At some point you start seeing the difference
between what you really want, and what is your priority order.
I feel that today I know what I want.
That’s the problem with perspective,
as well as focus and concentration.
One of the biggest issues that keep people from achieving many of their goals is their lack of concentration. Lapses in your concentration encourage disturbances that can get in the way and stall out your progress. If you wish to progress along your road to success, it is absolutely imperative you learn how to concentrate. Here are a few easy to learn and easy to implement exercises that may help you get a better handle on things.
1) Silence or Noisy?
Most people cannot concentrate when it is too noisy, while others work better with music playing or even in a crowded room. If you are not sure which style best suits you, then try out the different environments. How can you do this? Take a notepad and a pencil or pen, or your electronic tablet if that’s what you write with, and try to write a letter or a blogpost if you blog, in all the three circumstances in a set amount of time. Give yourself 10 minutes. That is all you will need to determine which of these environments best feeds your concentration. How? Check not only for length but also for the development of ideas.
If you are not a writer, take a book you’ve been meaning to start. Now write out a few notes describing what you’ve read. Give yourself 10 minutes again. Once again, check for length and depth of ideas you gathered from what you just read.
2) Focal Point
Every morning, before you leave for work or on the way, stare at any object for ten minutes. You can do this while in the toilet, car or bus. You will find this difficult, but whatever happens, do not take your gaze away. Hold it. Wait. And then, as the minutes pass you will find yourself beginning to deeply meditating about things that happened to you yesterday or the challenges you have to face in a few minutes. Congratulations! You have just conquered the art of meditation.
3) Deep Breathing
When you first start out, you can do this while staring at the object from tip #2. But if you want to move toward real concentration, do this as a separate exercise. Sit down on the floor. If its hard, get a cushion. Don’t get stuck in the minutiae of how to get this done. Close your eyes. Breathe. Count the number of inhales. When you have reached 100, start counting backward but this time count the exhales.
Mastering this technique will take you some time, but once you conquer this, move on to some other kinds of things like, simple mathematical calculations, naming the months of the year backward or alphabetically. After that, make up exercises as you like. If any of these seem to stressful and disrupt your breathing and/ or concentration, then that is not a technique that you can use right now; perhaps in the future.
4) Movement
Focus on an animal. It doesn’t matter what you choose- a cat, dog or even an ant or a bird. Watch and follow their every movement as if they existed in a vacuum. Study every tiny spot on their body. The point of this exercise is to learn how to diversify your concentration in such a way that movement does not distract you from your goal.
Try a few or all of these tips and you will start enjoying life to its fullest because you will be able to focus on the things that you want to focus on and ignore those things that are disruptive.
Thoughts?
Photo Credit: lecates via Compfight cc
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