The Three Levels Of Focus

 By Willie Horton | Submitted On April 15, 2011

From talking with my personal development clients, I've discovered that there are almost as many versions of what focus is as there are people! Authors like Ekhart Tolle explain that focus is all about tapping into 'The Power of Now' ' that focus on what you're doing will lead to happiness and success. And, sure, you can see that in action on your TV screens. Watch how top sports people focus on just the task in hand and how they even have routines or silly rituals to get them in 'the zone' to be at their most effective. But this 'here and now focus' is only a small part of a much bigger picture. Those guys on the sports channels haven't got there by just focusing on whatever they happen to be doing in whatever here and now they find themselves in. To be successful, focus needs direction and all these guys are driven by what I might describe as strategic focus. Like onions, focus has layers! Through my work with my clients on my personal development workshops, I have come to the conclusion that there are three levels or layers to becoming truly focused - and three steps that you must take to enable you learn how to focus and direct that focus in a productive way. 

Strategic Focus Simply focusing on the present moment is highly rewarding - research confirms that those who know how to do it are effective and productive and, as a result, happy and content. But, whilst only focusing on the present moment produces those kinds of results, a life of focusing on now can lead to an existence of aimless bliss. I've no problem with bliss - it needs to become and integral part of everybody's daily life. However, I do see a major problem with wandering around aimlessly. If you're like me, you've got to put bread on the table each and every evening - in other words, your focus must be practical. If you're like me, you've other people depending on you to be practical - so some altered state of mind bliss is simply not on. What I'm saying is that your moment to moment focus - which I'll deal with later on in this article - needs direction. You'll find that this direction is often refereed to as goal-setting. However, the problem with goals is that they might just result in your living a life of perpetual dissatisfied expectation. Of course, that presupposes that you've actually established the correct goals! As normal people, we've little or no perspective on what is best for us, so it's best not to cast your goals in stone. Give some expectation the power to make you happy and, by definition, if you don't get it you'll be unhappy! In other words, you've got to focus your mind on how you'd feel when you've 'got it all' - whatever 'it all' might be - what it would look like, feel like and sound like to be on the right life path - whatever your very own personal 'right path' might be. 

To put it another way, you should make sure that your focus at a strategic level is touchy-feely - captivating your subconscious mind with an excitement that drives you to be more and more focused on a daily basis or, ultimately, on a moment to moment basis. Regularly paint these touchy-feely mental pictures for yourself by handwriting them often. They should be handwritten - because handwriting captives and motivates the subconscious mind. This is how you should set your strategic focus. 12/27/2020 The Three Levels Of Focus https://ezinearticles.com/?The-Three-Levels-Of-Focus&id=6184139 2/2 Operational Focus Once your subconscious mind knows the direction you're headed, you need to get your head around the important things that you need to do today. There's a world of difference between important and urgent - and, all too often, we find ourselves being overwhelmed by the urgent to the extent that we're left with no time to do the important. Or, even worse, we waste our time - reading emails that nobody was meant to read, gossiping with others about bad news, channel-hopping, talking nonsense on Facebook - you name it, we're great at finding ways to do things that are totally unconnected to the life that we want to have.

 Operational focus means that you know the difference between doing the right thing and wasting your time and energy. You'll only realize whether or not you're doing the right thing if you stop yourself at various points during the day and ask yourself the question: "Am I doing the right thing?" If you are cool! If you're not, stop it and start doing the right thing! Task-Based Focus Once you're doing the right thing, you need to do it right! All too often, when we set about doing the right thing, we get easily knocked off course - by distraction, by others wanting to waste our time, by taking on other people's problems, by not saying 'no'. Task-based focus is all about fully immersing yourself in whatever it is you're doing. Unfortunately, for the normal mind, this is not something that comes naturally. In fact, it seems to only happen by accident on the very odd occasion that you find time flying because you're actually having fun. 

You need to learn how to focus moment to moment. By far the best way of learning to pay undivided attention to the present moment is meditation. Meditation disciplines an otherwise undisciplined normal mind. When you meditate, you engross yourself in what some or all of your five senses are telling you - in effect, you discover how easy it is to simply turn off distraction and become exceptionally focused. In other words, the right thing to be doing every morning - the one thing that will ensure that your day is directed by your strategic focus - is to meditate. Copyright (c) 2011 Willie Horton Willie Horton launched his now acclaimed Personal Development Seminars in 1996. His clients include Pfizer, Deloitte, Nestle, KPMG, G4S & Allergan. His Personal Development Workshops are now online, together with hundreds or 'quick tip' articles and videos, at Gurdy.Net, Willie's Personal Development Website. 

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