Staying Focused when everyone around is confused.

I believe there is never ever been a time in human history, when people like you and I are as confused as we are today. Let me explain it to you why?

If you have to go 1000 years ago, and you and I are living in a family where our fathers are farmers. What you think what we had to do when we grew up? Probably we would have to be farmers?

If your father was a carpenter, you would probably be a carpenter. It doesn’t matter, you probably would have done what your father did. We didn’t have millions of options 1000 years ago.

Go back to 100 years ago, maybe we had more options, but if you see today, we have so many options, so many choices than ever before. On career, on religion, on politics, on relationship ?on social media, on content to consume.

So, why commit to any particular thing? why to choose one career? why to get married? why to believe on one philosophy? This whole thing made it so challenging today that being an 18-year-old today is the most challenging time being an 18-year-old in the human history.

The One currency today that will give you an edge in the marketplace over everybody else, If you know how to concentrate on one thing, you have an edge. If you know how to concentrate your effort and focus on one thing, you have an edge. If you can be focussed on one thing and disregards everything else that everybody else looking at, fifty different philosophies, seventy-five different ways to make money, nineteen different flows of income.

If you concentrate on one thing, every other thing will come to you on the way, but if you chase all other things like everybody else, you will miss the whole point of winning in life, because you can’t concentrate. Concentration today is the number one currency. You show me someone who knows how to concentrate, I will show you someone that nobody wants to compete with.

I studied this vital capacity of being focused, and what I saw was that the human mind struggled with focus on three distinctive ways.

First,

our minds are often full of disturbing thoughts, often worried about not being good enough.

Second,

instead of working with what we already know, we are constantly focused on what we will achieve.

And third,

we are frustrated for not having time.

So, how can we help ourselves with these problems?

We need to find out what focus is. In today's overflow, with new waves and trends, the ability to focus has been somewhat overlooked despite its great value. It's, however, a particularly complex function of our intelligent brain.

So, let me simplify it for you. All of us have the ability to think forward and backward in time. And we often go down the alarming path of thinking,

What happens if ...?

What happens if I fail?

If I forget what to say in a presentation?

If I don't finish my report on time?

If I start losing followers on social media?

If life doesn't turn out the way, I had anticipated?

Or we worry about why it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

Can we free ourselves from these disturbing and worrying thoughts, focus is simply about choosing the right thought among thousands of thoughts.

Now, how do we get focused?

Firstly, regarding the disturbing thoughts.

We need to learn to notice disturbing thoughts and to distinguish them from not disturbing thoughts. A not disturbing thought is something completely neutral, like a lamp, a chair, a pen, a pin or even a leaf.

Because as the brain, in broad terms, only can focus on one thing at a time, a not disturbing thought knocks out all the disturbing and worrying thoughts. And this is enough to reach that inner capacity we in fact already possess.

Second, regarding how we constantly focus on what we will achieve.

In the performance-based society of today, we often lose focus because we constantly strive towards the new and better instead of finding our inner power and constructively working with what we are best at each given moment. Because if we always think about the goal, about what we want to achieve, about where we want to go, about who we want to become, our focus is constantly on the future and not on the work that needs to be done now.

So, focus is not about becoming something new or something better, but simply about functioning exactly as well as we already are and understanding that this is enough for both general happiness and great achievements.

Third, regarding frustration for not having time.

We live in a time with endless possibilities around us, and this seems to have created the notion that life must be lived intensely. We try to exceed on all arenas at the same time, and one's self-confidence ends up on all that we do instead of placing focus on one thing and doing this really, really well. Our focus shatters into a thousand little must-dos and must-haves, But the principle is quite simple: The more possibilities, the more there is to refrain from.

So, why is all this so important to us? Focus is important because several essential abilities are linked to this skill. The ability to listen, to learn, to empathise, and not at least, to steer our self and our life in the right direction.

You know what you are capable of doing? Anything you want in your life if you are focussed today when the whole world is confused.

To your Breakthrough,

Ramesh Patra