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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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

There are other obstacles to concentration, but these are the main ones.

In order to overcome these obstacles to concentration you need to develop and strengthen your willpower and self discipline through appropriate exercises. You can find a few exercises here, or if you wish to gain real inner strength, please read, study and practice the exercises in the book Will Power and Self Discipline. Through these exercises you discipline your mind and thoughts and overcome impatience and restlessness.

Thinking often about the benefits of gaining the ability to concentrate and focus your mind can help too, as well as repeating affirmations about your desire to improve this ability. This will strengthen your motivation and desire, and help you overcome the obstacles on the way.

Practicing some physical exercises during the day, will improve your health and your ability to overcome physical restlessness. It is also important to learn to give yourself some rest during the day, and give yourself enough sleep at night.

Try to stay calm and relaxed during the day, no matter what happens. Exhibiting some inner detachment would help. Don’t let yourself be too affected by what people say or do, and don’t let external influences affect your moods and state of mind. If you let people and external events affect your moods and state of mind, how can you focus your mind when you need to? It is true, it might not be easy to get rid of this habit, but if you learn to be aware of this subconscious habit, you will gradually be able to weaken its affect on you.

Of course don’t forget that you also need to find some time every day to practice concentration exercises.

Hypnosis or listening to special CDs, might help and bring some quick results, but real and lasting results come through gradual work and by developing the mental muscles, and not through external means. Gradual and conscious development, produce in the long run, better and enduring results. It is like taking hormones and pills to develop physical strength and muscles versus practicing actual physical exercises. It might take longer and requires some effort, but the rewards are great and worthwhile.

You can overcome the obstacles to concentration, if you really desire to do so. They won’t appear overnight, but eventually they will disappear.

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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

Copyright © 2007 Remez Sasson Remez Sasson Blog. | Permalink | One comment