The Power of Focus - Might change your life in an instance!

Posted on June 03, 2015 by Paul Marks , One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

This could be the greatest year of your life if you learn and apply some simple strategies to take control of your focus. What you focus upon becomes who you are, what you do and ultimately how you feel. What you focus upon on a day-to-day basis will either bring pleasure or pain. For many of us, the challenges of life bring displeasure and discomfort. Our birthright as human beings is to grow; however without challenges in our lives, growth is impossible. We need life’s challenges so that we can become the person we need to become. At times, we are all guilty of perceiving these challenges as problems rather than an opportunity to take our lives to another level. The freedom to be happy or depressed comes with the choices we make. Do you focus on finding empowering meanings behind life’s challenges or do you focus on how difficult life is? You get what you focus on!

You can change your focus in an instant. Unconsciously, you are doing it all the time. Some of us turn to destructive habits such as excessive consumption of alcohol or food, or smoking or drugs to shift our focus. These addictive habits provide a lazy way to shift our focus. When people want to escape from a situation, they can turn to drink, drugs or food because they know that these things can change their state instantly, provide short-term comfort and shift their focus from problems. Unfortunately, with these addictive patterns the final outcome is pain! The key to living a great life requires you to take control of your focus so that you do not allow challenging situations to dictate your level of happiness or restrict your ability to develop and grow.

To create a long-lasting healthy focus on life you have to make it a habit. Every day you need to practice controlling your state and focus. Check your focus and ask yourself, is my current focus giving me happiness, momentum and sense of well-being? If it isn’t, you need to work on changing it.

Here are three powerful strategies that you can implement today!

The first strategy to changing your focus is to use movement and momentum. If you are stuck in a negative state, you need to get up and move your body. Exercise, shout, swings your arms, do anything to interrupt the negativity. Changing your physiology is the quickest way to change your state.

The second strategy to creating the right focus is to understand what you really want out of life. Without goals in our life you have no clear focus or direction. You need to define your goals. Your goals need to be specific. If you want to lose weight, specify how much weight you want to lose and by when. Ask yourself, if I achieve my goal, what will this give me? How will my life change? Ask yourself what you will see, hear and feel once you have achieved your goals. Once you have clarity on what you want, you will have the motivation and the focus to achieve it.

The third strategy is to adopt the habit of asking the right questions. If you want to quit eating chocolate you have to focus your questions on how rather than why. For example: if you ask yourself why you can’t quit then your mind will focus on all the reasons why you can’t quit. This type of focus will put you into an re-sourceless state which will reinforce your reasons for not being about to achieve your goal. You need to ask yourself how questions. How can I make the changes I need in order to achieve my goals? How can I plan my day so that I do the things I need to do in order to achieve? These types of questions will provides you with quality answers that will maintain healthy focus.

Paul has a wealth of experience in leadership, communications and coaching. Paul carries out training and delivers courses and coaching to client requirements in the fields of Personal excellence and The Success Principles, Cross cultural business relationships, Corporate cross cultural team building, Communication skills, Presentation skills, Leadership and Business networking. He is a certified Professional Coach and Mentor and holds an Advanced Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring plus a Certificate in performance coaching which is accredited and recognized by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) -the world’s leading coaching professional body.