What we know - and what we believe to know - has an impact on our daily actions. That’s why we tend to act according to certain beliefs that have become deeply ingrained in our heads over the course of our life. We refer to those beliefs as “myths” here. Just as a racoon secretly goes into your attic and gnaws away at the insulation day after day, untruths can implant themselves unnoticeably in your head as well. It’s up to you to discover the uninvited intruder and reclaim your attic. The same principle applies to certain misconceptions that sabotage your focus and therefore your success. As soon as you realise how those misconceptions are unconsciously pulling you in a direction that isn’t doing you any good, you can put an end to them and actively convince your mind the opposite. This way you get rid of personal blockades regarding success and clear the path for the next steps in the right direction. Now… enough talk, let’s take a closer look at the myth about focus.
Focus MYTH
“Everything is important!
And they prioritised happily ever after.
The word "priority" means "the most important or primary thing" and it was used exclusively in the singular form for more than 500 years. It was only in 19th century when the plural form "priorities" found its way into the dictionary. Although there can clearly only be one thing per day, per area of life which is indeed the most important thing, the introduction of the plural is ultimately reflected in our everyday lives. There's no longer one priority, but projects are regularly sorted according to priority 1, 2, 3, sometimes even up to 9 or 10.
As a direct consequence, several things are simultaneously deemed "the most important or primary thing". If this spins out of control, in the end, everything and nothing is of importance to you. Without noticing it, we live in an "Everything-is-important-myth-world".
Why do we think that “everything is important”?
Are you familiar with that feeling of being swamped with tasks? The feeling that you’re working hard while simultaneously new commitments overflow you like metre-high waves? Before the water gets so high that you drown, you try to swim against the waves. You fight against giant to-do lists and endless floods of emails not to mention your private obligations and your social or sporting ambitions. The truth is, however, that this struggle is pointless, because some tasks and obligations always fall by the wayside. you’ll never be able to deal with everything you actually want and need.
Nevertheless, that’s exactly what we attempt to do. Because everything feels important, we want to do just about everything and end up being hecticly industrious bees. Most of the time, we act reactively and tackle whatever comes our way, rather than proactively planning and acting accordingly. The problem with this is that the tasks that draw the greatest attention to themselves are almost always urgent, but only rarely important. However, the tasks that will be decisive for your personal success in the future are rarely urgent today. Knowing that our behaviour is determined by outside forces to some extent, it’s all the more important to proactively establish goals and stay focused on them.
If we always behave reactively, we may well be constantly industrious and active, but we’ll not really be productive. We’re fighting a hopeless battle against the waves of tasks that are incessantly flowing towards us. With this in mind, the mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zin said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” We can train ourselves to deal with our tasks and obligations differently: Instead of fighting the waves that are coming, we can mindfully observe how they’re approaching us and decide which ones we want to break against the shore and which ones we want to surf on.
Reactive vs. Proactive
- Are you still re-acting or already acting?
This is where the wheat is separated from the chaff. It’s the point at which successful people take the time to find out which priorities will truly make a difference to their lives. And the point at which those who are always fighting the waves have “no time” to breathe because the next wave is already moving towards them. People often fail at being successful not because they lack the will or ability, but because they don’t know how to prioritise. And beware: Prioritisation is about setting one single priority and not sorting several from 1-10. Setting this one priority for each area of life is probably one of the most underestimated skills of all. In the future, there might well be only two different types of people. Those who are reactive and primarily allow their attention and therefore also their priorities to be controlled externally, and those who are able to proudly call themselves proactive and focused.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about focus and how to be successful, check out “The 6-Minute Success Journal”, available on Amazon.