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?