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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

Can't Focus?

5/1/2019

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Do you find yourself with a long list of things that you want or need to get done but you can’t seem to focus, so you move from one thing to another, not getting anything done with any sense of ease or satisfaction?

This happens to all of us, whether we run a business, work in a business or are simply trying to live a life that’s full and productive. So what’s going on here? By way of illustration, imagine yourself in the situation described below, tailored to your particular circumstances.

You are trying unsuccessfully to complete one of the projects on your ever-growing list. Despite your commitment to getting it done and your honest efforts to create something of value, you can’t come up with something you’re satisfied with. You get frustrated, impatient and you drop it. 


You reach for something else to work on, assuming a different challenge will call forth a different (and more productive) result. Nope. The same thing happens again, accompanied by even more of a sense of pressure. You drop that project and search for anything that will get you out of your slump. But nothing works and you walk away feeling like a failure and blaming yourself.

Your Ability to Focus Is Always Available

At this point most people think there’s something lacking or broken in them which might be fixed by techniques or strategies like stop multi-tasking, start decluttering, listen to relaxing music, practice mindfulness or meditation. The problem with this approach is that it implies there’s something you need to do in order to get things done. 

The truth is that our ability to focus is not broken or missing - it’s just misunderstood.

Thinking and Receptivity

Let’s use the analogy of a coin (heads and tails). Heads is our thinking: we’re easily distracted by our habitual reactive thoughts, whether they relate to the task at hand or our expectations and assumptions surrounding that task. The tails side of the coin is receptivity. When we overthink anything, we lose our ability to be receptive to new ideas, and we end up struggling to repeat something good we did in the past but doesn’t fit what we need now.

When our thinking tells us there are obstacles in our path, insecure feelings highjack our ability to focus and be in the creative flow. The thoughts we project can choke off the flow of ideas and the result ends up stiff or stifled. 

The creative process - whether it involves writing a report or organizing a conference, making dinner or painting a picture - is not something we can manage or force. Yes, we hold the pen or the spoon or the paintbrush, but we can’t predetermine the process or the results.

But when we let our minds settle (that can happen in an instant) and are willing to receive rather than dictate, we clear the way for new ideas to come through, rather than needing to control or manipulate them. We can even have a sense of wonder and curiosity: “what wants to come through me about this subject?”

Focus is an innate ability in all of us. And that ability is connected to our common sense, which always tells us when our muddled thinking is keeping us from being present to the job at hand. Instead of reaching for a technique or strategy, reach for the understanding that we are hardwired for well being and creativity, which includes an ability to self-correct and allow new thoughts to flow into us.
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