Focus Your Mind: Real Self Help

Did you leave your house naked this morning? Of course you didn’t. Isn’t it bizarre that everyone has no problem preparing themselves physically for the day ahead whilst almost no one bothers to mentally prepare – and being mentally prepared is far more important because the quality of your life, your success, your peace of mind, your wealth, your health and your happiness all depend upon it.

I say this with absolute certainty because many years research backs me up. What occupies your mind creates your life. Whether you’re a success or failure, healthy or ill, wealthy or poor, happy or stressed or even depressed is all down to your state of mind. Unfortunately, that same research concludes that the normal person is unable to focus – on anything – because the normal default state of mind is distracted and negative. Distracted by 50,000 random thoughts each day and subconsciously negative as a result of the programming of our formative years and our need to conform.

In other words, if your life is just OK or not too bad, if you’re not over the moon about your job, if you’d like to have more money or be more impressive or more attractive, the solution to your problems, real or perceived, is entirely in your own hands or, more to the point, in your own mind. Over two-thirds of people don’t like their job – presumably they’re doing it because they think that they have to and that they have no choice. Over 90% of males in their twenties and thirties worry about money. Over 50% of people see “financial freedom” as their main goal.

And yet all the solutions to all your problems are within your grasp if you could just tear yourself away from breakfast TV or get up five minutes earlier each morning. Yes, it only takes five minutes each morning to make the other twenty-three hours and fifty five minutes completely, utterly and totally different from the norm. Just five minutes each morning training your mind how to focus will change your life.

Of course, we use the word focus without knowing what it really means – it’s one of these clichéd words that is much abused and generally misunderstood. People assume that to be a success – in whatever aspect of your life you choose, or all of them – you need to be focused on your goals. But focus is simply a matter of paying attention – to both your goals and, even more importantly, the present moment. After all, the here and now is the only time and place you have. And, if you start each day without taking five minutes to focus your mind in the here and now, your mind, having started the day in default mode, will wander aimlessly through the day in the same default, mindless, unfocused, inattentive, self-destructive mode. If you get home in the evening having had another crap day, it’s your own fault – it could have been so different if you just bothered to “dress yourself mentally” for the day ahead.

So, we’re basically looking at paying attention – firstly to your goals and, secondly, to the present moment. In relation to your goals, you need to grab a hold of your subconscious mind’s attention. After all, this is the part of your mind where you store your beliefs that, at the present moment, don’t seem to be getting you anywhere – fast. You need new beliefs and that is why you need to focus your subconscious. This is done by using your five senses to describe to yourself what it would be like to have already achieved your desired goal. You need to write down – handwrite it – what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste as if you already have achieved your goal. This focuses the subconscious mind.
After that, if you keep focusing on your goal, you’ll be unable to do the key things that you need to be doing now to move you towards your goal. So you need to learn how to pay attention to the present moment, engross yourself in now. Again, this is done by paying attention to your five senses – your only interface with the real world. You need to retrain your mind – because you were an expert at paying attention when you were a child – to more fully experience what now looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like and tastes like.

Even five minutes of meditation – meditation uses the senses to simply experience the moment – each morning will start the ball rolling. Meditation disciplines the mind to be more attentive, less likely to be unsettled by the nonsense of everyday life and more likely to be able to spot opportunity when it stares you in the face – and every normal mind needs that discipline.

Could it be that simple? Well, there’s buckets of research that goes into the couple of simple ideas that I’ve given you. But why wallow in the research? Why make the simply complex? It is that simple. Your life is the result of your state of mind. You need to take control of your state of mind – after all, it’s the only thing in your life that you can fully control.