Knowing how you actually want to feel is the most potent form of clarity that you can have ~ Danielle LaPorte
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the happiness in life comes from what we achieve – that it comes from outside of us. Somehow, mysteriously, the satisfaction of securing it will absorb through our skin and into our hearts. And when the path of achievement gets crooked, we have a tendency to look for fault in our external realities – the difficulties that seem thrown in our path to halt our progress. It doesn’t help that we live in a society that encourages us, and really depends on us, believing that the feelings we’re after can be gained through commerce.
But so much of our daily peace and contentment really happen between our ears. What brings us happiness is staying grounded in the best feelings in life: the sweetness of beauty, love, wisdom, connection. Even knowing this I bet I’m not the only one who gets stuck giving more worried or irritated attention to the things I don’t like. What happens then is that the negative thoughts turn into negative feelings and the craving to fix them starts to chafe. The problem is, as Dan Ariely and Daniel Gilbert have found, when we try to fix our lives we don’t know what will make us happy at all.
So what’s the antidote?
Focus, my friends.
Specifically, understanding how you focus your attention. Focus holds exceptional power because we can use it to create or to stay stuck. Focus on the positive and more positive shows up. Focus on the negative and you’re on a fast train to stressland.
What we focus on shows up more in our life because we see its presence more clearly. It’s like picking a familiar face out of a crowd. We see what’s familiar, not always what’s great. Getting the most from your focus comes from consciously directing your focus towards the feelings that you want. Want to feel love? Focus on where love already exists in your life and cultivate it from there.
We can tell if our focus is off-kilter if our feelings and emotions are negative and energy draining. And when they start to get the better of us, it’s red-alert time to spend some time being mindfully aware of whether our focus is positive or negative.
Here’s a simple exercise from Mary Beth Maziarz, who wrote Kick-Ass Creativity, a wonderful book about making over your energy to unlock your creative powers. She developed this to remind us where our attention is focused and how conscious we are about it:
1. What are your top five focus areas right now? These might be concerns, goals, points of excitement, or areas of attention where you notice yourself directing a lot of thought, feelings, emotion, or conversation.
2. How long has each focus area been prominent for you?
3. If you experienced the exact outcome of your focus in these areas, what would you receive or feel? Are you focusing on a positive or negative outcome?
4. Ask a close friend to list the five things that seem most prominent on your mind lately. Ask if the tone of these five topics represents a fairly typical outlook for you, or if it indicates a downward or upward trend for you. Is there a difference in how you present things to others and how you interpret them yourself?
5. Are your focus areas similar to those close to you? Where do you crave change in your circle? Who do you know who might represent more exciting futures or possibilities? Could you reach out to them?
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