So Much Happier Blog
Squirrel!
“The direction of your focus is the direction your life will move. Let yourself move toward what is good, valuable, strong and true.”
In last week’s blog about time management, I mentioned that creating change requires focus, creativity, and persistence. This week I’d like to zero in on focus. The achievement of any long-term goal requires sustained application of focused effort and attention, so let’s consider what this means and how we can bring focus to bear for maximum results.
Focus is:
· Cultivating the ability to apply your consciousness to a goal in the present moment so that you can get high-quality work done
· Tuning out everyday distractions like ambient noise, junk mail, and anything else unimportant that might tempt you to swing your attention away from what is important to you
· Keeping any fears and doubts that crop up along the way in perspective so that they don’t stop you short
· Continually returning to the work that needs to be done in order to keep your project moving
Bringing all of your mental powers to the subject at hand requires that you live in such a way that you’re prepared to do so when it’s time. There’s no way around it—if you want to stay the course over time and reach your biggest goals, you have to take care of yourself, consuming adequate nutrition, getting the amount of sleep that is optimal for you most of the time, and managing your mind and emotions. It takes practice to build your attention span and to keep returning your busy mind to the task in front of you, as well as a strong, calm emotional center. Meditation is, in my experience, one of the best tools for creating these abilities and conditions, and I suggest that you look for a variety that suits you and practice it to help support your ability to focus. If you get into the habit of calming your mind, you supercharge your capacity to expand your attention span and the quality of attention you’re capable of offering to any given task or person.
In order to resist the senseless pull of distractions, you need to devote time to reminding yourself of what you’re working so hard for. You need to imagine vividly and savor the sweet rewards of achieving your goal before you do so, constantly remembering the compelling reasons why it’s worth the effort so you can stay inspired. And you need to attend to uncomfortable emotions that arise and make it difficult for you to stay on task. Tapping/EFT is a fantastic help in this, as it can make it much quicker and easier to process and release emotional buildup, and clarify any actions you authentically want to take from a calm, balanced place so you don’t make mistakes by acting impulsively.
It’s a great idea to make sure that your workspace is clean, uncluttered, and comfortable enough for you to spend time there. If you can make it attractive and fun to be in, even better. Making sure you can play music you like, look at artwork you love, and have supplies at hand that are colorful and appealing can all be important. This is worth your thought and effort, because everything you can do to make your work enjoyable helps to keep you engaged—if you like your environment, it will be easier to be productive.
Time management is also important to protecting your ability to focus, as if you’re always hurrying and overwhelmed, you’ll find it hard to be fully present where you are and get your best work done. It’s important to find time for everything that’s a priority in your life even if it means slowing the pace of your progress toward your goals. If time management is hard for you, go back and read last week’s blog again for ideas about how to regain some control over your schedule. There are some basic skills we all need to work on that make working effectively with time possible, but it’s not something we tend to get a lot of formal support for. It’s also very unglamorous to do the work to build these skills, so it may not seem like an attractive way to spend our time. Even so, these skills make so much more possible that it makes sense to do it anyway.
If you’ve done your best with all of these points and you’re still struggling, it might be a good time to consider whether you could use some help. Maybe you just need some support from a friend or through coaching, or maybe you’re dealing with a specific issue like a learning disability (there are lots of great resources and techniques for coping with these now) or ADD/ADHD. Before I knew adults with ADD who could explain it to me, I can safely say that I was not aware of just how different someone else’s inner world could be from mine, despite having had a variety of experiences as well as a history of relating to eclectic friends. There are chemical conditions like this one, depression, and others that can make everyday tasks a struggle beyond what most people encounter. If you suspect that you may be in this boat, get some more information and find a professional to help guide you as you explore your personal experience and your options. Any unnecessary struggle is a waste of your time and vital energy, plus it’s just super frustrating and demoralizing. There is help available if you just reach out for it.
Next week we’ll explore the importance of developing persistence, which also strongly supports focus. In the meantime, I hope this gives you a few things to think about as you look for ways to optimize your happiness and productivity.
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
“It’s easy to not feel misplaced if this tidal wave of appreciation is coming your way.”
Last week we looked at the importance of gaining significant skills in some area of your choice as a way to bolster self-worth. The second part of Maslowe’s posited esteem needs is, in his own words, “the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people), recognition, attention, importance, or appreciation.” He found that, even if we feel great about our accomplishments, abilities, and our value from within, it’s important that the reactions of others align with our assessment. If they don’t, if we haven’t clearly earned the respect and commendation of others for having produced something valuable, we will likely feel unsatisfied until the respect of others does show up.
Humans exist within an evolutionary dynamic in which we tend to be always reaching for new ideas, better solutions, and more progress—not just biologically, but with our hearts, minds, and spirits as well. This all makes sense, as thriving in a constantly changing world like ours requires the ability to adapt just as constantly. We wouldn’t have survived for long as a species without this drive to adapt and grow. Since we’re social beings, it also makes sense that to be considered valuable within a group, it helps for an individual to be good at contributing to the progress of the group, rather than just his own. In the harsh climates of centuries past, it was extremely difficult to survive alone; if one was not important to a societal group, one’s very survival could be on the line. Perhaps the reason we long for the adulation of others for our contributions is that, without it, we still feel vulnerable and afraid of being banished as the weakest link. In the modern world, even though most of don’t live in tribal cultures anymore, it can still be horrifying to contemplate being deemed unimportant or unworthy by family, colleagues, friends or other communities.
Even if we’re not as afraid as all that, it can also be frustrating to have given our all to something only to find that others don’t value it as we do, or as we thought they would. Such miscalculations may tempt us to doubt the very abilities and results that we were proud of, and to doubt our worth. I’m sure you’ve been through something like this, and it does not feel good! Being out of synch with others can make you feel alone even if you're not. It’s hard to hold onto your sense of self-worth if you continually receive the message from others that your contributions are not valued, and you're profoundly different from others.
On the other hand, the perks of adulation, of succeeding in earning the respect of others and enjoying a good reputation, have always been worth having. In the distant past, if you had the best reputation for valuable skills and abilities, you might have become a tribal leader with access to all the best resources. You might have lived in the best location, had your choice of a mate, and had a disproportionate say in the decisions affecting the group. Today, it’s not so different. You might achieve your share of all of the above (house, spouse, platform from which to influence others), plus a lot more autonomy in directing your future separate from any group. The prevalent cultures today favoring individualism, the universal nature of money in today’s world, and the relative ease of travel mean more personal freedom for those who now succeed in gaining respect and reputation. You might even earn some degree of fame (the extreme version of recognition), which can open even more doors for you. These are the very things for which people have vied across centuries. Wars are still waged for these things by those who see no way to gain them except through force. We humans cannot seem to help wanting the privileges that come with the respect of others across time and cultures.
In fact, in a study done by the Harvard Business Review and Tony Schwartz that surveyed nearly 20,000 people, referenced here, workers who responded that they were treated with respect by higher-ups “reported 56% better health and well-being” than those who didn’t! So not only do we crave the respect of others, but when we don’t think we’re getting it, our very health is likely to suffer, in many cases significantly. Plenty of other research corroborates this story. If that’s not an argument for thinking deeply about how you can earn a more satisfactory level of appreciation from others, I don’t know what is—going without it is bad for you!
How, then, can we address a perceived lack of respect and appreciation from others? Some ideas:
- While it’s a lot of fun to spend our time doing and creating things we enjoy ourselves, if you want appreciation from others, you’ll need to think about how your contributions benefit or please others. Be willing to try on the way others think, even if it’s foreign to you. You might find that doing so is a lot more fun than missing out on some of the perks discussed above.
- Once you’ve thought that through, you’ll need to work on adapting in order to provide experiences or results that others will respect and enjoy. I am not saying that in working in this area you need to leave behind the pursuits that please you, not at all, but you may need to be receptive to the idea of branching out.
- If those from whom you most want respect are significantly different from you in values and preferences, there may come a time when you need to admit to yourself that what it would take to earn respect from them is unacceptable to you. While this kind of impasse can be quite disappointing, there is also power in accepting that you need to find your respect and appreciation elsewhere, and let go of any fruitless power struggles; those can waste a lot of your energy, and people only really change of their own accord. If you’re trying to make them change, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
- From a perspective shared by most of the world’s major religions, compassion for others expressed by helping someone in need for no personal gain at all is its own reward. Yet, because this is a widely held perspective, and because receiving appropriate help and love from someone who expects no return often feels good to the receiver, this too can lead to the respect of others and a favorable reputation. This is a different route toward these than mastery of a particular skill set. If you lack confidence in your own ability to shine in other ways, or you are someone who is more inspired by the idea of gaining respect for having and sharing personal qualities such as kindness and generosity, then you can bolster this area of your life by focusing on giving more while still maintaining your own health and balance.
Earning the respect of others is a collaborative process. It requires listening and responding to feedback. You have to be willing to find ways to surprise, delight, and benefit others, and to enjoy the process of co-creation. The good news is that in many ways we are hard-wired to cooperate for mutual benefit, and when we do receive the approbation of others, it tends to be a pretty darned enjoyable experience. It won’t do to ignore your own opinion of yourself; that must be maintained through meaningful accomplishments and the expression of personal qualities that you yourself can decide are valuable. But the innate desire we have to be considered worthy by others is important to our happiness and health. If this area of your life feels a bit empty, you may make big gains in your overall satisfaction by spending some time in consideration of how to improve it followed by some tailored action. I wish you great success in your efforts to value yourself and to be appreciated for your work and your fine qualities.