Consider This …

Yesterday’s focus on focus raised a big topic, which I’ll continue just for today.  We human beings struggle mightily with the question of focus.  Inasmuch as we have private rights to our own thoughts, we like to think we each individually decide where to place our focus.  To some extent this is true, and by applying stern discipline, we can select and cultivate focus that brings rewards we seek.  We can focus on work, and see some profit increase.  We can focus on losing weight, or building muscle, or learning a new skill, and earn rewards for our efforts.

Indeed, we have tremendous power to achieve through intense focus.  The difficulty surfaces when we see, however, the limitations of focus.  The tool is only as useful as the choices we make.  We may chose, for example, to focus on increasing business profits through hard work.  And while we may achieve our goal to some extent, we suddenly realize that by focusing intently on working harder, we have been blind to new methods that provide shortcuts to the same success.  Focus, in other words, can obstruct clear view of opportunity.

Maybe you focus hard on losing weight, and indeed the pounds drop away.  But in the process, you turn a deaf ear to your soul’s lonely outcry and ignore the oppression you feel from dieting.  You end up thinner, but now there’s a new problem: chronic depression.

So focus is a handy tool, but it can be deceptive.  It can trick you into thinking you’re in charge and invincible.  Which is a great feeling for the short term, but simply untrue in reality. 

Focus is like the drugstore magnifiers we aging boomers all use to boost our fading eyesight.  It’s a wonderful tool that lets us pretend we can see with accustomed clarity.  We do well not to forget, however, that the larger truth is that we’re slowly going blind, no matter how powerful the tool makes us right this instant.

In the end, practising focus and learning to use it intensely and well is a seriously helpful way to achieve your goals.  And then, letting your focus go, dropping it completely in order to open to new information supercedes your focus.  Focus, like the rules of a game, is best practised and then forgotten.

“I’m convinced that this is how the “Law of Attraction” really works. Great stuff doesn’t show up because you focus on it. You’re just able to suddenly perceive all the great stuff that’s always been right in front of you, because you focus on it.”

Sonia Simone  penned these words a few days ago.  It’s an excellent interpretation if you ask me.  The wildly popular Law of Attraction teaching is far more subtle than its preachers would lead you to believe.  The idea is often presented as a souped-up wish upon a star when it’s in actuality an intense discipline for mature adults only.

Focus is what it’s all about, and we’ve been working at developing our individual focus since we started kindergarten.  Surely a great many of us die without ever attaining powerful focus, having been distracted by ten thousand things.  We focus variously on making the grades, finding a lover, securing a job, making more money, and all those expected life achievements.  We focus when we need to and otherwise dabble.  When immediate needs are taken care of, focus glazes over.

Focusing on opening, on getting past your assumptions, prejudices, and fears, on constantly widening your perspective to include much more in your awareness than is habitual — this is the kind of focus Simone refers to.  It’s the same practice yogis and contemplatives have espoused for ages.  It’s about getting out of your own way so that you have access to all the wonders around you.

You may use the Law of Attraction to organize your thinking so that your business is more successful.  Understand, though, that this discipline of thought organization - i.e., focus - leads far beyond mundane materialism.  Opening to the gifts that are everywhere available if you can perceive them is doing business with eternal life.

In my last post, I recommended bringing back to work with you some of the sweetness of the holiday.  Keeping close to the heart the small joys you experience when your time is your own will greatly ease the pressures of work life.  The little treasure I am cherishing today is singing.

Yes, singing.  Do you remember what it is to sing a song?  Some of you practice music daily, but the vast majority most likely never sing.  Maybe you listen to music all the time, but that’s still entirely different from making your own music.  If you go to church, perhaps you sing once a week, which is a whole lot more than most.  

Considering that using vocal chords to produce musical sounds is a human birthright, it’s pretty amazing how rarely we Americans exercise this capability.  Ask almost any adult to sing a ditty and they will refuse for fear of embarrassment.  Singing, it appears, is going the way of poetry - relegated to the refuse heap of all things impractical, profound, and mysterious - the saddest waste of our civilization.

But let me not dwell on this shameful loss; rather I propose a counter-revolution.  Consider dedicating to the rediscovery of your soul’s music.  There are ample opportunities for singing in daily life, and you don’t have to sing loudly.  Start out with a quiet whistling if your vocal chords seem dormant.  Or just hum.  Sing the tune that’s in your head, or the last song on the radio, or anything you just make up note by note.  As you become more used to allowing this expression, you’ll even find it possible to sing out loud in front of others.

And please note: you do not have to have “a nice voice,” or be able to sing on key.  Singing in order to improve your quality of life has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your voice.  It’s only about using the abilities with which you were born to define and appreciate your ultimate purpose in life.

Awesome.  Yesterday’s post at Heart of Innovation by Mitch Ditkoff sets it all out for us.  100 easy ways to be more creative at work.  Check it out, print it, hang it by your desk.   It’s one blog post that can become your life saver.

Of course, the biggest step in changing anything is the very first one.  You have to start somewhere, you have to initiate change, your willing (yearning) spirit is the single most important ingredient in any innovation.

Most likely, you have no yearning for improvement unless you’re unhappy with things as they are.  And who am I to deny your complacency?  Maybe you’re plenty comfortable and content with your job and your life.  If so, stop reading now.

But if you are anything short of bliss-filled, you can probably use some new approaches.  I’m here to reassure you that life doesn’t have to be suffering.  If you’re unhappy, frustrated, uncomfortable, unappreciated, or just generally sad or feeling lost, maybe it’s time to re-cast yourself in a new light.  Once you decide to experiment with such renovations, the possibilities will endlessly multiply.  Mitch’s list is a viable jumping-off place.

An element of this argument is abdicating control.  When seeking personal change, it’s necessary to relinquish your accustomed hold on things.  It’s essential to take a step back and let the universe speak.  It’s required that you do your best to forget your own idea of yourself.  If you’re stuck in your thinking or problem-solving, the first thing to do is give it up. 

And today I’ll suggest that the second thing to do is go straight to Mitch’s list, close your eyes and pick one.  Follow it through and then thrill to the ways it brightens your outlook, improves your process, returns you to meaningful productivity.

Quinn MacDonald, an exquisite blogging thinker, wrote recently about the noise with which we’re surrounded all the time.  Many have become so used to it that silence is downright frightening to them.  As MacDonald says so poignantly,

“We hate the sound of our own minds and hearts.”

It’s true, isn’t it?  Very few are comfortable with quiet introspection.  If no other distractions are available, we must blast the radio or television to keep the white noise at sufficient volume to keep inner thought from surfacing.

Problem is, the evolving world of commerce is dependent on your individual creativity.  Much more than your fabulous looks, your soaring intelligence, your knack for selling, or your workaholism, it’s the depths of your creative self that will lead you to success in business as the global economy develops.  Finding your true brand, the skillset you offer that is unique in the world, is how you’ll prosper in coming years.

And it is not possible to discover your uniqueness without intimate knowledge of your own mind and heart.  If we’re always layering on the noise and distractions, this static interference simply drowns out the soul’s whispers. 

Is all this anathema to you?  Can you abide the very thought of silence, or does it frighten you beyond contemplation?  If the latter is true, you’re likely to discount this post as all very well, but impossible, and immediately forget it.  But if you have the courage to try, go ahead and test the advice of so many leaders, consultants, writers and thinkers all over the ‘net, who say one of the keys to successful living is to spend at least 10 minutes in absolute, undisturbed silence every day.

Get to know your self, your simple existence as it expresses through your breathing.  Don’t expect instant miracles, but allow the slow and certain awareness of your utterly unique self to penetrate.  Silence, which may appear scary or boring or threatening, is in truth our most powerful connection to personal power.

Do you know what this picture is showing?  It’s lettuce, that staple of our nutrition, after it has gone to seed.  No good to munch on anymore, but isn’t it lovely nonetheless?  So rich and curly.  Because of recent experiences, it puts me in mind of the typically long life we Americans enjoy these days.  We’re outliving our usefulness, much like the greenery shown here, but we humans scarcely know how to deal with it.

My hope is that we can learn to live and work in such a way that when we’re no longer active, when our skills are no longer useful and we bolt heavenwards like the lettuce, then our true beauty will still shine, even more glorious for its mysterious uselessness, its divine impracticality.

If you’ve been following this particular set of posts, you know I’ve been looking at ways of awakening personal creativity.  I would do the proper thing here, and provide links to all the various related writings, but in looking at the list of them, I see that nearly all touch on this subject.  So if you’re a new browser here, just start at the beginning and work up. 

I’ve mentioned listening, appreciating, doodling, and many more simple techniques.  And today, the technique I’ll both name and employ is that of doing nothing.

Sitting here poised to write this entry, I’m bursting with things to say, and bolloxed about where to begin.  Somehow, though the tank is full, the ignition’s not working.  Feeling pressured to get other business done, to meet work obligations, I’m clearly not capable of succinct communication here at the moment.

Surely this happens to many of you.  You find yourself stalled, for no obvious reason.  How wonderful that there’s a way to manage these lapses.  Simply do nothing!  Sign off, be still, go away, take a recess, stare at a wall.  I’m here to inform you that, despite any external pressure, it’s ok to take time out.  More than that, it’s a healing and productive thing to do in many instances.

Stopping to smell the roses is not just for retirees.  It’s absolutely key to successful living.

Monday is a day for prioritizing.  There’s a cool church sign near here that says, “You always have time for what you put first.”  Taking a minute to think about, or better write down, your priorities for the week will make you feel better about everything.  You’ll have defined your short-term goals, and your ensuing actions can have purpose and confidence.

If you apply just one more minute to considering your list of priorities, you can benefit immeasurably more.  Besides being the things you must do, are the items on your list the things you wish to do?  Do they further your life goals?  Are they in service to your deepest beliefs? 

If they are not these things, why are you spending time on them?  If you can’t connect all your actions in some way to your ultimate goals, consider rearranging your priorities.  Remember, as the week begins, what truly belongs at the top of your list.

The hardest habit to recognize and then manipulate is your habit of thinking. Not, of course, your habit of using your brain (not so much a habit as a natural instinct) but your habitual way of using your brain.

Certainly we’re all experiencing the challenge of re-building our thought patterns as a result of changing technologies. The codifying of information, for instance, in digital bits is not a way my parents can conceive of things; but it’s the way my generation has come to think.

Feeling stuck, or in a rut, or continually stressed, or oppressed by your job can be the result of thinking habits that no longer serve you well. Can you recognize them? Only through careful observation. Can you modify them? Absolutely, if you’re truly dedicated to the effort.

Here’s one little practice that can help. I am a counter. I count (silently, in my head) everything: if I’m doing anything the slightest bit repetitive, there I’ll be, ticking ‘em off one by two by three. At some point, I realized I had this ridiculous habit, though it seemed impossible to shed. It was a habit of thinking that kept me in the quantitative, judgmental, efficiency-obsessed world; and usually made a mockery of me in that context!

So now (and I admit, it’s a continuous effort), instead of counting, I try to remember to use a little mantra, just one word that is about important things, not mere digits. Instead of counting, I repeat this one word with each iteration. It’s not easy after my many decades of the old habit, but it does become more natural with practice. And the result is that I’m not measuring my actions anymore; rather, with each action I am invoking ultimate strength and support.

Not everyone has this strange tic of mental counting, but if you do, maybe you’ll try this modification and let me know how it works.

Had an interesting comment on yesterday’s blog, which took exception to my suggestion that branding is a form of communication.  The commenter seemed to be saying that your brand is simply who you are, what impression your very appearance gives; and inferred that while you work on promoting your brand, you cannot modify it.

Of course, my rebuttal is about how recognizing and articulating - more than modifying - your own brand is the issue.  It takes a long time and serious focus to get a handle on how you are impacting others, and what your actual reputation is.  Like your rear end, you carry your brand everywhere with you, but seldom get a good peek at it yourself. 

By defining your personal brand, you become capable of consciously projecting it, and winning support and success through it.  How to clearly communicate your business brand is the number one issue for sales; projecting, enjoying, and cultivating your personal brand is the road to fulfillment in the individual’s life because it’s the full appreciation of natural gifts.

Once you become more aware regarding the brand you habitually manifest, you can emphasize its positive aspects, carefully study the negative sides, and intentionally project (i.e., communicate) this recognized strength of character.  Until you spend committed time and much thought on this aspect of your existence, you stay a slave to the brands of others.