Change Your Focus

Sometimes, when things are becoming monotonous, or you just can't stand 'it' anymore, what you might need is to change the way you're looking at things and doing them and maybe even switch things up entirely. This article will help you to discover the way to change your focus.

Steps

  1. Step away from the issue(s). Determine what your focus actually is. Maybe sit down with a piece of paper and pen (the tactile involvement helps) and write it out. Try out 'mind mapping'. Some things to help you determine your focus include:
    • Asking yourself what your major concern in your life is right now.
    • Looking at your life and figuring out what isn't going right.
    • Thinking about what is making you unhappy at the moment.
  2. Alternatively, flip this analysis around:
    • What's working for you right now?
    • What is going 'right'?
    • What makes you happy?
  3. Avoid asking yourself disempowering questions. These are the types of questions with no real answers, that place you as a victim. While you may be a victim of a particular situation or circumstances beyond your control, it isn't helping anything looking at things in a way that prevents you from rearranging the challenges and choosing to changing your life's path. Whatever the truth may be, there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. Some examples of questions that tend to disempower and keep you stuck include:
    • Why me?
    • Why can't I catch a break?
    • It's all the government or my Deal With Lousy Neighbors or my family's fault.
  4. Empower yourself with the right questions. Ask yourself what is good about what is happening. For example:
    • What can I do to affect the outcome of events?
    • What is the good that is coming out of this turn of events?
    • How can I take the things that are promising amid the hardship and run with those instead?
  5. Do something else for a while, even if you have to force yourself to do it. Distracting yourself through concentration on an unrelated task or activity will help you with stepping away from the issue at hand. You might also find another skill you weren't aware of or a skill you hadn't yet improved.
  6. Try doing something simple. Simplicity can ground you and bring you right back to a sense of who you are and where you're headed. It will also help to clear what seems complex and put it in a simpler context. Try this exercise to reach a sense of simplification:
    • Look around the room and look for everything red, or round or whatever. It doesn't really matter. You are trying to distract your mind and give it something else to focus on. Do this for a few minutes.
    • Try to remember all of the brown items or the square ones. Choose something that you weren't actively looking for.
      • It would probably help to have someone else set the goal and the alternate goal for you, so you won't subconsciously be distracted.
      • When this exercise is done as part of a workshop, quite often the reaction of participants is, "that wasn't what you said", or "that's not fair". The response to that would be... "And when did life become fair?"
  7. Deal with it. Doing this exercise will help develop skills for your life. Consider how you can transfer the surprise and changed perspectives you gained from the exercise to everyday, real events in your life. The important thing is to keep trying to change your focus until this becomes second nature and feels like your first response to difficult happenings in your life.
    • No matter how small, do something every day that helps you to change your focus.



Tips

  • Are you focusing too much on your weaknesses and not enough on your strengths? Amazingly, many people focus on the harder route through life and avoid focusing on doing what they're best at and show aptitude for. Increase the time spent working with your strengths and your focus on how to improve and live your life will shift very rapidly.
  • Clean and simplify your environment. It's hard to change your focus when your focus is bogged down by clutter. Clean stuff away and you'll help clear the mind too. Start with the desk, the the couch, then the floor, then the whole house.
  • Action is the antidote to emotional paralysis and a sense of victimization. You may feel like something is impossible, too hard, too difficult, likely to meet with resistance but until you try, you don't know that. Saying it doesn't make it real. Get up and do the thing you're most afraid of and keep going from there. Action will improve your sense of well being and is a key part to changing your focus.

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Sources and Citations

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