I have been issuing a Free Personal Development Ezine for the past few years – twice a week, articles and short videos – and from the comments that I get I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s lots of guys and girls out there who give out about life, but who won’t take the appropriate action to change. A majority of people are unhappy in their work but are prepared to grin and bear it. The normal mind is numbed by the routine of daily life. Plenty of people are in unsatisfactory relationships. People are unhappy with who they think they are – their shape, weight, lack of assertiveness, low self-esteem, eating habits, fitness… But what all these people – and there’s a whopping great chance that this includes you – don’t understand is that everything would alter effortlessly if they simply sat up straight and started to pay attention.
Yeah, you heard me – just like what the teacher told you in nursery school! Psychological studies suggest that your happiness and success is directly linked to your ability to pay attention. That may seem a little bizarre – but think about it. Successful people are more focused – and focus is just a fancy word for paying attention. Presence is one of the main hallmarks of success – successful people have presence – and that just means that they focus to an abnormal extent on the here and now. Or, more to the point, successful people bother to turn up for their own lives! They are abnormally attentive to the here and now – they give it their complete attention.
Contrast this with your average Joe who, research concludes, is missing in action! The normal mind is, to use an Irish expression, ‘not all there’ – we’re all over the place. The normal mind is focused on your ‘stored knowledge’ – what you learned during your formative years. Your normal mind is immune to what’s actually happening now and that’s why ordinary people are stuck on the daily sorry-go-round!
You’ve got to pay attention, focus, get your head in the game. And, in real reality, it’s no big deal if you’re not sure what you want out in your life (how many of us are?!) – what’s of primary importance is that you pay attention to what’s taking place right now – you just don’t know what opportunities you might spot (which you caannot spot if you’re not all there!). Paying attention is about the here and now. Focus is about doing what you’re actually doing without dwelling on your self-defeating beliefs (from ‘I don’t like my job’ to ‘I don’t like me’). Focus is about being present, having presence and getting into the flow of life.
Has it now dawned on you that all the fantastic things that have ever happened in your life (yeah, even if you’re a desperate case, some good stuff happened somewhere along the way) happened in a spontaneous manner? You can rediscover life’s spontaneity, all you’ve got to do is turn up to your own life – right here, right now – pay attention to what’s actually happening, not what your bizarre, ordinary mind would convince you is going on.
