THE ART OF MANAGING YOUR ATTENTION

Your attention is under attack! If you haven’t noticed recently, there are many things attacking your attention every day. It is under attack by all of the thousands of things that are competing for your attention— from the demands of home and work, from the request of friends, family, children, colleagues, from the intrusion of social media, your iphone, the media, etc. It is not only the volume of incoming information, but the velocity of the amount of decisions that you have to make— nearly moment by moment— that makes information overload and decision fatigue significant factors in today’s world. What’s a human to do?

In the Neuro-Semantic pattern of Intentionality, we utilize the dual-factor of your consciousness. Beginning with what is on your mind (attention) we ask, “Where or when do you find it hard to focus and to hold your concentration?” Then, assuming that there is a positive intention behind that attention, we move to what’s in the back of your mind (your intentions). We do that by checking to see if what you are trying to focus on is really important. “Is it important?” If the answer is yes, then we explore the value. “Why is that important to you?” This open-ended question evokes values.

But we do not stop there. Whatever answer is given, we repeat that answer and ask the two questions about it— Is it important? Why is it important. In fact, we repeat the process of checking the importance and asking “Why is it important?” five to ten times. Doing this invites a person to move up the levels of her intentionality to find (or to create) her highest and biggest and boldest intentionality. Then, because that is a state, we invite the person into the state, amplify it and then use a basic meta-stating process so the person can align her attentions to her intentions.

Without doing this, the person will otherwise probably be torn between attention and intention. The person may have plenty of positive intentions, but unable to focus on them, concentrate, because a multitude of attentions keep arising and distracting. Do you know that one? Yet the very quality of your life is the quality of this integration of you intentions-and-attentions. That is, if you live attentionally, then any and every thing that can get your attention will push you here and there as if you were a ping-pong ball in the vortex of life’s winds and waves. You will be tossed to and fro and easily lose focus and be unable to live intentionally. Sound familiar? It is not a very healthy or human way to live.

Now we have a problem. Attentional living, driven by whatever bright sight, loud sound, compelling sensation, etc. grabs your attention, is victim-living. You live as a victim of all of the triggers and stimuli around you. Instead of being a person who manages and directs your

attention, your attention controls you and all of the environmental stimuli controls your attention. That’s the way animals live— attentionally.

To be fully human and to be fully alive with the vitality and vigor of a self-actualizing human you need to live intentionally. Then you can align your attentions to do service for your highest intentions— that is, the things truly important to you, namely, your values. Do that and you begin to become the architect of your future, the manager of your self, the leader of your self.

When you do that, you have found the cure for urgency addiction. Steven Covey described this in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People using the quadrants based on the two axes: important and urgent. All too often, what’s urgent and demanding is not important at all. And sadly, what’s really important is not urgent— it does not feel urgent. And because it does not create a sense of demand in our minds, we don’t feel compelled to do them. Yes living in the urgent quadrant keeps you busy— but that’s just the thing. Is the purpose of your life to be busy? I think not.

Isn’t the purpose of life to live with meaning and importance —to do what’s valuable and significant? That brings us back to intentionality. This resurfaces in your everyday experience of attention. How many things are you trying to attend to everyday?

Are your attentions under your control? How well can you concentrate your focus on a single thing with a laser-beam focus? How well can you turn it on and off at your command? How well can you step into a focused state and be fully present in your daily engagements?

Your answers to these questions speak about the quality and the development of your intentionality. And because intentionality is not a primary state, but a meta-state, it is a higher state from which you can direct your primary state of attention. Want to take control? Go higher— go to your higher state of intentionality.