What is attention, exactly? Simply, it is focusing on one thing while filtering out distractions. How well can you sustain your focus over time? We are all highly distractible. Everyone has entered a room at home only to ask themselves, “What did I come here to do?”. We are oversaturated with stimuli. Our attention span is short, our distractibility is high, and it is difficult for us to stay present in the moment. While it affects everyone, it has an impact on your life.
Your life is shaped by what you choose to focus on—and by what you choose to ignore. If you do not intentionally choose your focus of attention, your choice will default to your habits. Attention isn’t just a mental function; it’s the lens through which you experience life. Being present allows you to create your life, rather than reacting to it. Being present in the moment is more than desirable—it’s powerful.
Your experience of life largely depends on what you attend to and filter out. This isn’t just a philosophical idea—it’s physiological. Every day, your mind selectively directs attention, often by habit. However, with awareness, you can direct this process. You can live more deliberately, more fully, more effectively. The ability to focus on this and not that is fundamental to shaping your life and your well-being. This activity is sometimes referred to as Zen or Mindfulness, I call it a life performance.
Becoming more focused and attentive is an intentional act. It’s the activity of deciding that you make repeatedly throughout daily, rooted in self-awareness and emotional intelligence. This intentionality I call performance. In performance, it is we who choose how we want to be in the moment. Developing your ability to attend can be life-transforming.
Focused attention is essential to developmental decision-making. Those decisions that help you grow as a person. It’s central to improving nearly every area of your life: your mood, your productivity, your relationships.
When your attention is directed toward the present/future, you often experience emergent intuition and clarity. By staying focused on growth-oriented developmental activities, your life stops feeling like a string of reactions. Life begins to feel like deliberate creation. Not a random sequence of events, but a performance you’re actively shaping. It is you creating you.
Concentrating on something enjoyable can create a time paradox: time seems to fly by, while simultaneously standing still. Sustained focus on a meaningful goal doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s a necessary step toward it. Without focus, goals drift and disappear into fantasy.
The decisions we make about where to focus our attention come in all dimensions. Some are obvious and ordinary—”do I the laundry now or later?” Some are weighty—choosing a career, a partner, a place to live. These usually require more focused attention. Yet, the smaller and more subtle decisions are just as crucial to the quality of our daily life: choosing to dwell on our aspirations rather than fears, to live in the present instead of the past, to recognize that a negative event doesn’t have to dominate our thoughts.
Even seemingly trivial choices matter: picking up a book instead of scrolling through social media, having a real conversation instead of sending a text, reaching for an apple instead of a doughnut. These decisions may appear minor, however, they shape the emotionality of our days—and, over time, they shape your life.
The difference between simply passing time and actively living it lies in what and how you choose to focus on. It’s expressed in your performance.
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