Just the other day, I was wondering about why I had so many life ‘challenges’. Normally optimistic and upbeat, I thought my hormones had finally taken over! LOL!
The negative attention trap!
Until I realized I had fallen into the ‘negative attention trap’! Instead of being a ‘good finder’ I was actually only paying attention to the things that bothered, irritated or concerned me.
I was paying a huge price with my energy, enthusiasm and zest for life by only noticing irritations, challenges or difficulties!
Noticing is the precursor to attention. We can notice something, find it interesting and let it go. If we start to notice it a lot, we start to seek it, to pay attention to it! Attention is the precursor to focus. Where your attention goes, so does your focus and voila, before we know it, we are spending a lot of time and energy focusing on something that can either build us and others up, or pull us all down.
Be conscious! Choose wisely!
What are you actually CONSCIOUSLY looking at, and for, each day?
Most of us really pay no attention (!) to where we put our attention! It just ‘happens’.
Unless we wake up to where we are CHOOSING to place our attention, and the price we pay for that, then we will keep doing what we have been doing, and we won’t be aware of any poor choices we may be making.
‘Annoying’ habits!
Is there someone at work who ‘annoys’ you? Why? What do they do? Is there anything you can do about that behavior?
If not, why use your precious energy paying attention to whatever it is and allowing it to bother you? This might be easier said than done, but we always have choice and control over what we focus on. Find something good about that person and ONLY pay attention to that one thing for a week and see how different you feel!
Does anyone at home have a little habit that ‘drives you nuts’? How much do you notice these habits? Often, a small, repetitive clicking sound becomes the overriding sound in the room! So much so that you can’t think of anything else because you have a laser focus on that irritation! LOL!
Is there something else you can focus on? Why not count the number of clicks to see if you can make it to 100? Or better still, pay attention to another sound or sight or move away so you can’t hear it! Or focus on being grateful that you can still hear!
Think of someone clicking a pen. If your mind and heart are fully occupied with the content of the conversation, you literally don’t hear the pen clicking. Until…someone points it out to you. Then it can drive you mad, if you choose to focus on that sound so that it consumes you until you can’t hear, see or feel anything else.
Things are always there. Whether you pay attention to them or not is up to you!
Have you ever been driving down the road and someone says “gee there are a lot of red cars on the road today”. Up to that point, you had not paid the slightest bit of attention to cars, let alone car colors. But now, you see red cars everywhere! They were always there, you were just not paying attention to them.
Same with TV advertisements or movies. You have not seen what everyone is talking about and suddenly you see it everywhere!
So it is in the rest of our lives. Everything is there, we choose the things on which we put our attention.
Choose the good things! Choose to ignore the other than positive.
Attention and listening
How much attention do you pay when someone in your family speaks to you? Do you really listen? Are you present? Being present means you are paying attention carefully to what they are saying, with their heart AND their mouth!
You are tuned into (or paying attention to; searching for) their feelings behind the words. Responding to the feelings is the art of true listening. If someone else is speaking and you are watching the TV or using a computer, how valued do you think they feel?
Paying attention to someone when they speak is the same as saying “I care about you and what you are thinking or feeling”. Paying attention half heartedly says non verbally “you are not important”. Think about this with your children!
The power of attention.
Paying attention to someone in a positive way is a great form of recognition. Many people feel ‘invisible’ if they have quieter personalities. Noticing them and how they look and giving them a compliment can transform their day. If they appear unhappy, a kind comment can really help. You have the power to really positively influence another, no matter what your position at work, or home!
Do you know that how you look as you walk through an office can lighten it up or cast a shadow? Pay attention to your facial expression. Do you smile as you walk or look kindly at others? Do you rush by, frown and look stressed? If you are the boss, you don’t have the luxury of the second option! Your mood will dramatically affect everyone around you in the office. Even if you are not the boss, you will influence the environment you are in!
When the boss pays attention to you with a caring comment or sincere compliment, life changes!
‘Selfishness’
Do you pay attention to your feeling that all your needs that are not being met, or are you full of gratitude for what blessings you have in your life already?
In a relationship, if you focus only on what you don’t have, instead of loving what you do have, you pay the price of disappointment, resentment and appearing selfish.
Of course, our partners are often the ones who received most of our attention! Positive in the beginning slowly sliding into negative if we are not careful! We find only good initially.
In the early days of our relationships, we pay attention to how wonderful our partner is. No matter what they did, we managed to see it in a good light! This person was everything we ever wanted in a partner! Until…..we start to notice and then pay attention to, then focus on, things that bother us; or that they don’t agree with us; or what we want is different!
The same person is totally transformed in our eyes and hearts by what we choose to pay attention to!
There’s a reason we say ‘pay’ attention! It’s emotionally expensive to see only the bad, the difficult, the challenging. What we choose to pay attention to destroys or builds relationships; makes a job fun or tedious; turns a friend into an enemy or vice versa; affects all our judgments; makes us good listeners or not, in fact, it affects everything.
There will always be other than positive things to pay attention to, and there will always be the positive.
Which will you consciously choose?
PS: Put your attention inside!
All this article was about putting your attention outside, on things around you, and finding the good. I woke up this morning realizing I had not mentioned anything about putting our attention inside us! How conscious are you of what is going on inside you, to cause the reactions? Here is a great question that I might explore next month, whenever you notice/pay attention to how you are feeling or reacting, ask yourself, “what is it inside me that is causing me to feel this way?”.
By paying attention to your inner self, you find the true source of your feelings. Sadly, we can’t blame anyone else! Oh well, I am off to find the good in that!
PS. A friend of mine Kare Anderson wrote a column on a similar theme recently for the HBR. Click on this link to read it!
“What Captures Your Attention Controls Your Life”
