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.
Walking the High Wire
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
With an estimated 7.4 billion people on the planet in 2016, it can seem as though there can be nothing new under the sun, and yet new discoveries are made every day. New songs are written, paintings made, books completed, gizmos prototyped, with every passing day. Humans are a busy lot! This is possible because genetically, there has never been anyone identical to you in history. We’re all intrinsically unique, and with so many moving parts, both concrete and intangible—hopes and desires, likes and dislikes, talents and challenges; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual progress and happenings. Every day is a kaleidoscope of your interacting elements, which never cease to run through their individual cycles; yet those cycles are all timed differently, and rarely align in the same way because of the complexity of the model. To a certain extent, in trying to maintain our balance with all of our parts, we’re all trying to slog our way across a high wire bucking in a high wind.
One of the great challenges in life is that, because of our uniqueness, no one can create a formula for living that is perfect for more than one person. We can share our wins and losses with each other, and we can offer the wisdom we feel we’ve acquired, but sometimes others won’t even be able to hear the messages we’re sending let alone duplicate our successes and failures. We must all tinker with the models that have been passed down to us if our greatest possible success and happiness is what we’re after. And there’s a sort of catch-22 at play, in that we have to be in a reasonably balanced state in order to make good decisions for ourselves, but without making “good” decisions that suit our needs, it’s hard to find balance. We start by making decisions that others have told us are good, but whether they will suit our uniqueness and get us where we want to go is always the question.
When how we operate, or what we want, is sufficiently different from those around us, whether in one way or in many, we may feel particularly bewildered about what to do. Maintaining some semblance of balance is a lifelong endeavor, and there is no “done,” but it’s even harder when you’re young or when you’re striking out in new directions. Luckily, in this age of information, we have access to guidance from sources well outside our own communities, and that can be incredibly helpful in broadening our horizons. You still have to put advice into practice and try it out for yourself, and you need the patience to do this over time, as every day is different. For instance, sometimes your first attempt at something will be disastrous, but with practice you realize its merit. I once watched a fellow participant in a meditation class, a first-timer, have a full-on meltdown because she was so frightened by the prospect of confronting her internal world in silence. As soon as she tried to do it, she panicked and essentially ran screaming from the exercise. In this case, I don’t know whether she ever tried again, but I do know that many people who initially find meditation to be extremely challenging learn to love some form of it with experimentation and practice. And when I first tried EFT/Tapping, I was not even sure that I felt anything at all, but after several practice sessions, I became more and more astonished with its efficacy and usefulness. I just had to put it into practice and experiment with it for myself.
I wish I had all the answers and could make everything easier for everyone, but that’s a tall order! I’ll just have to offer some ideas here for constructing your own tool kit for navigating your own personal high wire:
· Start simply. Address your physical needs first: Eat the highest-quality food you can get your hands on, including plenty of vegetables and fruits grown with the fewest and least possible pesticides (poison to you and me); avoid refined sugars and other empty calories, in other words those foods lacking in nutrition; aim for 7+ hours of sleep per night, and try adjusting up and down to see what works best for you; get some form of exercise on a regular basis—find a way to move your body and sweat at least a little. These items form the basis of any life lived in some semblance of balance. You can’t skip them, nor can anyone who wants to remain alive in a physical body, so when you’re out of sorts, come back to these first, always.
· Ask yourself what your mental and emotional states are generally like, and spend some time noticing. Find daily practices that support healthy attitudes and emotional expression. I’ve written other blogs on these issues that you may want to check out, but in short, meditate, do affirmations about your values and your intentions, talk to supportive friends and family, write in a journal, read books about people who inspire you, use EFT or hypnosis recordings, attend meetings of like-minded others; adding a spiritual component to any of these is even better, whatever your tradition of choice might be.
· Take a look at the overall shape of your life. Are you doing work you like, are you making enough money to meet your needs, are your relationships supportive and satisfying, are there activities you look forward to experiencing when you wake up in the morning? When you answer no, think about baby steps you could take to move toward situations you’d like better. If you’re stuck, ask for help or find it in a library or online. Choose a small step to make and put your plan in motion. It’s ok if you can’t see the whole path to your destination. Just do something. Every time you make an attempt, you learn and grow.
· Do you feel a sense of purpose in life? If not, it will be hard to stay engaged in life, let alone feel inspired; look for clues in the things you loved to do as a child, in the achievements you feel best about as you think back over your life, and in the kinds of things that move you deeply in movies and books. If you suddenly had all the money in the world, and you had a year off to rest and travel and regroup, what do you think you could do all day and not get tired of? (This can take some serious imagination if you’re someone who has lived with a lot of obligations or who is chronically exhausted, but it can also be a lot of fun, and is worth trying.) You can start with a very basic idea like wanting to “help people,” “motivate others,” or “clean up messes,” and then think about your favorite skills to use to see what might be up your alley. If you love to cook, you might find that helping others could combine with that so that you envision starting a catering company that donates a percentage of meals to those in need. If you feel satisfied by cleaning up messes, and your favorite skills are in information technology, you might be able to work as a consultant to people and companies who need to get organized in the digital space. This can take effort to think through, but having a purpose that feels important and expressive of who you are is an essential component in maintaining your energy levels and your commitment to persisting in the face of difficulty, which we all face every day!
Creating and maintaining good functional balance is never going to be easy, especially in today’s fast-paced world, but if you yearn for a better life, this is unavoidable work. If you can become fascinated with the process of learning about what you need and what is key for you, that is the best solution. If you make some noticeable progress in your overall balance, your success stories will likely drive you as you continue learning and experimenting with new ideas. No one knows you as well as you know you, so trust your hunches, and try not to freak out if something you try goes badly. After all, every day is different. If you try the same thing on a different day, you might find that you get a different result. Keep reminding yourself that this is work that feeds everything you’re able to do and become, and it’s worth a great deal of effort. Over time, your ability to maintain balance will build naturally if you keep at it. Confused? Go back to basics, and as you do this repeatedly, you’ll build helpful habits that make greater flexibility and creativity possible. Celebrate your successes, learn from both success and failure, and just keep inching along that wire.
Onward and Upward
“The longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that something will happen in your favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely your success.”
Just keep going. This is one of the most important principles I know of in the grand scheme of creating a successful life. You don’t have to always be running—you can walk, skip, hop or dance—and it’s ok to take a breather now and then when you need it. But if you can build the habit of just doing what you can to move forward a little bit every day, your progress toward what you want will be much faster than if you tend to exhaust yourself and drop out, or reconsider everything when you don’t get immediate results.
In such a fast-paced world, one in which we’ve been shown that everyone can become an “overnight” success by just getting on a reality T.V. show, our expectations may have become a bit unrealistic. For most people, success is the result of years of effort, which invariable include lots of ups and downs. Even those who seem to have gotten a big, lucky break have usually spent plenty of unglamorous time preparing and wondering at times if they’d ever get anywhere. Just like the rest of us!
I would suggest that this time of uncertainty and constant application yields precious abilities, even when it seems like nothing is happening. When we keep going despite resistance, worry, boredom, and annoyance, we’re building a habit of focus and healthy stubbornness that can serve us throughout life. Of course, I’m not implying that we should be so stubborn that we never consider our results and adjust course, or listen to the constructive feedback of others. I am in favor or each person dancing to their own drummer, though; you must ultimately be the one who decides what is right for you, and sometimes even the most well-intentioned advice must be ignored if it doesn’t seem right to you and for you. Some of the people who have invented the most astonishing things throughout history have been told over and over that creating what they saw in their mind’s eye was impossible. They kept going and perfected those things anyway. Healthy stubbornness in action!
There are many ways to keep yourself going when it’s difficult and uncomfortable to do so. I suggest broadening your tool set so that you have a better chance of staying in the game when the going gets frustrating. For example:
· Figure out what motivates you and roll with it. Are you someone whose abilities wake up when you’re moving toward something good, or working to outrun something you fear? Most of us respond somewhat to both, but you may find that one or the other is more effective for you. If you like to imagine moving toward something you want, remind yourself at least once a day what you’re working toward by imagining it vividly—preferably numerous times per day. This will bring you little surges of energy and the ability to recommit to your task every time you do it. You can also give yourself a little pep talk here and there and remind yourself of the progress you’ve made. If you get fired up when you imagine moving away from something bad, you can imagine something like that instead—see, hear, and feel people talking about how you failed and they knew you’d never amount to anything, etc. For most people, far more repetitions of the positive style of motivation is best, but throwing in a vision of what you definitely don’t want can sometimes add some spice to the mix.
· Take care of your physical needs without fail. Don’t skip meals, but keep them healthy. Get regular exercise, which builds energy and helps manage stress and lift your moods, and stretch your muscles to stay limber. Get at least seven hours of sleep per night. Brush and floss. You get the picture.
· Tell only the people you know you can trust to be supportive about your big goals. The last thing you need is a lot of negativity from people who think small, or are threatened by your unique vision.
· Commit to being a lifelong learner. No one starts off as an expert. We all build expertise in the areas we choose over time, and it never happens overnight. You don’t have to keep up with all information all the time, but you do need to keep up with your chosen field of interest, and again, it’s a fast-paced world out there. This will take some time and attention always if you want to be good at what you do, but it will also keep exposing you to the brilliance of others, which is inspiring.
· Find ways to blow off steam when you hit road blocks. Do or watch something that makes you laugh yourself silly. Spend time with friends. Volunteer for a worthy cause and get your mind off your own troubles. Spend some time on a hobby that just makes you feel good. Read biographies of successful people, who I guarantee went through hard times before they became famous and respected for their contributions. Write out your woes in a journal. Go outside and enjoy the natural world.
· Be willing to rethink your strategy as you try things and learn from your experiences. Consult others who have done something similar for advice and a change of perspective.
· If you crash and burn or fall off the wagon in some way, know that everyone experiences failure sometimes, and we often learn far more from these episodes than from we do from smooth sailing. Failures and mistakes may feel terrible when they’re happening, but they are not the end unless we decide they are. If you’re still alive, there’s still more left within you.
· Remind yourself that what you have to give is unique and important. Even if it’s not yet ready or not yet connecting with an audience or customers, someone out there needs and is waiting for what you have to offer.
For some people, succeeding to a level that feels satisfying takes far longer than they ever hoped or imagined. If this is you, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—this is a very common human experience. We can’t always know beforehand exactly what will get us to our destination. Just keep taking a step forward every time you can, keep learning, and above all, just keep going.
The Upward Path
“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Among the needs that humans have in the esteem category is the need to feel our own capacity, in other words our ability to handle life as its events wash over us. We all long to feel that we are enough. In fact, in my work with clients, I often find that most of us have a deep-seated horror of not being enough that keeps us in a lack mentality, which in turn continually stimulates the body’s stress response. Numerous factors can feed this vicious cycle, including the amped-up messages we receive daily in many modern cultures that no one is ever enough, that we must all be striving to be the best at all things all the time—which of course is a losing battle, because no one person ever could be. In the end, no one else can decide for you that you are enough. You must simply decide yourself that you are. Maslowe identified several ways in which we seek satisfaction in the process of making this decision, some of which we’ve already covered, some of which we address this week, and some of which we’ll look at next week. Since the highest rung on the ladder of capacity that can be achieved through learning and practice is generally known as mastery, that is where we will set our sights today. This is within the reach of most of us, and a worthy goal to strive for.
One can be a master of information, or of practice, or of both. Someone can have expert-level understanding of a subject matter area, yet be unable to produce results in that area. That person is still a master of intellectual knowledge, and that can be incredibly useful if applied in some way or passed on to others who can apply it. Someone else can be a master of doing something with a high degree of excellence, but be unable to explain it, and lack the benefits that come with studying widely on the subject. He may have focused on results only, and sought only the coaching and information that was absolutely necessary to keep moving forward. This too can be extremely useful, as this kind of mastery leaves a trail that others can analyze and duplicate, and again pass on to others. The master who is most revered, though, is often the one who both understands a subject deeply and can demonstrate that knowledge through action and the creation of exceptional outcomes. This person is often widely influential. She is likely to receive feedback from others to that effect, which helps her to feel significant—but that’s next week’s topic! I’m getting ahead of myself.
Thoreau famously claimed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” and I think most of us know all too well what he was getting at. Many people fail to find ways to live with purpose, verve, and the feelings of self-esteem we’re addressing here. So if we all desire feelings of competence, and building mastery in any area is helpful in producing those feelings, why don’t more of us commit to striving for mastery? Well, how about: Life is not easy, first of all. Second, if we are not stubbornly purposeful about setting a course and continually working to stay on it, it’s so darned easy to be distracted by what others want for us, by the demands of others, by pain, by pleasure, by loud noises, and heck, by shiny objects! You name it, we’re curious about it. And that’s fine. That’s all part of life. But if we don’t allow ourselves to apply our innate abilities to the pursuit of mastery, we miss out on one of the grander adventures it’s possible to have on this planet.
The process of blossoming into mastery is one filled with drama. I remember years ago hearing Marianne Williamson make the distinction between the “cheap drama” that prevails when you’re living a petty, childish, self-absorbed life, and the worthy drama that remains part of your experience when you’ve grown into a more authentic, mature person. (I’m paraphrasing from memory here, so apologies to Ms. Williamson if something is lost in my translation.) I loved this concept, and I think this applies to growing into mastery as well. Truly mastering nearly anything requires treading a long road that includes difficulty and constant effort and change. It includes learning from others who are available to you, even when you know they’re not the best teachers or you don’t love their personalities. It also includes the necessity of eventually throwing off the strictures of what has been done before, just as a teenager must assert personal independence through acts of rebellion (on whatever scale) in order to become an adult. There will be times when you have support and help, and others when you don’t; portions of the road will inevitably be lonely and dark. At times your prospects will seem hopeless as you hit barriers that seem final. You will lose things along the way, which is part of the price of the journey. You will gain many others, including successes and personal strengths that can’t be taken from you. The empowerment that results from reaching the mountaintop at the end of the road is one of life’s peak experiences (another concept originated by Maslowe, by the way—what a guy). If you ask anyone who you consider to be a master of a subject or a skill set, I think you’ll find that his or her story of the path that lead to mastery was full of ups and downs, and expressed the truly meaningful drama inherent in striving for excellence through exhilarating highs and frightening lows.
While some of this may sound pretty good, the hard parts are no joke. Most of us are never taught the skills that make up the strength known as discipline. Most of us are petrified of discomfort, for instance, and are never given strategies for dealing with it in a healthy manner so that we can keep moving toward our mountaintop. Most of us lack basic knowledge about maintaining the health and balance of the body, mind, emotions and spirit. Many of us were never shown the basics of organization, which is necessary for keeping everything together through a long and taxing effort. Many of us were not instructed in the development of focus and techniques on restoring it when it has evaporated. You can expect more on these topics in blogs up ahead. But those who are keenly aware that they are missing essential pieces in these areas will lack the confidence to take on a process that can be as grueling as the effort toward mastery.
For those who do venture out onto the path, and who persevere through all the strangeness they encounter, life becomes far fuller and richer. Whatever they are able to achieve is far more than they had before, and more than those who never try will ever have. Now, I believe all human life has value, and that we need not be on a path toward mastery in order to be worthy. We still have the power to decide for ourselves that we are worthy for any reason or no reason at all, and in fact I recommend it! Doing so tends to immediately make life feel better, and that tends to enliven our energy and creativity, which in my world is pretty much always a good thing. But if we are able, why not try to wring the most juice out of life that we can? Feeling that we are competent, that we have done good things, and that we can do more is a major component of building self-esteem. Why not reach for something grand and see how far we can climb?
It’s worthy of mention that yet higher than mastery is the realm of genius, but that is reached only when mastery is combined with natural talent to yield the astonishing feats of someone at the pinnacle of his or her area of endeavor. Therefore, as you consider what to master, I highly recommend choosing something that ignites your curiosity with the flame of passion. When you love a subject, learning is a joy, even a happy compulsion. It will be a lot easier to keep going if you always have that flame keeping you lit from within. It will also attract others with its brilliance and power, which can open up opportunities as you reach milestones and require new resources. Now, off you go! If you’re not yet on the path to mastery, dig deep for ideas about where you can place your target. The pace and the goal are entirely up to you, and your business only. What mountain do you want to scale? What's a tiny step you can take to begin?
*I was influenced in this post by some of the resources listed here, including a great book called Mastery.