An Old-school Trick To Stay Focused Through The Hard Stuff

You can probably name a pretty decent number of movies that show “perseverance,” “fortitude,” or “determination.”Most of these movies represent challenges and obstacles in really obvious ways so viewers can relate quickly.

This means, adversity is usually represented in some physical way.

Sports and war movies lend themselves very well to this model.

The trouble is that most “hard stuff” in your life won’t be physical.

It will be social, or emotional.School did NOT prepare you for this.Specifically, this means dealing with difficult personalities, regulating your emotions, and knowing when to put yourself first versus when to put others first.None of this was part of your education—yet it’s necessary for success.So what are you going to do about it?

2 Minute Action:

Take 2 minutes to meditate this morning.Meditation can help train you to focus on what’s important and become more immune to distractions.Not only is this an ages old tactic, but there is more and more empirical evidence for this each yearThis could mean task distractions or it could mean emotional distractions.The skill of focus is pretty transferable.If you don’t know how to meditate or even know what that means, try calm.com, or the headspace app. These will help guide you.Everyone has 2 minutes.You don’t need an hour.You just need 2 minutes on this, over time.

Soft Skills

We're supposed to care about soft-skills.

You know, like emotional intelligence & "people skills."But that's just scratching the surface.

Here are some better examples:

• It's important to separate yourself from your work so you can accept the criticism that will help you become the best version of yourself.
• It's important to NOT beat yourself up when you make a mistake because it shuts down your motivational inertia.
• It's important to stand up for what you believe in, since rolling over leads to a lifetime of fear and depression.

We aren't doing a good job of measuring these things, nor do we actually value them (for some reason). If we did, we'd be teaching these things in school.Think about it. Instead of learning how to regulate our emotions, take criticism, or balance a checking account, we spent entire semesters learning all of these important things:

• The Pinta, The Niña, and the Santa Maria.
• Neptune is mostly made of gas.
• A Hypotenuse is the longest side of a triangle.

Here's the kicker:

You're now faced with a choice. You can change what you value and start focusing on what really matters for having a happy, healthy, productive life, or you can continue focusing on distractions.

2 Minute Action:

My favorite action: write a list.Lists are great data structures. They're simple, small, and easy to read. They also help store small, important bits of information. Even if you're not storing it forever, it's helpful to get all of these list items out of your brain and into a list you can acknowledge.What are some of the things that you're doing in your life or work that have you saying what you used to say in school: "When am I actually going to use this?"Pick 3. Identifying these things is just the start. What do you think you should do about them?

Mankind Was My Business

Is it too early to talk about the reason for the season?

Just a quick reminder about why we do anything at all:

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

'Business!'cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.

Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!'"-- Jacob Marley, Stave 1 - Marley's Ghost, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

I know you've read my thoughts on the death bed principle--the idea of actively staring down the days we have left and taking action on ideas that reduce the likelihood of regret. Well, there's also another way to combat regret, and that's by focusing on happiness.It turns out that happiness (serotonin) and temporary pleasure (dopamine) are completely different in our brains, yet we conflate them all the time.The words of Jacob Marley haunt me every year and I'm so grateful. Let's spend more time focusing on others, because as Scrooge inevitably learns: it's those around us who give us meaning.

2 Minute Action

What is one crucial ingredient for true happiness?Is it an object? Is it touchable, sense-able, or visible?How much time are you spending on developing that thing, bringing in more of that thing, or finding a way to lose less of that thing?However hard it is to focus on doing that, amid the other distractions of living our lives, it's worth it.