Keeping distractions away
It is important to begin this article by asserting that self leadership is illusory without the ability to keep distractions away. In other words, until you overcome distractions, leading yourself remains a dream that will never come to pass. This is because on daily basis, several things will be competing for your attention and time and thereby contending for yourself which you intend to lead at the same time. In the last article, we saw how taking actions base on personal justifications can make us unique and enhance our originality. The one thing that was not mention in that article is the reciprocity of attention. In other words, attention is reciprocal. That is to say that attention faces a supply and demand dynamics between the environment and an individual. Put it another way; the more attention you are given, the more your attention will be demanded and this demand for your attention is one underlying reason for which you must be equip with the knowledge necessary for keeping distractions away. Another reason why the ability to keep distraction is necessary is the subject of taking personal initiative which was earlier discussed. The point here is that a high level of mastery in the art of taking personal initiative can attract some distractions in the sense that you will see some things that appear good which you would love to associate with. Therefore, at this point it is the knowledge of keeping distractions away that will enable you to determine at every point in time what you settle for.
What is distraction? The dictionaries are saturated with wonderful definitions which can make us to have the impression that distraction is one enemy that appear every time with the attire of a masquerade. But you see, over the years, experience has proven that it is good things, people, and opportunities that constitute real distractions most times. In fact, herein lays the difficulty in keeping distractions away. A good illustration for this is the biblical history found in John chapter six. The Scripture has it that after the miracle where Jesus Christ used five loaves of bread and two fishes to feed over five thousand people with a leftover of twelve baskets, the people planned to take him by force and make him king but he escaped. Now the question is, is becoming a king a bad thing? If it is not, then why did he escape? The answer to that question is, whereas kingship is honourable, yet earthly kingship was not part of the purpose for which he was on earth. Therefore, with respect to his purpose on earth, an honourable and good thing like kingship was a distraction. The main point here is that distraction does not necessary wear the garment of a monster. Good opportunities, good things, and even good people can constitute distraction. If this is the case of distraction, how then can one overcome distractions in order to have an effective self leadership?
First, define your goals and remain focus. Goals are those things you plan to achieve within a stipulated time which will move you closer to achieving your overall purpose in life. This takes us back to the first article on self discovery – you cannot lead the self you do not know or have not discovered. When your goals are in place and you are committed to achieving them, in other words you stay focus; then you are a step away from distraction. For instance, a law student whose overall purpose in life is to become a legal advocate for the poor, his/her daily goals as a student might be studying his/her law books for six hours every day in addition to attending to lectures and assignments. Now, when goals are well defined, whatever does not support the achievement of such goals becomes a distraction no matter how good the thing is.
Second, be skilful in distinguishing among ‘the urgent and important’, ‘the not urgent but important’, and ‘the urgent but not important’. Those things in your life that are urgent and important are those things that you must give immediate attention. An assignment given in school to be submitted in 24 hours time is urgent and important. An examination in school is important and could be urgent. For instance, once in school, there was students’ protest which led to the temporary closure of the school. This happened the week the school was to start her first semester examination and therefore, examination was suspended. Students were informed that they are to resume writing the suspended examinations in seven weeks time. Then, on the fourth week, there was a meeting of the senate which shortened the seven weeks to five weeks meaning that students were to resume a week after that meeting. This new resumption date made the examination which is important, urgent to all students and therefore, any student who was into any project with the intention that he/she will finish up latest by the sixth week and prepare for exams had to suspend such project. This is because success in the examination is part of the goals that will culminate into the achievement of each student’s overall goal in school. The important but not urgent are things that you can do with time but which must not be left undone. For instance, an assignment given in class but not to be submitted is important but not urgent. This means that you must do it as soon as possible because it can constitute an examination question when the time comes. A particular technical or soft skill you know will be an added advantage in your career is important but not urgent. When faced with dead time (which was discussed under taking personal initiative), attending to things that are important but were not urgent can be a good way of maximizing such time. When things are urgent but not important, then you do not need an oracle to tell you that such things are pure distractions. A popular story is told of a medical student who schooled far away from home. To and fro his home from school could take four days by road. Now, a day to starting his final examinations, he received an urgent call from home that his old father was dead and that as the first and only son he must see the face of the father before the man is put into the mortuary! The young man was faced with two options: forgoing his final examination for the face of his late father and forgoing the face of his late father for his final examinations. Well, fortunately for him, he was able to overcome the distraction, so he sat for the examinations and graduated successfully. Contained in biblical history is an incidence that gives a picture of a situation of urgency without importance. It is the scenario between Joseph the son of Jacob and Potiphar’s wife. The line of the event reads: “she grabbed him by his outer garment, saying, ‘have sex with me!’ But he left his outer garment in her hand and ran outside” (Genesis 39:12. NET Bible). Joseph had an urgent demand to engage in sexual intercourse but that demand though urgent was not important and hence a distraction. Had Joseph given attention to that distraction, his entire dreams (purpose in life) would have been forfeited. This implies that the urge and demand for sexual intercourse can come urgently on us but as long as it is outside marriage, then it is not important and should not be attended to because it is simply a distraction. Finally on this point, the skill of making a clear distinction among ‘the urgent and important’, ‘the not urgent but important’, and ‘the urgent but not important’ comes through practice and sensitivity.
Third, be sincere with yourself. The subject of being sincere is also linked to self discovery. In specific terms, it is all about understanding your strengths and weaknesses and operating within your capacity at a given time. Some people may see ‘operating within capacity’ as limitation. To them, you must stretch. Well, to balance it, the point is this, it is good to stretch, but it is better to stretch with the consciousness of your capacity per time so that if the stretch does not touch the target, frustration and discouragement will not set in. For instance, you know that you are not good in creative writing but there is this writing competition you admire and would like to partake, so you stretch by doing some reading on writing, reading other creative write ups, and spending sleepless nights to practise writing. If you finally do not make it to the final stage of that competition, the knowledge of your capacity and the awareness that you only wanted to give a trial will not allow you to feel discourage and frustrated. Back to the subject of being sincere; a student who is not sincere with his/her self is the type that knows very well that he/she is not good in mathematics, in fact, he/she had been an art student right from high school and now as an undergraduate he/she is studying linguistics but because there is a mathematics competition for undergraduates in which winners will receive thousands of dollars, he/she quickly begins studying and attending mathematics classes in order to participate in the competition abandoning his/her linguistic textbooks! Well, it is good to desire good things, but the fact is that some things cannot be gotten in a day or a month but can take years and sometimes requires practice, patience and pursuit. Another typical student who is not sincere with his/her self is the type that will spend his/her precious time applying for scholarships and fellowships for which he/she does not meet the eligibility criteria. Overcoming distractions by being sincere requires that you embrace the incentives that pertain to things you are very good at and avoid the ones you know you are weak at even though you may be working on becoming good at them.
Fourth, keep the big picture in focus. The first point raised above was defining your goals and remaining focus. Keeping the big picture in focus is closely related to this. It is specifically concerned with ensuring that the goals which have been defined which we herein refer to as the ‘big picture’ is deeply rooted in your consciousness. To achieve this, you may need to map out your big picture on a cardboard and paste it where you will always see it. It is worthy of note that it is this consciousness of where you are going to that will help you to identify distractions. Therefore, the picture of your destination must be very clear in your mind to the extent that if what looks like it appears you will be able to discriminate. The practice of keeping the big picture in focus can be seen in biblical history: Abraham was given the promise that he was going to be a father of many nations. After some times, it was as if the promise was not going to become a reality. Therefore, in order to keep Abraham focused on the big picture, the Lord God of Israel said to him "look up into the heavens and count the stars if you can. Your descendants will be like that-too many to count!" (Genesis 15:5. TLB). By this, God was amplifying in Abraham the consciousness of the reality of where he was going to. In other words, God had to present to him a graphical representation of the promise he had. He was made to see, his mind was given something to behold that will keep it away from distracting thoughts and perhaps from the pressures that may come from Sarah – Abraham’s wife. Therefore, keeping the big picture in focus can keep us away from the distractions that come from our minds and from the people around us. When you are convicted and your mind is overwhelmed with the picture of where you are aiming at, or what you want to achieve, no matter the distractions that comes in form of internal and external discouragement, you will keep forging ahead. In other words, you will keep distractions underfoot and maintain an edge in leading yourself.
Fifth, deal with idle moments. Idle moments in itself may not bring distractions but may be the period when distractions will have opportunity to trap us. Therefore, dealing with idle moments can be very helpful in keeping distractions away. One way of dealing with idle moments is building a system of personal development and remaining religiously committed to it. What does this entails? It starts from self discovery! When you know yourself, which also involves knowing your purpose in life, then you can have a working plan of how you intend to grow in order to meet up with the fulfilment of your purpose. For instance, if your purpose in life is to own a foundation that will look into the health of rural people, then, if you are in school studying public health, in addition to your conventional school activities you should map out a plan of things you will do when there are no conventional school activities. It is simple to have called those things hobbies but the issue is that although we can employ our hobbies in dealing with idle moments, however some of us have hobbies that are antagonistic with our goals. Therefore, things you will do when there are no conventional school activities should be things that supports your purpose like reading books on: establishing a foundation, the economics of a foundation, etc. It could be volunteering or interning for/at similar foundations. Whatever you do at such period when you should have been idle, whether or not it is part of your hobbies, it should be geared towards the achievement of your goals which in turn moves you towards the achievement of your overall purpose in life. Also, referring to the article on taking personal initiative, things you need to know which you do not know as yet which can contribute to your personal development are things that should help you expel idle moments. In other words if you have discovered things you need to know, then when there are no conventional school activities, these are the knowledge you should go for instead of being idle. And from experience, if you have such attitude, you are most likely to discover more things that you need to know as already discovered ones are satisfied, meaning there will be no moment where you will have nothing to do.
Sixth, have mastery of your world. It is sad to know that some people are controlled by the things they have! How can you explain a situation where an undergraduate student will spend between 5 to 7 hours every day on social media! If he/she was using that time to promote his/her business or carry out some studies related to his/her course, it would have been understood but he/she is using such precious time to ‘like’ every post on the news feed! It is so pathetic that even in the lecture hall with lectures going on, a students’ attention is buried in the phone. A person who has mastery of his/her world is that individual who can switch off his/her phone when necessary. He/she knows that it is not a crime to have missed calls. Having mastery of your world means being able to control the things you have including your television. Does this mean you should not watch television? No! But it means that you should not allow it to control you. Watching it should not be at the detriment of things that are urgent and important. For instance, it might be out of place for a student to spend six to eight hours daily watching soccer when he/she is not studying soccer in school neither planning/preparing for a career in soccer nor refereeing. Having mastery of your world also include being able to manage relationships. In fact, distractions from relationships are most times the most difficult to handle. It is easy to switch off your phone or it may even be faulty but it is most times difficult to keep a distracting friend or relative at distance. However difficult it might seem, it is what must be done – control your relationships (both consanguineal and non-consanguineal). It is popularly said that you can talk to everybody but you cannot be close to everybody. Therefore, choose your friends wisely knowing that “wise friends make you wise, but you hurt yourself by going around with fools” (Proverbs 13:20. CEV). A lady once told of how she politely informed her girlfriend not to be visiting her in the hostel again but should restrict every meeting to faculty. This was because every time the friend visited, she lamented, it was to gossip a student or a lecturer. A lad also told of how he said to his friend, “please you cannot visit me again, I like to face my studies but you like to face girls and any time you visit it is because there is a new girl you want to meet with”. These were people who were able to detect what happens in their world. You can do as well but the advice is, do not destroy relationships, but you can suspend them – you can politely and diplomatically stop some people from seeing you or stop seeing some people while you use your busy schedule as an excuse. Controlling relationships also include letting your blood relatives know their limits with respect to your life. In other words, let them know your goals at every point in time and how they can support you to achieve them and also let them know in a polite and diplomatic manner each time their actions are antagonistic with those goals. Consanguineal relationships could be distracting at times. That was why Abraham on his way to offer Isaac as a sacrifice according to divine instruction said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we'll come back to you." (Genesis 22:5 HCSB). Had Abraham not suspend his relationship with his servants at that point, the likelihood is that he would not have been able to express his obedience to the divine instruction because the young men would probably not have watched him tie up Isaac (the only son of Sarah which came when she was ninety) to the point of sacrificing before God intercepted. Therefore, for him to fulfil his purpose, it was expedient that the relationship be suspended. But then, look at the last line of his statement “we'll come back to you”! This means you can always go back to a suspended relationship and make something better out of it. Things do not remain constant, as times changes, people also change. So that person with an ugly attitude today can be an angel in future. This is why relationships should not be destroyed because a misfit relationship today can be a perfect match tomorrow. A relationship that is not helpful today can be helpful in future. Therefore, if you destroy it today then you lose out of the help that would have come to you from it in the nearest future.
Finally, take personal initiative. A whole article was dedicated to this subject. For it to appear here again points to its importance. In that article, In was stated that taking personal initiative will help you to focus on your goals, direct your activities towards your purpose or engage in purpose driven activities, and redeem dead time in which idleness could have crept in. In addition to these benefits, this element of self leadership will enable you to overcome one distraction called procrastination. In a practical sense, procrastination is that internal force that keeps you away from doing what you were supposed to do at the time you were supposed to do it. It makes you to keep repeating the statement, ‘I will do’ but in the real sense, you never do or even when you do, it is when it is already late. For instance, a vehicle owner whose licence has expired will keep postponing renewal until after he/she have been arrested and made to pay a fine that is even higher than the renewal fee. Also, a student who is given a ‘not to be submitted’ assignment will keep postponing till he/she meets the question in the examination hall as a compulsory question. Therefore, taking personal initiative (which involves being conscious of what need be done and taking timely and practical steps towards achieving it) will help in keeping procrastination aside.
To sum it, keeping distractions away can be difficult at the onset but with constant practise, it sure will become fun. Leading yourself is to enhance your effectiveness in leading others and in achieving your overall purpose in life. But then, leading yourself is impossible when you cannot keep away the things (which may appear good) that are contending for that very self you intend to lead. Therefore, in order to lead yourself to purpose achievement and to influence with others, you must: define and stay religiously committed to your goals whether short term (daily, weekly, monthly or within a year), middle term (5yeas), or long term (10 years and above); distinguish among ‘the urgent and important’, ‘the not urgent but important’, and ‘the urgent but not important’; be sincere with yourself; keep the big picture in focus; deal with idle moments; have mastery of your world; and finally take personal initiative. When you can practise these, then you can be sure to have yourself in the right direction, focus on our goals and achieve them and this can bring an immensurable sense of satisfaction.
---Udeme Udoh 07/2017