The Three Stages of Focus

Understanding The Three Stages of Focus:

What can’t be achieved with a clear mind? We’re unstoppable when we let nothing get in our way. We’ve each experienced momentary states of flow, where we navigate seamlessly through the chaos of life to achieve something quite notable. We can wrangle our focus and reach an everlasting state of flow only through understanding the nature of focus and clarity. This nature can be understood through the internalization of three focal stages explained below.

1. Intentional Focus:

The first and most casual stage of focus is “Intentional Focus.” We reach this stage when we set a goal and start attending to it. Our intent is strong and we’re willing to do what it takes to get the job done, at least for the time being. Our passion gives us the strength needed to take our very first steps toward achievement. However, this stage of focus can be wrought with insecurity and turmoil. Being intentional does not mean our priorities are in order, meaning we’re liable to focus on too many things at once in our pursuit of attainment. The same passion that fuels intention can also evoke our ego. Because when we focus on anything new, we stare our incompetencies square in the eye. Like a child learning to walk, new focal points need to be nurtured, encouraged, and handheld. We must proceed with caution, because our ego can easily crush our inner-child’s curiosity, scoffing at the concept of starting from scratch.

Unchecked ego stunts our capacity to grow, and is typically masked with procrastinatory excuses which seek to hide us from any feelings of insufficiency. Intentional focus helps us take our first brave steps, yet it is wrought with chaos. Everything attained with this level of focus alone will be hard-fought. Also, being intelligent isn’t necessarily helpful here, as skilled overachievers will find it easy to get stuck in a rut of ruthless intention and burnout. Strong capability, while helpful, can often couple with pride and an unwillingness to accept help from others. Intellectuals may overextend themselves, get offended, and ultimately burn out. “The pathway to hell is paved with intention” they say. Those smart enough to wield many intentions at once, are often the first to burn.

2. Boundaried Focus:

The second stage of focus is “Boundaried Focus.” Boundaried focus happens when our mindset transitions from from passion to realism. This is where we set healthy constraints and rules, affirming to the world that we are going to put in adequate time, attention, and focus to achieve something. This means we must let go of things that get in the way of that achievement, and occasionally we must fight to keep our precious time intact. Consider romantic love: The initial excitement of romance is eventually cemented in simple acts of long-term sacrifice. It isn’t a grand gesture that wins our lover’s lasting trust, but persistent attendance to their needs. Such attendance must be routine and constant in order to last, and anything that lasts must be somewhat comfortable. Financial troubles are often the first indicator of impending romantic separation, as financial strains torque the comfort-level of romantic partners, causing them to lose focus on small and seemingly insignificant gestures that are actually vital to the health of a partnership. To pour adequate focus into a long-term goal requires appropriate comfort-levels, which can be an “uncomfortable” thing to talk about, as comfort might implicate our own limitations.

Boundaried focus requires writing out our to-dos, it requires being honest with ourselves, and requires the relinquishing of focus on some things so we can achieve greater focus on other things. Such relinquishment can require us to say “no” from time to time, which can be scary. Others aren’t inclined to help us maintain better boundaries, as our boundaries are typically seen as self-serving. To attain a state of boundaried focus, we must be clear communicators, we can’t take offense when others scoff at our needs, and we must be our own self-advocates. Boundaries are never simple lines in the sand we can just walk away from, they are values we must uphold and protect.

Setting boundaries will grant long-term results in accordance with lasting focus, but boundaries need to be unwaveringly defended. Like a nation protecting her most valuable resources, we must secure our borders, guaranteeing ourselves the time we need to pour our hearts into our work. If we want to find a state of flow on the good days and the bad, we require the necessary breathing room to get things done.

3. Emotional Focus:

The third and most powerful stage of focus is “emotional focus.” This is a state of focus where the world around us seems to conspire for our success. If we’re writing a to-do list, we might try writing positive emotions next to each action item. This is because it is healthy to see the immediate good in what we’re doing presently, and to let go of the eventual outcomes. Finding value in the process, excised from the result, will help us to appreciate current affairs. A mind fixated on attainment will only enamor itself with fantasy while dreading the small adventures associated with greater achievement.

Attaching emotional worth to our individual process will hone our focus on the “here and now.” Such worth will also serve to protect our sacred boundaries from would-be attackers. There will always be those seeking to break boundaries, seeing them as a hedge to resources, time, or talents they can usurp from us. Healthy boundaries are quantifiably justifiable, meaning a “boundary breaker” typically won’t use logical arguments to devalue such boundaries. “Do you even care anymore?” and “I’m worried about your productivity” are typical attacks deployed by a “boundary breaker.” Master manipulators understand, perhaps intrinsically, that emotional arguments will trump sound logic in the public eye. They’ll seek to curry public favor, using emotional sentiments, in their petitions for our relinquished boundaries. They do this to steal our time and attention for their own purposes.

Finding an emotional core for each of our boundaries will guarantee two things: Firstly, our ability to remain composed amidst emotional attacks. If we can evoke strong emotion and reverence for our individual process (even when it’s flawed), we’ll find the necessary faith required to persist through emotional attacks and denigrations from others, we’ll double down where we need to, and such attacks will serve only as feedback used to reinforce our own mental framework. Secondly, we must fight emotion with emotion. We ought to live in a world where mathematics trumps emotion, but we don’t. Usurpers will always throw emotional attacks against us, praying we respond with logic. The outcome of emotion vs logic will make the logical party seem robotic and unfeeling while placing the emotional party on a pedestal of care and concern.

We can easily quell baseless emotional arguments with emotional sentiments of our own. We must always justify ourselves with logic, but always justify ourselves to others with logic and emotion. This third level of focus requires more than simple clarity within. It requires us to cultivate an energy of clarity all around us: a self-respect that the world can’t ignore. We’ll inspire others to follow and support us as they naturally assume we are on track to achievement, seeing that our emotions line-up with our reasoning. Relinquishing our end-goal is vital for assuming this outward posture of confidence.

Conclusion:

“Dreaming big” is a core component of powerful focus, but dreaming big implies so much more than believing in our goals. The biggest dreamers are perhaps never truly awake. To them, life is a dream, each step they take is beautiful, and their dreams come to life well before any desired outcome is assured. If we hope to attain a focused state of mind, one where we can achieve the remarkable, we must let go of finite outcomes while establishing emotionally charged boundaries. Such mental frameworking will harness the full power of focus, bringing lasting clarity into our lives.