You may not realize but you probably waste a chunk of your time in negative emotions or useless thoughts. Since your attention wavers, your productivity suffers. Also, too much negativity adversely impacts your wellbeing. If only you can focus your attention on something useful, you can channelize your energy in a more constructive, positive, and useful way. Here’s how you can manage your attention to create more positive energy in your life. ~ Ed.
Our consciousness and ability to manage and control our attention is the only thing that makes us different from other animals.
We have a choice to focus our attention on whatever we want to. We can use this tool to create wonderful things. Wherever you focus, you create a flow of energy in that area.
“Where attention goes, energy flows.”- James Redfield
But for people, their attention is scattered all over the place. When the attention is not focused, it loses its true power.
If we are to make the best use of our potential, we must learn to control our attention.
This post explores different ways to manage your attention so that you can create positive energy in life.
Why Focus on Positive Energy
As humans, we also have negative emotions. They are as natural as positive feelings. So, you might wonder;
Why should I not express anger towards someone who has done something wrong to me?
Why should I not feel hatred that I naturally feel towards someone?
The major reason is that whatever you give out will complete a circle and come back to you. Most people react naturally to events that happen to them. That means they react negatively to negative events. But however natural it may be, it is harmful to them.
So, even if you feel tremendous hatred and anger for someone, you must try and transform it into positive energy, or else you will be hurting yourself. Let’s see how we can control that behaviour.
6 Keys to Manage Your Attention
Here are six keys to help you handle your attention better. I call them keys because they all seem to be working together. The process makes the most sense when you put all the six keys together.
Becoming Aware of Your Attention
The first key to managing your attention is to become aware of it.
Unless you are aware that your mind is wandering, you will not be able to divert it and shift it to something useful. This is true for any change that you want to make in life.
Unless you are aware of the existing behaviour, you will never be able to change it.
The mind has been compared to a maddened monkey. It tends to jump from one thought to another. This endless wandering takes up a huge amount of energy. It is like an engine running on its own and producing nothing just because it has not been given a proper direction.
All you need to do is direct this energy into something that you want. It has been automated for a long time and now you have to take the wheel and direct it towards creating positive energy.
Controlling this engine is not a task that can be accomplished in a day. You have to make a habit of becoming aware of your thoughts and bringing them on the right track. It takes practice and patience. But if you manage to do this, you will harness great energy that otherwise gets wasted every day.
So how do you become aware? We will see some ideas and practices for managing the attention later in the post. For now, let’s move on to key #2.
Where Do You Want Your Attention to Go
Once you are aware of your thoughts, you need to tell them where to go. So, you need to give your mind an idea to focus on. That is why having a goal is very important. If you don’t have a goal, your attention will wander and end up at any new thing that comes up.
Goals will help you anchor your focus so that you can bring it back when you get distracted.
To create more positive energy in life, you should list down the qualities which create positive feelings. Here are some positive feelings you can turn to when you are having negative emotions.
Gratitude
Whenever you feel like complaining about something, become aware and channel it towards gratitude. Think about all the things that you are grateful for and you will see the immediate change in your mood.
Faith
Whenever you have doubts, you can use faith to overcome them. Doubts start coming up because we don’t know everything. We don’t know how the future would turn out. Faith is said to be the evidence for the unseen.
Compassion
Turn your anger into compassion. Anger is the feeling that can only harm yourself and others. Whenever you are angry towards someone, try and understand their situation in life.
It will make you realize their reasons and lift the burden of your anger towards them.
Unconditional Love
Turn your hatred and jealousy into unconditional love. Relate to everyone you meet only with the intention of giving more love than you receive.
Giving is a far more positive feeling than taking! So focus on giving whenever you can.
Remember that your mind can either be in a positive state or a negative state. It cannot hold two opposite states of mind simultaneously. List down more of some positive feelings where you can direct your attention when you feel lost or negative.
Identify and Eliminate Distractions
As long as there are distractions, there are chances of you losing your focus and getting dragged away from your primary aim. So, getting rid of distractions is the third key to managing attention.
Here are some common distractions that you need to either eliminate or reduce to an amount where they don’t affect your main focus.
Social Media
The biggest damage to your attention span can be done by social media apps. It is a great technology that connects us, but it connects us too much!
When you connect too much with others, you forget to connect with yourself. Your creativity and inspiring ideas only come from within you. But if you never tap into that source, eventually you will start feeling empty and always in the need for social approval.
News
Most of the news you read or watch are negative or provoke negative thought patterns. Limit your exposure to the news only to the extent that they are helpful to you. Avoid the feed of negative information.
Comparison with others
When you compare yourself with others, your mind is constantly hunting for negative aspects of that person. Don’t fall into that trap. Thinking about others negatively doesn’t bring you anything except some false satisfaction to your ego.
Come back to your life, goals, and plans immediately.
Fears, doubt and worries
Fear of failure, doubt of your capacity, and worry about the future will distract you from taking bold actions. This happens to everyone who attempts to achieve something challenging. Divert your attention from these feelings and bring it back to focus on present actions.
The Ultimate Tip for Eliminating Distractions
Everything negative can be transformed into equally strong positive energy. If you turn your distractions into a source of positive information, they are no longer a distraction.
For example,
- Instead of watching tik-tok videos and memes on social media, if you follow the pages which are inspiring and positive, you will have turned your major distraction into your main source of motivation!
- Instead of comparing yourself to others, you can look at their achievement for inspiration.
Find out the things that distract you and think about how you can turn them into a positive source of information.
Use the Power of Commitment to Maintain Focus
When something is done with a strong commitment, it has a lot more energy behind it. Commitment is the act of telling your mind that there is no turning back.
The best way to commit is to write it down. A written thought is far more powerful than a thought in the air. It influences your subconscious mind and tells it that you are serious about it.
So commit that you will only radiate positive energy in your life and eliminate all the negative energy that can harm yourself and others.
Exercise Self-Discipline
When you are committed, focused and taking bold actions, your old habits will try their best to not let you change. Your mind has become comfortable with the old thinking and behaviour patterns and it doesn’t want you to change.
But here you must use the will-power and discipline yourself to not give in. This is perhaps the hardest part of managing attention.
What is self-discipline?
It is your ability to resist the temptations and hold yourself from falling back to your old habits. It is the combination of your strong commitment and extreme alertness which holds you firmly with your decision.
This is the part where your attention needs to be at its peak. Here you will be fighting a war against your own mind. Commitment and attention are your best tools in fighting this war. If you let one of them down, you will soon find yourself back in the old self.
Do Not Think Too Far into the Future
When you have a long term goal, you tend to think and plan too much ahead than needed. Getting too occupied by the thoughts of the future will take your mind away from the magic of the present moment.
Remember that your life does not exist outside of the present moment. We can plan for the future to give a good and useful direction to life. Once we have done that, we should come back to the present moment and make the most of it.
We will realize that when our attention is in the now, there is a deep sense of satisfaction within which does not require any external source. In the present moment, you are free from all your worries and fears. That is the true beauty of consciousness.
Some Ideas and Practices for Managing Attention
Here are a few things you can start doing to become aware of your attention.
Meditation
The practice of meditation helps you understand the nature of your mind. Close your eyes and just observe your thoughts. Do not try to control them or change them. Just observe them.
Initially, you will find it extremely difficult to do this. You will soon be dragged by the train of thoughts. But with consistent practice, you will become better at first noticing your thoughts and then controlling them.
Mindfulness
This is another very powerful tool to take hold of your attention. It takes the help of the sense perceptions to become aware of the present moment. Mindfulness is an exercise that can be done while performing daily tasks.
I recommend “The Miracle of Mindfulness” by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Spending time to reflect on your day
Every day you should take some time to go outside in nature and reflect on your day. You need to break the chain of daily thoughts from carried forth to the next day. It will allow you to start the next day fresh without carrying anything from the past.
Planning the day in advance
It really helps if you know what to do tomorrow. By preparing for the next day in advance, you will be able to move on from one task to another swiftly and without getting distracted.
Wrapping Up
Remember that attention is a very powerful tool to transform your life. Most people don’t use it consciously. But if you do, it gives you tremendous power to create something good.
Mastering your attention is a hard battle. It will take many attempts before you can truly control and direct your focus as per your will. But this is the most important battle of your life. The six keys presented in this post will work best when they are used together.
When you master your attention, you will make the best use of your talents, knowledge and hard work. You will be able to deal with any negative situation by turning your attention towards positive energy.
Over to you
Do you feel that you need to focus your attention in life? How do you control your attention and divert it from negative to positive energy? Comment below, let’s discuss!