Focus | SuccessConsciousness.com Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth

What is Concentration?

By Remez Sasson

What is concentration? What do you know about it?

Concentration is the ability to direct one’s attention in accordance with one’s will. It means control of the attention. It is the ability to focus the mind on one subject, object or thought, and at the same time exclude from the mind every other unrelated thoughts, ideas, feelings and sensations.

It also means the ability to do one thing at a time, instead of jumping from one subject to another and losing attention, time, and energy.

Concentration is a state, in which one’s whole attention is engrossed in one thing only, and being oblivious to everything else. During concentration, the mind focuses on the object of concentration, and only one thought occupies the mind. The whole energy of the mind becomes concentrated on this one thought.

The ability to command the mind and control the attention is not common, and requires training. Most people lack the ability to control their attention and focus the mind exclusively on one subject for any length of time. They can’t command their mind to concentrate, whenever they want to. However, concentration is not uncommon activity. It happens almost everyday, to almost everyone, but it is more of a spontaneous and uncontrolled ability.

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Passive Concentration Versus Active Concentration

By Remez Sasson

As you know, concentration is very important in everyone’s life, and it is one of the main reasons for success or failure in all areas of life.

Most people find it difficult to focus their mind. However, there are times when they do concentrate, but this is a passive concentration. Let me explain.

When you read a fascinating book, do you sometimes forget everything else, and get completely immersed in the book?

When you watch a good movie or a good show, do you sometimes become oblivious to everything else, even to hunger, your chores, or to the people around you?

When you are engaged in an activity that you like very much, do you forget about the time, and it seems to pass very fast?

At such times you can ignore thoughts, noises, people, pain and problems. It is as if the activity you are engaged it, draws your whole attention, without any effort on your part. This is passive concentration.

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Filed Under: Concentration and Mind Power Tagged With: active concentration, focus, mind, passive concentration

How to Keep Your Mind From Wandering

By Remez Sasson

Keep Your Mind From Wandering It is a habit of the mind to wander. What happens when you sit quietly for a few minutes trying to think about something, or just sit down to relax? Next time you do this, try to watch your mind, and you will discover that it flits around like a butterfly, going from one thought to another.

The mind keeps thinking, worrying, asking questions, answering, giving excuses, telling stories, imagining, creating problems and solving them.

This happens not only while you sit down to relax, but also while working, driving, cooking, eating or doing anything else. This non-stop activity weakens your ability to focus your mind, and as well as interferes with your ability to deal effectively with what you are doing at each moment of the day.

A wandering mind can prevent you from falling asleep, finishing your tasks and work, and completing what you are doing. It also wastes your time and energy, and can be tiring sometimes.

Some people would tell you that if you perform more than one task at a time, you will save time and get more done. This might be true at times, when carrying out automatic tasks that do not require your or attention, but you will get done, and more accurately and efficiently, if you focus on just one thing at a time.

How many times have you tried to do several things at the same time, but ended doing mistakes and then having to correct them? When you focus on one task at a time, you do it more efficiently, easily and quickly. Paying your undivided attention to one subject is a sort of meditation, and this action teaches your mind obedience and discipline. When your mind is obedient and disciplined, it stops wandering, and you are more at peace.

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Filed Under: Concentration and Mind Power Tagged With: concentration, focus, keep your mind from wandering, mind, multitasking

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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Filed Under: Concentration and Mind Power Tagged With: focus, goals

Obstacles to Concentration

By Remez Sasson

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