My Dearest Friend ~
Thank you for your kind letter. It’s good to hear you’re well.
In answer to your questions, yes, this will get easier.
You look at your life and see the things you wish were different and you wonder how to stop giving them your attention. You see what’s not working. You see what needs improvement. You see relationships in cycles seemingly impossible to break. You see things in the world beyond your control. And you ask, “How do I give more attention to what I want, than I give to all of this?”
That’s an excellent question. In general, we’re not taught to manage our attention. We’re not taught to focus more on what we want than what we don’t want. In fact, much of what we are taught is the opposite of this.
We’re taught to focus on solving problems rather than imagining innovations. We’re taught to look for what’s not working and fix it, rather than notice what’s working and expand it. The media tells us we need more, better, quicker, which says what we are and what we have is not good enough. We’re told we need to “lose weight” rather than “be healthy.”
To change your way of being in the world takes determination. Start where you are and do what you can easily.
Attention is our creative energy; the currency we use to create our lives. Whatever you “pay attention” to, depletes your attention supply (except when it doesn’t, but that’s for another letter). When your attention is scattered, you have less to work with and everything becomes more challenging.
Think of attention like light. When light is focused, it has the power to cut through steel as a laser. When it is dissipated, like the far reaches of a flashlight beam, it becomes very weak.
The good news is, as you practice being deliberate with your attention, you will recover attention from where you’ve spent it and replenish your attention supply. When you do, everything will get easier.
Compare the difference between attempting a task when you’re rested and provided with all the resources you need, as compared to when you’re exhausted and working with less than optimal resources. Running on a low supply of attention is similar to this.
To begin, you can harvest the “low hanging” attention “fruit” by doing a few simple things to recover attention immediately available to you.
Decisions needing to be made consume a great deal of attention. Decide, one way or the other, but decide.
Stuff consumes our attention. Stuff needing to be repaired, discarded, returned, filed, shared, replaced, etc. Remember a time when you finally cleaned out the garage or closet, or cleared off your desk, and felt a sense of relief, a sense of lightness? That’s attention being recovered.
Undone tasks of every kind consume attention. That phone call you’ve been meaning to make. That thank-you or apology you’ve been meaning to say. That information you’ve been meaning to find.
Whatever you try to keep track of in your mind, consumes your attention. Set up a system you trust, like a calendar and/or personal management system.
Complaining about yours and other people’s drama consumes attention. Give your attention to something more worthy.
Repeating stories in your mind consumes attention. “I can’t believe she said that. I will never tell her anything private again… repeat.” “I can’t believe he returned that in such a condition! I will never loan him my tools again… repeat.” Let go of it… it’s not giving you what you want.
Well, dear one, this is getting long. I will close for now. I promise you, if you will harvest the attention easily available in your life, everything you do will get easier. From there, it will only get easier and easier to create a life you absolutely love.
Love, Shelia
P.S. Download this simple flowchart to help you organize your stuff. Use it to help you recover attention so you can re-invest it in what you want. The flowchart is based on David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and his system for getting out of your mind and managing your stuff more effortlessly…I highly recommend his book!
