Attention Determines Direction

Focus is a powerful thing. Where you fix your attention can affect everything from your mood, the speed at which you recover, to the health of your relationships.

In three questions Tony Robbins summed up why so many of us are fighting an uphill battle in our everyday lives.

We often don't realize it until it's too late, but so often:

Attention determines Direction in our lives.

1) What does your average person focus on, the things they can control or the things they can’t?

The things they can’t. If you’re anything like me, you tend to fixate on the big things in life you have absolutely no control over. The weather, the economy, the way someone else is going to react… we focus on the things in life that we have no ability to affect. No wonder we worry. No wonder we’re anxious. We try to pull a level that is forever out of our reach.

What we need is faith.

2) What does your average person focus on, the things they have or the things they don’t?

The things they don’t. We come by it honestly. Research tells us we’re bombarded with roughly 5,000 advertisements every day of all the things we don’t have but should want. We fix our thoughts on all the things in our lives that are missing, instead of the wondrous blessings we already have. No wonder we feel dissatisfied. We’ve filled our minds with our lack.

What we need is gratitude.

3) What does your average person focus on, the past, the present, or the future?

The past. With the exception of the strivers among us who are relentlessly future focused, most people fixate on the past. They think on the things they wish they had changed, and grieve over what they would have, should have, or could have done if given a second chance. But the past is over. It cannot be changed. It is entombed in the concrete of spent time and space. No wonder we feel discouraged. You cannot see ahead of you when your eyes are always looking back.

What we need is hope.

If you want to change your life, change where you look. And when you don't know which way to stare, look up.