Today, Kim and Tony discuss the importance and power of developing and maintaining focus. They offer tips for building focus during day-to-day activities and the little changes you can make in your life to really cultivate a trained, focused mind. This focus will assist you in all areas of your life because they’re all interconnected, so what helps you stay on task at work will help you in your health and beauty endeavors, as well.
CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast now!
Why Is Focus So Important?
Focus is very much connected with your power and your ability to direct your energy and your willpower. Willpower and focus are linked in a way that allows you to consistently make those proper choices every day and to feel what’s going on in your body. It allows you to sense others around you—whether they have positive, supportive energy or negative energy.
If you’re scattered, you’re more impulsive, and that leads you to make poor choices, give in to cravings, or do the things you know aren’t good for you. You become more reactionary. Focus allows you to align with who you really are and make the food and lifestyle choice that serve you, gain serenity, have less stress, and achieve better health and beauty.
Today’s Society Doesn’t Help
Society is focused on what you’re doing—constant movement at all times. Take some time to step back to create mindfulness and practice tuning in. You become more focused that way and know what really serves you.
Focus from a Health Standpoint
Your ability to focus and organize your time makes everything easier. There’s flow, you can organize your life. You start to realize there may be a better day to grocery shop or prepare your food and you start to make time for those things on those days. When you’re not focused, you feel overwhelmed and like you don’t have the time. You feel out of alignment and everything in your life suffers.
Remove Distractions Where You Can
- Change your homepage on your web browser to something that won’t tempt you to click on links to read stories that you don’t need to read first thing in the morning.
- Identify little spots of your day that may be wasting time. It’s personal, so you have to figure it out for yourself. If you have a blind spot and think you may be missing something, ask someone around you.
- Turn off excessive phone notifications (for example, for emails) so you can maintain your focus throughout a task and gain depth of focus. The greater the depth of the focus, the more powerful it is, but that focus needs to be unbroken in order to achieve depth.
- What you see affects your focus, like things on your desk or food in your office that you keep around. Don’t keep things in your space that you don’t feel are positive and helpful.
The Snowball Effect of Focus
Focus creates itself. The discipline creates more and becomes a positive loop because as you focus, you become clearer on what’s important to you, what’s working. When you’re focused and it feels good, you’re productive and you want to create more of that.
Focus isn’t just about controlling your attention, though. It’s about recognizing what will take you off-course and not indulging those things.
Stay prepared and focus on the small steps you can do to achieve a greater goal. For example, do one focused grocery trip to stock your fridge, you’re less likely to order takeout. The time commitment of cooking a healthy meal is no greater than what it would be to order food and pick it up.
Everything Is Interrelated
Every part of your life is interrelated, so you can become more disciplined and focused with your work and be more efficient there, then find that your energy is heightened enough to go do a workout after work. From there, you’ll feel more inspired to make healthier food choices. Make sure to reward yourself after small, set amounts of time spent focusing on a task so you create a pleasurable, powerful association with focus.
Tips for Improving Your Ability to Focus
- Practice mindfulness throughout the day. Stay present in each moment, whether you’re eating, having a conversation.
- Put a sign on your desk that reminds you to be present.
- Practice yoga, which trains you to focus on your breath in the present.
- Start time-blocking. Carve out pockets of time for specific tasks that serve you. For example, put “Make GGS” on the calendar for 9:15 to 9:30. Remind yourself what that block of time is for and follow through. A habit will be developed over time.
- Don’t turn your phone on (or off of airplane mode) until you’ve had at least five minutes to meditate, planned your goals for the day, done your morning routine, and gotten settled.
- Recognize what’s important to you and see what’s puling you away (sometimes it’s people). Create a space where that person or that energy isn’t a distraction. Go to your room and close the door, go to the library, visit a coffee/tea shop, etc.
- Avoid distractions in the way you plan your day. Go straight from work to yoga class so you won’t get distracted at home and never make it to class.
- If you have something you really want to focus on and someone else wants to pull your attention away, remember you’re not doing them any favors by hurting yourself. You could strengthen and inspire that person by setting an example of good focus.
Great podcast! Please do one on overcoming sugar addiction and one on the chakras!