– 3 min –

Becoming Aware of Your Attention Can Change Your Life!

“Paying attention” may have a very different meaning than what you’ve always thought. And when you pay attention in a certain way, i.e., “manage” your attention, it can have a profound impact on your life experience. In the first part of this two-part blog, I shared that the first step to managing your attention is to become more aware of it. Now I’d like to offer you more ideas for developing this superpower.

Managing Attention is a Superpower

Managing your attention is a learned set of skills. It’s also a superpower for life — both for your moment-to-moment living and for your entire life. Essentially, it’s about being able to control or direct your attention “on demand”.

1. Noticing when your attention has drifted and non-judgmentally “bringing it back”, and
2. Bringing yourself to the present moment “on demand”.

By paying attention to your attention, per Part I, you’ll become more aware of when your attention is not where you want it to be. As a reminder, attention:
• is subjective;
• is dynamic — it’s frequently ‘on the move’;
• has a geography — it travels between three locations: your Body, World (through your five senses), and Mind.

For example, say you are in a Zoom meeting, and you notice that your attention is in your mind, worrying about an upcoming difficult conversation. You can kindly(!) say to yourself, “oh, my attention has wandered and I want to bring it back to this meeting”, and then you can reset yourself.

Bring Yourself to the Present Moment

“Being present” or “being in the present moment” is a key aspect of managing your attention. It’s an idea found throughout ancient wisdom traditions and philosophies that means you are not ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Your attention is focused in the now.

That all sounds good, but I have discovered that you can’t just “be in the present moment” without understanding HOW to get there.

Here’s where the geography of attention, described in Part I, comes in. Putting your attention on either your Body or your World instantly brings you to the present moment. In fact, you cannot feel a bodily sensation, listen to a sound, or see something (etc.) at any other time than the present moment. (Take a moment and think about that one!)

So, to be present, you simply have to bring your attention to:

• your body (i.e., any bodily sensation), or
• your world (i.e., any direct experience with one of your five senses)

Practices for Strengthening Attention

• Spend five minutes a day bringing yourself to the present moment (by bringing your attention to your body or your world). This can be done in 10- to 30-second intervals.
• When you catch that your attention is “elsewhere”, non-judgmentally bring it back to where you want it to be, like the Zoom meeting example described above. This builds on the practice in Part I to simply notice whether your attention is in your Body, World, or Mind.

One note of caution — strengthening your attention is not about always being in control of your attention. It’s about controlling it more often, hopefully “on demand”. It takes practice. It is a practice.

Remember, how you manage your attention has a BIG impact on your life.

As you direct your attention more regularly and start to spend more time in the present moment, you will notice a positive shift in your experience. Benefits can range from becoming less susceptible to the myriad distractions coming at you, reducing your stress levels, and improving your productivity.

There really is a superpower here waiting to be developed!

– 3 min –

Becoming Aware of Your Attention Can Change Your Life!

Managing our attention has never been more difficult. The boundaries between different parts of our lives have disappeared while the number of distractions vying for our limited attention has exploded.

Given how fundamental our attention is to our life experience, it’s surprising that for most of us, it’s usually left unexamined.

Today I’ll share some ideas to help you become more aware of your attention. Why is this important? Being aware of your attention can help you manage it, which can lead to taking more control of your actions and reactions. In other words, it can change your life! So, becoming aware is an important first step in developing what I call the “superpower” of managing attention.

First, attention is subjective.

I can have a shared experience with you (e.g., watching a movie or sporting event, enjoying a group meal, etc.) yet my experience is different from yours, in part because of “where” my attention goes.

Secondly, attention is dynamic. It’s “on the move.”

While this point deserves a longer explanation, let me just say here that as you start to pay attention to your attention, you will see that it moves with or without you. In other words, your attention moves with or without your conscious involvement.

Stop! Think about this for a moment. When I really let this concept sink in about ten years ago, it was a game-changer. I decided to learn more about the nature of attention, which led me to another important idea:

“What you pay attention to defines your experience. Your life is made up of experiences. So, your attention has a big impact on your life.”

Third, there is a geography of attention.

It’s helpful to understand that there is a common “geography” or “landscape” that attention moves in and through. Once you know how to track the location of your attention, you can more easily begin to take ownership of it.

Location 1 – Your Body: Attention can focus on your feelings or sensations of your body. Feeling happy or sad, feeling your heartbeat, feeling your breath in your abdomen or nostrils, feeling your feet on the floor, etc.

Location 2 – The World: Attention can be in the world as experienced by you directly through your five senses. You can be focused on something you see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.

Location 3 – Your Mind: Attention can focus on your thoughts. ‘What am I having for dinner tonight?’ ‘I can’t believe what I said at the team meeting yesterday.’ Etc..

Pay Attention to Your Attention

I encourage you to start paying attention to your attention.

Start small, like 5 minutes per day. Begin to become more familiar with your own experience of the geography of attention. Ask yourself, where is my attention right now? Is it on my body, the world or my thoughts?

Becoming more aware of your attention is critical to improving your ability to manage it.

In my next blog I’ll build on these ideas and provide additional steps you can take on this journey.

The concepts above are based on the work of Gary Sherman. I’m grateful to Gary for his graciousness in allowing me to use his material.

• Managing Your Attention in a World of Distraction (Part II)