Focused attention is our main resource, although it is often said to be time. But time goes on and on, and attention is what makes important things happen.
Attention is most often discussed in the context of productivity. It's about external distractions, technology, competing tasks, and so on. But there is another important factor - our own thoughts and emotions.
To some extent, our inherent anxiety is a normal evolutionary mechanism. There is nothing wrong with defensive pessimism and thinking through different scenarios. The problem begins when anxiety begins to interfere with development.
One aspect of anxiety is overthinking, which consists of replaying situations from the recent or more recent past and worrying about the future. But worrying and looking for a solution to a problem are not the same thing.
You probably noticed people around you who are worried, they tell everyone about it, but at the same time they are not looking for a solution to the problem. Try to capture moments of experience for several days and see how many times this led to effective action.
If you think about it, worries are the lack of confidence in your ability to cope with the situation. Therefore, it is useful to turn experiences into tasks: when you catch yourself worrying, it is worth thinking about what steps you can take to move forward. Thus, you move from worry mode to decision mode.
Another problem with anxiety is our tendency to personalize, that is, the feeling that situations concern us personally and more than they really are. For example, when you send a message, and the person does not answer for a long time, you may start thinking: “maybe he was offended”, “maybe I wrote something wrong ...” Most often it turns out that the person has a reason that is not connected in any way with you. You need to learn to just accept and let go of these situations.
There is a wonderful phrase: “creativity is subtraction”, because the most difficult thing is not to look for materials and generate ideas, but to create something coherent out of the chaos of ideas and thoughts. And just like in creativity, in life, consciously subtracting unnecessary thoughts and experiences, we add focus to what is really important.
Attention is most often discussed in the context of productivity. It's about external distractions, technology, competing tasks, and so on. But there is another important factor - our own thoughts and emotions.
To some extent, our inherent anxiety is a normal evolutionary mechanism. There is nothing wrong with defensive pessimism and thinking through different scenarios. The problem begins when anxiety begins to interfere with development.
One aspect of anxiety is overthinking, which consists of replaying situations from the recent or more recent past and worrying about the future. But worrying and looking for a solution to a problem are not the same thing.
You probably noticed people around you who are worried, they tell everyone about it, but at the same time they are not looking for a solution to the problem. Try to capture moments of experience for several days and see how many times this led to effective action.
If you think about it, worries are the lack of confidence in your ability to cope with the situation. Therefore, it is useful to turn experiences into tasks: when you catch yourself worrying, it is worth thinking about what steps you can take to move forward. Thus, you move from worry mode to decision mode.
Another problem with anxiety is our tendency to personalize, that is, the feeling that situations concern us personally and more than they really are. For example, when you send a message, and the person does not answer for a long time, you may start thinking: “maybe he was offended”, “maybe I wrote something wrong ...” Most often it turns out that the person has a reason that is not connected in any way with you. You need to learn to just accept and let go of these situations.
There is a wonderful phrase: “creativity is subtraction”, because the most difficult thing is not to look for materials and generate ideas, but to create something coherent out of the chaos of ideas and thoughts. And just like in creativity, in life, consciously subtracting unnecessary thoughts and experiences, we add focus to what is really important.
