The title of my blog is a quote attributed to film director George Lucas.
Right up front I should probably admit to being a Star Wars fan. It is a great introduction, though, for what I want to talk about today.
Continuing as promised to look at what we can do to develop our resilience this week I am concentrating on focus. As I was thinking about the topic of focus, I was reminded that in our brains we have a mass of neurons called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This bunch of neurons is responsible for filtering out the mass of information we look at and helping us to fulfil our goals.
Let me illustrate how this works. Let’s say you are thinking about getting a new car. You decide the make and model, a blue Volvo XC60, for the sake of this experiment. Now your RAS swings into action previous to this quest you didn’t notice a single Volvo but lo and behold you start to see them everywhere this is what your RAS does is looks to sift data to locate what you are focused on.
In building resilience we need to pay attention to what we focus on. There is so much news out there and most of it is negative, we really do become like the company we keep so instead of listening to that think about what your goals are. The direction you want to go in, what can you do today that will help you get to where you need to be?
It might be to really think about purpose. Often the best way to get out of thinking about the doom and gloom around us or focusing inwards to the turmoil of our own minds is to simply think how can I add value to another human being today? That might simply be connecting with someone to see how they are to volunteering in some kind of social enterprise.
The key is if you want to change your reality then you have to focus on doing something different. As Einstein eloquently put it doing the same thing day in and day out and expecting a different outcome is the very definition of insanity. Focus does not happen by accident you have to be intentional about what you are going to focus on.
Choose to focus on something positive today. You will be amazed at your own brain’s ability to move you closer to it.
At the very least you could see how many Blue Volvos you spot in the next couple of days!
Keep Focus. Stay Safe
