How to concentrate and focus
It’s the one thing that we all have, the mind. Also is the one thing that we don’t have a manual for. We buy a phone; it comes with a manual. We get a car and it comes with a manual but nobody teaches us how to use the mind, there is no manual for the mind. So this I think is one of the most essential things in making progress in our life, understanding how the mind works. It’s the one thing that we have to live with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have no choice. Let’s say you slept for eight hours a day (which most of you don’t) and you awake 16 hours. These 16 hours, you practice, your awareness just randomly moving from one thing to another, to another all day practice being distracted. What would you be good at up to six months? All these 16 hours a day, you just allow your awareness to jumb from one thing to another to another etc. You will start eating now, then you will switch to texting a message, then you will go to the email, now your phone is ringing so you have to answer it, and then you have to talk with somebody, so you will have 2 conversations at one time and you’ll just do this 16 hours a day, every day. So, you get being very good at distraction. After one year, you an expert at being distracted .
The same works for the opposite. If you practice being concentrated, 16 hours a day, what would you become good at? You become good at concentrating and all it takes is practice by doing one thing at a time. Keeping your awareness on one thing at a time, and you integrate this into everything that you do in your life. So, the best way to do is pick a few opportunities in your everyday life, for example, when you speak with somebody you give them your undivided attention. You keep your awareness on them and the conversation and you become an active listener. So, if I can keep my awareness to the person who is talking to me and not drift away and think about vacation, my partner, or what am I going to eat tonight , then I’m concentrating on this person. Every time my mind drifts away, I bring it back, and the more I practice this, the more I practice concentration. So, concentration is the ability to keep your awareness on one thing for prolonged period of time.
What’s the best way to practice it? The best way it is to integrate it into everything that you do in your life. Not just to meditate 10 minutes in the morning. You really need to look at your life the same way, lets say, an Olympic athlete can do. If you look these athletes they practice every day, they look that they eating the right kind of food with the right amount of water and vitamins. Their whole day is so disciplined.
A lot of people are saying ‘’I need to be more concentrated, so you know what? I’m going to meditate in the morning. I’ll sit down for 10 min’’ And now they think they became Zen masters and the remaining 23 hours and 50 minutes they just go about being ordinary and crazy. So, if for 23 hours and 50 minutes you will not being concentrated, you allowed your awareness to jump from one thing in your mind to another thing, to another thing, to another thing in an uncontrolled way, what would you be good at?
With a prolonged concentration comes the wonderful power of observation. You just become more observant and when you become more observant, you see solution quicker and you solve things quicker and it’s a wonderful powerful feeling when somebody is concentrated on you and not being distracted. So, the best way is to integrate it into everyday life. You speaking with your spouse, give her or give him you undivided attention. Develop your awareness, integrated into everything that you do in your life.
Spiros Giorgis
