Concentration - Your Superpower #1

Vitally Important, Rarely Taught Series

As the great inventor Thomas Edison once remarked, “The successful person is the average person, focused.”

In a world full of distractions, Edison's words serve as a powerful reminder that the benefits of concentration are endless. It isn't just a useful ability but the cornerstone of achievement. In the pursuit of success, it's not merely about working harder; it's about cultivating the capacity to concentrate amidst the chaos.

“The man of concentration shapes his own life. The man of concentration plans his day and finds at the end of the day that his plans are carried out” - Paramhansa Yogananda

Why concentrating is so hard?

Let’s face it - we are distracted most of the time. And concentrating on something is usually a struggle. There are two reasons for this:

1. We were never taught how to concentrate.

2. We never practice concentration.

How can you do something if you are never taught how to do it. And how can you be good at something if you don’t practice it.

The Law of Practice

We practice distraction, that’s why we are so good at it. We can blame it on technology, social media and the information overload. But the real reason why we are distracted is that we have practiced distraction all of our life. Let me explain.

If your aim is to play for the world’s best soccer club, how much practice do you need to do? Most people will agree that it will be about 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week. If you do this for a year then you may still not be in the world’s best soccer team but you will definitely be a better soccer player.

Now imagine practicing distraction for 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week for the last ___ years (fill your age). Wouldn’t that make you an expert in distraction?

That is the Law of Practice.

How our mind works?

Before we learn how to concentrate , we have to first understand the mind and how it works. After that we can learn how to improve our focus.

Let’s first understand that mind and attention (awareness) are separate.

Imagine yourself inside a very large warehouse with no lights. It’s pitch dark inside and you feel lost. Just then you see a man with a flashlight and you immediately start following him. This man is moving fast between the aisles and wherever, he flashes the light, you see that little part of the warehouse clearly.

The warehouse in this example is the “Mind” and the light is the “Awareness”. You are not the mind but pure awareness moving through different areas of the mind. Your attention was wherever the light was. You were fully focused on the lit up area.

[The “Invisible Gorilla” video - is another example that shows the limitation of human attention]

It is incorrect to say that our mind wanders. It’s the awareness that wanders in different areas of the mind - past memories, future scenarios, people, places, things etc.

This is also an example of sub-conscious awareness. We allow someone (or something) to flash the light for us. We allow people or things to take our awareness from one area of the mind to another. All day long. When we allow that we are being distracted.

Now imagine “YOU” are holding the flashlight and “YOU” point it one by one on things “YOU” want to see. This is conscious awareness.

When you hold that light steady on one object at a time - That is Concentration.

How to Concentrate?

There is no magic formula. It will take time and effort. But you will get results if you do the following:

1. The first step is to free the attention from distractions and then centering it on something. Distractions happen partly because our senses stimulate certain thoughts, initiating a chain of subsequent thoughts. Soon we drift away. [More on this later]

2. Practice doing only one thing at a time throughout the day.

   Research conducted by the University of California, Irvine found that people who frequently switch between tasks take longer to complete them and make more errors compared to those who focus on one task at a time.

3. The best way to practice single-tasking mindfully is by bringing it into our daily routine. There are opportunities throughout the day. Every time you speak with someone keep your awareness on them. Give them your undivided attention. When it drifts away, gently bring it back.

   Practice this irrespective of how many times it drifts away. The more you practice, the better you will become at it. Practice concentration while eating, driving, speaking etc.

   Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, as a sixteen-year-old novice, closed a door with less than full attention, and his teacher called him back for a second try. That experience was, in his words, was his “first lesson in the practice of mindfulness”.

   Just like things are difficult on the first day at the gym or on Day 1 of running, if we persist in our resolve, we will soon see progress. Similarly, focusing on one thing at a time in our practice is bound to improve our concentration.

   Every time our awareness wanders, our job is to catch it and bring it back to the object of concentration.

In the movie, Kung-Fu Panda, Master Oogway says,

Strategies and techniques for improving our focus

1. Living our lives in a certain way (Habits) help us concentrate better.

2. We are always in a zone when we are doing what we love.

3. Willpower - trying harder is not a great idea. As kids we were taught to try harder when we couldn’t focus. However, being gentle is more helpful while focusing.

4. Mindfulness techniques and meditations are extremely helpful. Mindfulness researcher, Amishsi Jha, has shown the correlation between meditation and concentration.

5. Multitasking is a myth - awareness jumps quickly from one part of the mind to another and we feel we are multi-tasking. Even a computers micro-processor does one task at a time.

6. Turn off notification. Choose times when you want to engage with technology.

7. Stress has a disproportionate affect on our ability to focus. When stressed, it is difficult to concentrate.

8. Poor mood - When one is in poor mood it’s hard to break free loops of negative thoughts. Work becomes distracted and its all a focus on oneself. Simply throwing the bad mood out and focusing on the bigger thing you are doing helps.

The science behind concentration [Some nerd stuff!]

According to the "attention schema theory," by neuroscientist Michael Graziano, the system of executive control in our brain determines how fast we notice we are wandering - it’s called meta-awareness (awareness of our awareness). According to him, strategies for improving meta-awareness include mindfulness meditation, regular exercise and adequate sleep.

Sleep and diet are two huge factors for concentration. Lack of sleep can have a disastrous effect on our ability to concentrate. In his book, “Why we sleep”, Matt Walker says,

“…anything less than 7 hours of sleep can put you in some long-term troubles. If we don’t get enough sleep, we may succumb to micro-sleep, where we are awake but part of our brain shuts down.”

His research has shown that people who didn’t sleep enough did poorly on attention tests.

Similarly, food has a direct impact on our concentration. Brain runs on glucose. Sugar surges and crashes due to not eating well or because of eating processed food. This can effect the supply of glucose to the brain resulting in lower attention.

In her book, “Peak Mind”, author Amishi Jha highlights the importance of a part of pre-frontal cortex that is key in facilitating meta awareness. This part of the brain is also involved in social connection. Jha says it’s activated when we are see others point of view.

In her research with highly stressed out US military personnel, Jha found out that 12 minutes or more of daily meditation saw huge improvement in the quality of their concentration.

In Summary

No matter how hard you try it’s hard to battle the temptation of smart phones, social media, insufficient sleep, caffeine drinks and other attention destroying objects which are common in our world.

Concentration is not an end in itself, although it’s very helpful for everything we do in life. High concentration will help you achieve whatever you are aiming for.

All we need to do is take one thing at a time, give it our unwavering focus and every time our awareness drifts away, we lovingly bring it back.

Integrate this practice into everything you do throughout the day. Make it a part of your life.

Remember, these tools are useless unless we apply them. Practice is the key!

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PS: People conflate a lack of focus with a lack of talent.