You deserve to experience the benefits of focused attention. Multitasking and scattering your energy across many different tasks and roles leads to lowered feelings of self-efficacy, increases your stress hormones, and decreases feelings of fulfillment. Make time for yourself and uncloud your mind. Practicing body-centered exercise helps to improve your focus and mitigates many of the negative consequences of spreading yourself too thin. Over a short period, this will translate into an improvement in one’s overall wellness.
Self-efficacy
Unrealistic expectations, either self-imposed or from outside people or entities, will quickly erode your feelings of how well you may consistently stay motivated, perform particular tasks or be successful in your relationships. First and foremost, you need to slow down. So many of us are on autopilot. You go through the motions, yet your thoughts are elsewhere. Regain a level of focus that will help you restore your relationship with the present moment. This is a great place to start. Begin small and set lots of boundaries.
Try single-tasking it! When you wash dishes, wash dishes. Turn off your phone. Develop mastery of single tasks and resist the urge to multitask. Drop the need to perform multiple tasks and fulfill numerous roles simultaneously, and in time, you’ll foster realistic self-belief. You’ll come to trust that you are capable of doing your best, AND it’s more than enough.
“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”~ Seth Godin
Scattered energies rarely produce desired results
Spending a lot of time worrying, placing your thoughts on what could go wrong instead of on what you want to bring into your life? These habitual patterns can be shifted in the direction of what you truly desire, but you’re gonna need to be mindful of your focus to get there. There are as many reasons for the ‘scatter’ as there are places to scatter to. Be gentle with yourself. Your loving attention and awareness of any difficulties with the slow down are far more helpful than harsh self-critique. We become wired toward mental check outs, so it takes practice to stay regularly checked in. Having tools to become grounded are key to our success.
FOCUS. If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.
Breathe.
Simplify.
Check-in on how your inner being feels, often. Are you relaxed? Are you internally bracing?
Reset. Shift. Pivot. Move your thoughts, attention, and breath toward your center and feel your weight over your feet. Grounding is key to getting back to the present moment. Here you may decide where to place your attention next. Simple body-centered movements will help you become body aware, so you may deliberately choose your focus. When practiced, this is one tool that will help you reduce stress and increase focus more quickly.
Additional Benefits of Focused Attention
- Present Moment Awareness. Show up more fully for yourself and those around you.
- Improved Memory. When you minimize distraction and focus your attention, your senses encode the moment more completely. More of you is ‘listening.’
- Increased Groundedness and enhanced ability to become grounded with minimal effort.
- Increased Productivity and Completion of Tasks.
Being available to yourself is a gift of self love. Wait not a minute more to receive your own precious presence.
For more information and supportive services to explore movement as a means to achieve the benefits of focused attention, please visit Transform Energy With Movement and Coaching Services pages. I am wishing you much growth, healing, empowerment, and peace as you work toward having greater presence, awareness and focus in your life.
