stuff that we don’t like about ourselves when we were young – and our subconscious mind keeps on playing the same old warn out video. And you never know that this is happening, so you’ve never been able to focus on doing something about it.

The thing is, you don’t need to do anything about it if you train yourself to focus your mind on the present moment. That’s Right, that’s what focus is – a here and now thing. This is where you spend each day, this is when you could do your very best if you could just focus, the here and now the only time and place that you can be, you have no choice. The choice you do have is whether you’ll bother to turn up for your life or not. If you do decide to turn up, all else will be transformed.

So, how do you focus? Well, here’s your first lesson, right here, right now. Sit down in a place where you won’t be disturbed for a couple of minutes. When you’re ready, close your eyes and simply listen. You’re noisy mind will try to distract you but, when this happens, just latch onto the next sound that you hear. When you try something as simple as this, you teach your mind to pay attention to what is actually happening in just this moment – and that’s focus.

And even if you just started with a few minutes of sitting down and listening, you’ll experience something really important – reality has nothing to do with the crap in your head that you’ve been paying all your attention to.

Practical Self-Help Tips: Take A Breather

Once our day swings into action it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the routine, the urgent (as distinct from the important), the latest minor crisis or, most common of all, useless thought. And even though you may have started your day properly, it is all too easy to become submerged and revert to our default state of unfocused mindlessness.

So, for a start, what does starting your day properly mean? Well, we make certain that we don’t leave home physically unprepared for the day ahead. We wash and dress ourselves – shaving or applying the odd dab of make-up as appropriate! Conversely, most of us automatically set out each morning mentally unprepared for what lies in store. Starting the day properly means making sure that, before you leave the house, you have taken the appropriate step or steps to clear your mind and focus your energy. I recommend approximately ten minutes mental preparation for the day ahead. Find somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, sit and focus on your five senses – one sense at a time. This will enable you focus on what is really happening rather than on the subconscious programs that otherwise run your life – those programs being your default mental settings.

Right, let’s say that you’ve got your day off to the perfect start, you’re tuned in, focused, mentally wide awake and ready for action. Little things like a delayed train, like heavy traffic, like someone asking you to do something unexpectedly – so many little things can knock us off balance. And we haven’t even mentioned the big things! It is so easy to wander automatically into mental oblivion as the day progresses. What we’ve got to do is make sure that, during the day, we pause to catch our breath – literally.

Ancient wisdom places great store on the opportunity that our breathing affords us to clear our mind of useless noise and distraction and, consequently, focus our energy. So, here’s an easy, quick and entirely practical tip – because, after all, you have to breathe anyway! Take a couple of moments – moments is all that it takes – during the day to turn your attention to the reality of the moment as you inhale and exhale. Focus your attention on what it feels like to breathe, how your body reacts with each breath that you take, how the air passes through the left, right or both nostrils. Give thanks for the reality that you are alive and breathing. Pay attention to nothing else for these few moments. If the cares or useless thoughts of the moment start invading your mind, take three deeper breaths to refocus your attention. As you breathe, understand that whatever might be driving you crazy right now will be completely forgotten in months, weeks, days or even hours. Realize that, with an focused, alert and ready mind, all things are possible.

Changing Your Life And The Hassle Of Useless Thought

I’ve been facilitating Personal Development Seminars for nearly sixteen years and still, after all that time working on my own mind, I wake up from time to time distracted by stupid thoughts – or the little rascals come hunting for me during the course of the day, when I don’t expect them. Of course, I should expect it because, sadly, the average individual seems to be obsessed with disrupting our best efforts in the course of our everyday lives.

Seventy years’ study in psychology informs us that the normal mind is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. Of course, you don’t need to look any further than your workplace, your tennis or golf club or the local newspaper for all the evidence to confirm that research – and I haven’t even mentioned what you’ll find going on in the wider world! Normal mad people are forever misbehaving themselves and they seem unable to stop it. Of course, if you take all the research as a given, we are unable to behave ourselves – because our minds are hard-wired to pay little or no attention to reality and plenty of attention to stuff that simply isn’t happening at all. If we decided to look for a culprit, the useless thoughts in our head would be a prime suspect.

We are overwhelmed by 50,000 random thoughts each day – and that’s while we’re awake, so we’re not even talking about a full twenty four hours. Many of these thoughts are simply stupid – like ‘I wish I was playing with the kids or lounging at the beach than stuck at this boring meeting’ – thinking that you’d like to be somewhere else won’t alter the fact of where you are! Nonsense aside, many of these random thoughts are somewhat more toxic. I’ve no doubt that you have your own personal versions but here are a few examples of what I’m talking about. ‘I’m too shy to talk to her/him.’ (Delete as appropriate!!) ‘I would like to be more assertive and not let people walk all over me.’ ‘I could never get that job.’ ‘I’ll be happy when I’ve lost those six kilos.’

The problem with these thoughts is that, for starters, they confirm that, if your life is not-too-bad, that’s good enough. It’s not. The second problem is that this type of thinking enables (and that’s clearly not the right word) your subconscious mind to focus on all the misconceptions that you learned about you when you were a small child. These are the things – and the mind prefers to focus on the negative – that you now believe to be true. This is the out-of-date nonsense that is holding you back.

Don’t misunderstand me. Your mind will never stop being plagued by useless thoughts – as I’ve said, that’s the way we’ve been hard-wired. However, you can decide whether or not you will pay this nonsense any of your precious energy. After all, you have a very real alternative to wasting your time, or your life on all that nonsense – you can choose to devote your attention to the wonderful reality of the present moment. And, if that reality includes enduring a boring meeting, you could discover that paying more attention to what’s going on might make you that bit more efficient, happier and more productive – the kind of things that most of us search for from life.

It’s Your Life – It’s Your Responsibility

I’m constantly hammering on about how so-called “normal” people are mad and that it is up to each one of us to “stop the madness”. Having recently spent a day chatting with some long-standing personal development clients with regard to how quantum physics beautifully describes how our universe, our world and our little bit of it – your daily life and mine – really works. What we put in – in energy – we get back out. If, like so-called normal people, you put almost nothing in (bear in mind that research shows that the normal person only puts 1% of their mental energy into the here and now), don’t be surprised if you, as a normal person, get next to nothing in return.

Energy is only present – so, thinking of the future or worrying about the past has no impact on energy. The only time that the universe exists is now. And you can only invest your mental energy in the here and now, if you focus your mind or take control of your current state of mind. And you can only take control of your present state of mind if you’re up to taking responsibility for yourself. And, for some, that’s a bridge too far. It appears to me that normal people are not up to the task.

Just listen to the politicians hold forth on the ongoing need to “rescue” the economy from the crisis that has befallen it. What they’re saying is “Hey, it’s not our fault, it’s the fault of an unprecedented ‘fracture in the international financial system’” – that’s real quote, by the way – as if the financial system was something conscious that thinks for itself! And, then, spare a thought for the poor bankers, who won’t own up to their part in all this mess either. A few (very few) bankers have actually apologised for the mess – though they’re not sorry enough to return their large salaries, bonuses, pension top-ups or golden handshakes. But almost all the bankers that I’ve listened to have blamed the catastrophe that has befallen their noble institutions… on the credit crunch.

Quick question: Is the “fracture in the financial system” some self-created beast in which no one had a hand, act or part? Is the “credit crunch” some monster from the deep with a mind of its own that has surfaced to consume all up-standing bankers (and everyone else with them)? Is no one to blame? Can no one take responsibility? We expect our children to own up to breaking a glass or having a few beers – but these so-called adults don’t really lead by example, do they?

What about you? Are your disasters someone else’s fault? True enough, stuff happens – often it’s beyond our control – but we can control how we react or, more to the point, act when stuff happens. Time to grow up. Time to be responsible for yourself – for your mind. If you don’t life will give you precious little in return (I’ve had to edit what I really wanted to say in case no one would publish this post!) well, pretty much nothing, for your “efforts” – and it will be good enough for you. What goes around, comes around – it’s the Law of Attraction, it’s how our energetic universe works.

Only You Can Change Your Life

It’s within your power change your life – and only you can do it. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the everyday detail of your life, what hurdles you encounter in life or what problems you think you have. Life’s ups and downs are simply that – what goes up must come down and it works the other way around too! And all our highs and lows pass – sooner or later. The one constant in our lives is who we can be – not who we think we are, which is an entirely different and misconceived thing altogether.

But the average mind doesn’t know who they really are or the heights to which they could rise. And if were ordered to focus your mind, you couldn’t! The average mind is bombarded by its own useless thoughts and the synchronized thoughts of herd-like behaviour. But even the herd can break free – consider how normal people in oppressed places like Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt are rewriting the political map of the Middle East. Again, recall the way popular revolt tore down the Berlin Wall. If the apparently immovable objects of entrenched regimes can disintegrate so easily, then how much easier can it be for your own misconceptions about yourself and about your life to evaporate into thin air.

You’ve got to remember that, the only place that your misconceptions about who you are and the type of life you could have are in your own imagination. Sure, they appear to be real, they bring about actual results, for the worse, in your real world – but they are, nevertheless, the creation of your own infertile subconscious imagination. Psychology confirms that we are conditioned during our formative years by the people and events that make the deepest impression upon us. And psychology has discovered that we are all predisposed to being negative. All this conditioning or programming, lurking in our subconscious, creates our behaviour, our reactions and, as a result, what others think of us, do for us or to us. What’s lurking in your subconscious creates your life.

Bearing that in mind, how obvious is it that, if you changed your thoughts, you would change your life? The entire structure of your perceived life would collapse as surely and convincingly as the Berlin Wall. And a new life would begin. But – and it’s a big but – it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. The Berlin Wall was set in concrete foundations – the foundations of your life are far more subtly set in your subconscious. So, rather than trying to dismantle the web of thoughts that ties you down, it is far better, far more effective, if you completely ignore their unreality by turning your focus to reality – the reality of the present moment.

Liberation from your own fears, doubts and worries is to be found by focusing your mind on what you are actually seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting in the present moment. Understand that, learn how to do it and your life will effortlessly be transformed.

Personal Development – It’s How You Use Your Brain That Matters

If you’re into your own personal development, you may be interested in recent research that shows that “thinkers’ brains are different”. The suggestion is that the way you think is related to the development of certain areas of the brain – but it’s actually the other way around: the development of certain regions of your brain depends on how much you use them! Your mind power is down to the choices that you make.

No one is born a ‘thinker’ – in the same way that no one is born a London taxi driver or cabbie, yet a part of their brains is highly developed and, indeed, a different shape from a regular brain because of the process that they have to go through to learn ‘The Knowledge’ – how to get from A to B using all kinds of weird and wonderful routes. Some years ago, research established that the use to which these guys and girls put their brain had a demonstrable effect on the size and shape of their brain.

Recent neuro-psychological research confirmed that the human brain exhibits a considerable capability for what is called plasticity – in effect, the shape, configuration and development of the brain depends on how it is used and the extent to which one area of the brain may have to take control of the functions of another area that has been damaged.

The main point is that our brains, their capacity and functionality, depends on what we do with them – not the other way around. Many people with whom I’ve worked over the years believed themselves to be stupid, slow or incapable of understanding things that ‘clever’ people understood. Their perception of their own intellectual skills had nothing to do with the physiology of their brains – it was based on the fact that, during their childhood, they had incorrectly learned their own self-image which, as adults, prevented them from using their brains in more effective way.

We all have incorrect ideas about ourselves – we were each programmed during our childhood years – now, those perceived inadequacies disable us from understanding and benefiting from our innate potential. The good news is, however, all you’ve got to do to be all that you can be is to drop your misconceived notions. Even the size of your brain will respond to your properly founded self understanding.

The Importance Of Relaxation

I find it bizarre. I know lots of people who tell me that they do not know how to how to relax. One client told me that he gets guilt pangs sitting doing nothing on a Saturday – he feels compelled to fly around the house and garden determined to find something to occupy him. Another friend recently revealed that, whilst Saturday morning is golf time, and although he actually goes out for his eighteen holes, he doesn’t actually play! He can’t – his mind is wandering back to everything that happened during the previous week or what’s going to happen the following week. He’s playing golf but, not only is he not chilled, he’s not even all there! Even better, a guy who doesn’t have a care in the world – great job that he’s really on top of, great personal life, great everything, tells me that when he’s playing golf he cannot prevent himself feeling guilty – feeling that he should be in the office or at home!

Modern living pretty much demands of us that we must be constantly on the go. But there’s a big difference between filling your day with activity and getting the really important things done. And one of the important things that you must have as an integral part of your life is time to chill. A New York Times article a some years ago explained that native tribes in the Amazon basin have the lifestyle that every New Yorker wants – seven hours work each week, the rest spent at leisure. However, the average New Yorker simply wouldn’t know what to do with all that leisure. Sure, there’d be plenty of activity crammed into it – but what about totally chilling (like the Amazonians)?

You need to find yourself an easy chair, sit down and do nothing for half an hour – you’d be surprised where your mind takes you. Or find a shade tree, spread out a rug and just lie there. This is the quality space that we need in our lives – not to recharge our batteries, but to clear our heads, become inspired and discover the crucial things that we need to take action on to be happy and successful. Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree when the apple fell for him – find your tree and you’ll realize that pennies will drop for you. A little relaxation will change your life.

Practical Personal Growth Tips: Take A Breather

Almost as soon as our day gets going it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the routine, the urgent (not necessarily the important), this morning’s crisis or, most prevalent of all, unproductive thinking. Even if you have started your day properly, it is all too easy to become submerged and revert to our default state of unfocused mindlessness.

So, first things first, what does starting your day properly mean? Well, we make certain that we don’t leave the house physically unprepared for the day ahead. We shower and dress ourselves – shaving or applying the odd dab of make-up as appropriate! On the other hand, we unwittingly leave the house every morning mentally unprepared for what lies in store. Starting the day properly means making sure that, before leaving home, you’ve taken the appropriate step or steps to clear the mind and focus your energy. I suggest five to ten minutes mental preparation for the day ahead. Find somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, sit and focus on your five senses – one sense at a time. This will enable you focus on what is really going on as distinct from the subconscious programs that otherwise run your life – the latter being your default state of mind.

Right, let’s say that you’ve got your day off to the perfect start, you’re switched on, fully focused, alert and primed for action. Little things like a delayed train, like heavy traffic, like somebody asking you to do something unexpectedly – so many little things can upset us. And we haven’t even mentioned the big things! It can be so easy to wander automatically into mental oblivion as the day unfolds. What we’ve got to do is ensure that, throughout the day, we pause to catch our breath – literally.

Ancient wisdom places great store on the opportunity that our breathing offers us to clear our mind of useless nonsense and distraction and, in doing so, focus our energy. So, here’s an easy, quick and very practical tip – because, after all, you’ve got to breathe anyway! Take a couple of moments – moments is all that’s required – during the day to pay attention to the reality of the moment as you inhale and exhale. Pay attention to what it feels like to breathe, how your body responds with each breath in and out, how the air passes through the left, right or both nostrils. Give thanks for the reality that you are alive and breathing. Attend to nothing else for these few moments. If the hassles or useless thoughts of the moment start crowding your mind, take three deeper breaths to refocus your attention. With each breath, realize that whatever might be driving you crazy right now will be completely forgotten in months, weeks, days or even hours. Realize that, with an alert, focused and ready mind, all things are possible.

Self Improvement: Surfing Life’s Big Waves

I got an invoice from my lawyer a couple of days back – for what exactly I’m not sure, as what he’d done for me didn’t really match the bill! He said he was ’dispatching’ invoices to a number of customers to “keep the wolf from the door in these challenging times”.

Challenging times they may well be. We’re faced with difficult economic circumstances at present, we’re constantly faced with the ups and downs of everyday normal relationships and we are often confronted by the trials and tribulations of business and work. However the only real challenge we face is the challenge within. “How am I to react when faced with so much crap coming at me?” as one client put it to me on a recent visit. “It’s virtually impossible to stay focused in the midst of all that’s going on around me” said another. “How am I supposed to stay focused when my personal life is crumbling around me?” another client once asked.

These challenges are simply life’s “big waves”. Life is like the Volvo Round-the-World yacht race. If you’re participating, you understand that there are going to be plenty of big waves so you prepare in advance and ensure that you’re adequately equipped to handle them. Consequently, you’re able to ride those big waves. So it is with life’s ups and downs. You are certain, because you see it everywhere, that life is full of these big waves. So, just like the yachtsman, you need to be prepared and ensure that you’re appropriately equipped to ride those waves. However, I’m not talking about being prepared in some vague sense – I’m not just suggesting that you be on your guard. I’m talking about practical personal development – about developing the kind of clarity of mind and mental focus that will enable you take real action in facing up to what life throws at us – rather than crawling back into the normal cocoon of snap reactive behaviour that normally makes matters even worse than we think they already are.

And, considering that life is lived moment to moment, you’re going to have to be up to each challenge, moment to moment. That means that, before you set sail every morning, you need to focus your mind in the here and now – not focused on the day ahead, the day ahead will present itself one moment at a time. This means that whilst you’re drinking your breakfast coffee, that’s the only thing you’re doing – inhaling the aroma, tasting the bitterness, feeling the heat of the cup in the palm of your hand, watching the steam curl off the liquid’s surface, feeling the warm liquid run down your throat, listening to the sound as you swallow.

You need to focus your mind each morning. Otherwise, you’ll end up participating in life’s yacht race in a rubber dinghy. If you get drowned, it will be your own fault.

Cycles Useless Thought: How To Escape

You are being plagued by useless thought and you’re probably not even be aware of it! Whilst the normal adult is bombarded by around fifty-thousand thoughts each day, it is also true to say that the average adult is largely unaware of anything that is going on in his or her life. Hold on a minute – that’s a big statement!. You may wonder if it’s true, certainly it comes as news to you. That said, research that started in 1936 and which continues to be being built upon proves conclusively that normal people are only one percent aware – they are only one percent in the here and now. More than that, the greater part of your mental power, your subconscious mind, is largely paying attention to your past – a time long-gone in which you were actually aware, were actually present and were not bombarded by useless thought.

Of course, you are aware of the odd useless thought that whizzes through your head – thoughts like “I hate my job” (this has nothing to do with your job, it has to do with what you think about it!) “I wish I was out on fishing” (a completely useless and distractive thought if you’re in the middle of a client meeting!) “I feel agitated talking to this person” (a thought linked to your perceived inadequacy as a normal adult, rather than anything to do with the other person). You might also be aware of one of the most corrosive forms of useless thought – the curse of worry. Then there are the deeper, darker thoughts that hide in your subconscious – these you believe to be hard facts. All our perceived weaknesses, all the things that we may not like about ourselves, all our shortcomings are simply thoughts based on things that made us feel a certain way about ourselves during our early years. They are seriously toxic thoughts.

Useless thought presents us with three big problems! First of all, it distracts us from doing what we’re supposed to be doing – to the extent that we only one percent do it! We’re not going to achieve much in life if we haven’t bothered to turn up for the event!! Secondly, useless thought presents us with a familiar, habitual way of going through or, perhaps even, coping with our daily life. It’s a habit that we’re so used to that we’re unaware of it. Thirdly, useless thought stops you moving towards the life that you really want. Go on thinking useless thought and you will never change your life. We can all achieve whatever we believe in – but if our resident useless thoughts are contrary, how will we ever believe?

You’ve got to break the cycle of useless thought. This is most effectively done by stopping yourself from having irrelevant, simple useless thoughts. How about an example! You’re walking along the street and you see a nice car. That’s fine – but you should then walk on and observce whatever happens next. However, you might say to yourself “That car is nicer than mine!” That’s a useless thought – it has nothing to do with the reality of the moment (the only time and place there is!). And it leads to other useless thoughts: “I wish I had a better car!” “I couldn’t afford a new car!” “I cannot afford to go on holidays this year either!” “What if I can’t keep making my home loan repayments!” Useless thoughts take normal adults down alleys and mug them all the time. It’s part of the way we are as normal adults. However, we’ve got to break the cycle of useless thought, otherwise we will continue to live habitual mundane lives. Is that your goal?