How you react to life is more important than what happens..

What is attention anyways?

Attention is commonly understood as “the concentration of the mental powers” or “the direction or application of the mind to any object of sense or thought.

If you could look backward at your years thus far, you’d see that your life has been fashioned from what you’ve paid attention to and what you haven’t. You’d observe that of the myriad sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings that you could have focused on, you selected a relative few, which became what you’ve confidently called “reality.” You’d also be struck by the fact that if you had paid attention to other things, your reality and your life would be very different

That your experience largely depends on the material objects and mental subjects that you choose to pay attention to or ignore is not an imaginative notion, but a physiological fact.

When you focus on a stop sign or a sonnet, a waft of perfume or a stock-market tip, your brain registers that “target,” which enables it to affect your behavior. In contrast, the things that you don’t attend to in a sense don’t exist, at least for you

You can control what you focus on …

As to the idea that the ability to focus on this rather than on that gives you control over your experience and well being, we should agree about the importance of paying attention:

 “Being able to control it gives you a lot of power, because you know that you don’t have to focus on a negative emotion that comes up.”

Always look on the bight side.

As the abundance of vaguely annoying sayings such as “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” proves, the idea of restoring emotional equilibrium by refocusing on a problem in a different way is not new.

“looking at the bright side,” even in tough situations, is a powerful predictor of a longer, happier, healthier life.

Paying attention to what you pay attention to is the first step in creating the future you desire.

To help you gain awareness of what you give your attention to, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the first thing you do when you wake up?
2. What is the last thing you do before you go to bed?
3. Your home is empty, your household duties have been taken care of, and work wants you to spend an hour exploring. What do you do?
4. When you eat lunch, what else are you doing? (checking email? watching the news? working?)
5. When do you reflect?
6. How much time do you spend improving? (your marriage, your job, your speaking skills?)
7. When was the last time you’ve intentionally left your phone, computer, and other devices at home?
8. Someone anonymously gives you $500. Do you buy an item or an experience?

Taking control of what you pay attention to isn’t exactly a leisurely walk in the park. What’s important to keep in mind while making changes is that even the smallest adjustments matter.

If you add five minutes to your day, you’re on your way to improvement. It all boils down to creating boundaries around what you value (your priorities) and taking your attention away from the rest.

Considering all the above

Here are some suggestions for taking control of what you pay attention to:

1- Bring your priorities to the forefront of your life.

We all tend to chase our “to-do” lists relentlessly, which often means we’re overlooking our big and important priorities — the ones that chart the course of our lives.

The practice of thinking about what is essential on a regular basis pumps life into your priorities, making them real and approachable, and allows you to strategize what you’re going to do to create forward momentum on them. If you’re not clear on your priorities, get clear on them.

2- Improve your attention management.

 Attention Management is best described as as the “practice of controlling distractions, being present in the moment, finding flow, and maximizing focus so that you can unleash your genius.”

With good attention management, you recognize when your attention is being stolen, and instead direct your attention to things that lead you toward your priorities.

Once you get a good grasp of how valuable your attention is, you’ll feel empowered to make decisions accordingly.

It’s like the argument of saying No .

You always have a choice! And if you regularly make poor choices regarding your focus and attention, your priorities may struggle.

3- Schedule focus time into your calendar.

We do this by blocking off two hours on our calendars every week in which we cannot schedule anything. Not a meeting, not a conference, not a dentist appointment — nothing. We design time to focus on those things we’ve identified as contributors to our goals and priorities. This could be reading, writing, reflecting, researching, or a reflective walk through a museum.

As they say, where focus goes, energy flows. Make sure your energy is contributing to creating the future you desire.

Marwa is a pioneer and expert in developing projects to build revenue, profits and corporate visibility with 20 years of extensive experience in all facets of projects starting with site identification, developing and overseeing the implementation of the feasibility plans for projects; actively participating in the various financial analysis, acquisition, architectural and interior design review and tendering.

She is in the interior decoration industry since 2008, during which she has completed an impressive portfolio of residential, commercial and hospitality projects from conceptual phase till full turnkey handover . Held Senior positions in reputable firms like Al Rostamani and Noor Islamic Bank where she was working closely with top notch experts in the field .

Marwa holds an Architectural Engineering degree, PMP and Master in Project Management from the American Academy U.S.A.

To know more, please visit : www.pdcgroupconsulting.com