3 Life Hacks for More Focus

This one's going to be all about the life hacks to focus. What are some things that we can do and apply in our own life so that we have a better focus, we're able to do the things that we enjoy doing, and have it be something that just flows more freely versus us having to try so hard? Well, part of these are going to be things that I have just acknowledged or like seen from my own life. And the first one has to do with the vortex of the eyes. So when we're focused on anything, the more that our eyes move around, you might even notice while you're watching me right now, if my eyes move around a lot, it looks like I have a scattered mind. Now that's because as my eyes move, I'm then interpreting different, you know, details. And because of that, it makes my mind a little bit more stimulated. Versus if I just like staring into the lens, it very much is easy for me to get into this flow state because I have one point of focus. Now, for some of you who don't know, I talked about it in some of my earlier videos. I had what is technically called ADHD, which is something that doctors will prescribe Adderall or Ritalin to people that have it. And what it basically does is it helps people focus and it helps people get stuff done. So I took that for years, but it had really harsh side effects. Some of those side effects were you don't eat very much and you don't sleep very much. So after a period of time, it was 4 years ago, I decided that I was going to search for other alternatives. And what I did was I came across doing research, found out how powerful meditation can be, and just on the endocrine system, on the different like hormones in the body, on the brainwave activity, having coherent brainwaves. It was something that I was like, well, if there's science like backing this up, it's something I'm gonna try. So I tried meditation and within just even a couple days of doing it, I started to feel completely different. I had a totally different energy about myself. And within 2 weeks of that, I completely let go of Adderall. Haven't taken it since. The supplement is I meditate for 20 minutes right when I wake up in the morning. And then 20 minutes right before I go to bed at night. And it's made a huge difference in the way that I am able to focus and be present. Now the other part of this that I want to talk about is what led me, what kind of meditation I did that got me to be able to have that focus. Now I didn't consciously realize it years ago, but I just, I read randomly about the idea of staring at a candle flame, that it was an easy way to like, you know, just like focus on one thing and then focus on breathing, and it was an easier way to, uh, like, sink more into the moment. So I began years ago, and I still do the same meditation today, just staring at a candle and focusing on breathing. So that is one of the most powerful things that I've been able to do, is just to focus on one point with just breathing, or just having an intention, or whatever it might be. But that's been something that's I've noticed that I've had a huge impact on increasing my attention span altogether. Now, the second life hack to being focused is what I call, or what is fundamentally called, metacognition. Now, what this is, it sounds like a very, you know, like a complex word, but what that means is you become aware of what you're thinking of. So the reason this is important is because a lot of times we habitually fall into the same mind patterns over and over again. What I've noticed is that if you become aware of what you're thinking of and if you allow yourself to, uh, set yourself like a trigger to where you understand that when you're doing certain things, if you set yourself a trigger to where you realize that you don't want to go down the same path, what happens is you can then redirect your attention. So one thing that I do with this is I put an alarm on my phone every hour or so that says, what are you focusing on? And sometimes I'll find myself like scrolling through, uh, you know, social media or looking at, you know, something in an app and all of a sudden it'll say, what are you focusing on? And sometimes it's okay. It's okay to, you know, go through social media or connect to other people or whatever it is. But at the same time, sometimes I realize, wait, I want to focus on something else. So what I do is I then take that energy that I would have been putting into my phone or into social media, and then what I do is I refocus it on whatever my intention is to focus on. And then the third life hack is on the idea of momentum. Now what momentum is, is understanding that the more consistently you take any action and you're doing anything in any direction, what happens is the more that you do that, the more likely the neural networks of your brain are to go in that same direction. So where it might've been more habitual for us to think in terms of doing things that we've done before over and over again, like I said in the second one, which was about, uh, habitually getting on our phones. The idea is that then what we do is we begin to wire ourselves in a new way because we are then making new type of decisions. Now this is also a powerful thing when we're understanding how we can constantly do it more and more to where it becomes easier for us to get into what is called a flow state. Now a flow state comes when a certain amount of momentum which means we consistently choose to do something for a period of time, it becomes easier and easier as we go. Now, this is what I call time blocking, and what this is, is you simply make the decision that for the next 50 minutes or the next hour, all you're gonna do is focus on one task. Now, that could be writing out something, it could be making a list, it could be checking it twice, it could be a couple other things. But what you do is you decide exactly what you're going to do. You don't give yourself any other option than doing that. It means you put your phone away, you put your computer, you turn it off, and then you just focus. And as you do that, the first 5 or 10 minutes might not be so easy, but what'll happen is the more that you do it, the longer you do it. So if you do it for 10 or 15 minutes, after that you'll start to get into what is called a flow state. And in that flow state, it feels feels good to do what you're ending up doing. It's the same thing with me doing these videos. For example, the first couple of videos I did, it was very hard for me to speak in front of a camera and to get that kind of flow state. Now that I enjoy doing it and now that I've done it more and more consistently, it's very easy for me to just turn on the camera and go, not have much prepared material. I don't really write anything out. All I do is turn it on and start speaking, and it's because of that flow state. Flow state, it's because of that focus that I've really been able to do this and it's something that I now enjoy doing. And in the same way, if you refocus your attention, if you time block certain activities, you'll start to feel that momentum. You'll start to feel that flow, and from that it'll get easier for you to do it. So what I encourage you to do is to understand that your focus is powerful. Our life is a result of our attention and our intention. So as long as we focus ourselves into what we want to do, we become mindful of the kind of decisions that we're making in correlation to what we're focusing on. What we begin to do is actually live a life that we're very passionate about and we'll begin to see a different result in our life because we then act from that point of power. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Feel free to like and subscribe below, and other than that, I'll see you guys on the next video. Stay focused. Peace.