The Magical Power of Focus

By Leo Babauta

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” – Qui-Gon to Anakin, Star Wars Episode I

The quote above, as cheesy as George Lucas’ writing often is, contains a nugget of Jedi wisdom that I’ve repeatedly found to be true.

Your focus determines your reality.

It’s something we don’t think about much of the time, but give it some consideration now:

If you wake up in the morning and think about the miserable things you need to do later in the day, you’ll have a miserable day. If you wake up and focus instead on what a wonderful gift your life is, you’ll have a great day.

If we let our attention jump from one thing to another, we will have a busy, fractured and probably unproductive day. If we focus entirely on one job, we may lose ourselves in that job, and it will not only be the most productive thing we do all day, but it’ll be very enjoyable.

If we focus on being tired and wanting to veg out in front of the TV, we will get a lot of television watching done. If, however, we focus on being healthy and fit, we will become healthy and fit through exercise and good eating.
This may seem simplistic, but it’s completely true. This is the magical power of focus.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can use focus to improve different aspects of your life.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” – Buddha

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Do you find it difficult to hold your attention fixed on one subject or thought longer than a few seconds, before getting distracted by other thoughts or sense impressions? There are several obstacles to concentration that everyone faces, but these obstacles can be surmounted.

What are the obstacles to concentration?

# Lack of enough willpower

# Lack of enough self discipline

# Impatience

# Undisciplined mind

# Too much interest in other thoughts

# Physical and mental restlessness

# Lack of understanding of what concentration is

# Inability to sit still

# Ill health

# Lack of motivation to improve the concentration

#  Too much stress and lack of enough rest

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The ability to focus the mind is one of the most important abilities one should possess. As a matter of fact, most people lack the ability to concentrate. Their attention usually wanders, without being able to fix it on one subject for any reasonable period of time.

What is concentration? It is the ability to focus the attention on one single thought or subject, excluding everything else from the field of awareness. A good ability, which can be gained through proper exercises, enables one to focus the mind on anything at will, without being distracted by thoughts, noises or anything else.

You need this ability when you read, study, meditate, work or while doing almost anything else. It helps you:

- Control of your thoughts
- Gain inner peace
- Free your mind from futile and annoying thoughts
 -Improve your memory
 -Improve your ability to study
- Conserve your energies
- Work more efficiently
- Improve meditation
- Strengthen your intuition
And much more…

Here is a simple exercise to train your mind:

Count the words in any one paragraph in a book or newspaper, and then count them again, to ascertain that you have counted them correctly.

Do so with several paragraphs, practicing everyday.

When this becomes easy, try counting the words in two paragraphs, and later count the words on a whole page.

To enhance your focus and attention, count the words mentally, only with your eyes, without pointing you finger at them.

You can find more exercises at:
http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_000005.htm