Do you have problems focusing on what you are doing?
Are people rolling their eyes when you don’t finish yet another task?
Are you repeatedly telling yourself and others something is too hard to do?
Are you angry at other people because you think it’s their fault you don’t get things done?
There are many reasons people are really bad at focusing. These can be physical, mental, organisational and behavioural.
This may have been a problem many times in your life and has caused repeated problems for you or you have missed endless opportunities.
It is also likely that those around you see you as someone who has trouble achieving the goals you say you want to achieve.
Here are some of the reasons you may have trouble focusing:
► You may be really unfit so your body is unable to carry the oxygen it needs to your brain which means you are operating at a lower mental capacity.
► Your diet may be unhealthy so you are nutritionally deficient. Yes, you may carry weight because you eat a lot of empty calories but you have an essential vitamin and mineral shortage.
► You’re disorganised and prioritise frivolous things above what is really important so you waste time on trivia. It’s a bit like dreaming about what Christmas decorations you will put up when your house is burning down.
► You don’t listen to good advice. When a money expert tells you how to make a million dollars, because they are the expert at making money, you belligerently are determined to do it your way and waste time making silly mistakes.
► You get bored and choose seemingly easier options because you are addicted to what you think are cheap and effortless solutions, but cheap solutions produce cheap results, poorer value and you get what you pay for in life and relative to the amount of effort you put into a task.
Here in this video is me focusing and dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy at 65 years of age. Its’ technically a very demanding piece that dancers a third of my age find hard and takes a lot of practice and focus.
Most people who are poor at focusing are mentally undisciplined.
Maybe your parents or teachers didn’t train you to apply yourself repetitiously until you have completed a task.
This means you did not develop the ability to go back to a task again and again until you have achieved your goal, no matter how hard it may seem.
So you developed a low stress threshold and constantly run away from what you need to do at the slightest sign of discomfort.
Here’s what to do:
1. Look after your body and your diet. It’s a biological machine and only works well when you give it what it needs including the right food at the right time. You abuse it, you lose it.
2. Exercise regularly every week. It pumps blood to the brain, gets rid of old broken-down brain cells and initiates new neural growth and pathways. If you are a couch potato, you will achieve what a potato achieves.
3. Spend time every single day training your mind to focus on the goals you have set for yourself – no excuses. Nothing happens by itself and people who practice disciplines of the mind regularly are the big achievers in life.
4. Learn from those who can do what you want to do. Pay attention to experts and what they are telling you, no matter how small. Success is in the detail.
5. Set your schedule to do the things you need to do at appointed times and don’t deviate from the schedule.
6. Stop being distracted by easier things to do that require little effort. Knowledge plus effort equals results. There is no short cut.
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