OH! Magazine - Australian Version January 2017 | Page 34

(Performance Coaching)

ATTENTION: IT’S ALL
COMES DOWN TO
FOCUS
Greg Sellar explores the
importance of attention.

ow you interpret information can
influence whether you live a
peaceful existence, or one filled with
angst and frustration. It begs the question
‘What are you currently paying attention
to?’

H

When we’re overloaded with information,
to stop ourselves going insane, we need
to delete, distort and generalise
information to cope with all that’s
presented. In addition, we also chunk our
information into smaller bite-size pieces,
making the storage of the information
easier and more efficient. For example, if
I asked you to remember every word of
this article, it’s unlikely that tomorrow
you’d be able to do so; but if I asked you
to repeat overall concepts or some key
bullet points then I’m sure you’d be fine.
This chunking of information is the
process that helps clear space in our
conscious brain to grow and develop by
taking in more information as required.
There are close to 130 million books in
existence and over 2 million new ones
published every year. Add to this, the
infinite content on the internet and social
media – including over 500 hours of
YouTube video content uploaded every
minute – and you get the picture that the
competition for our attention is only
going to get tougher as time goes on! But
don’t panic – I’m not going to ask you to
switch off your devices (although a bit
less screen time is always a great idea).
Instead, I am going to ask you to look at
what you’re paying attention to throughout
your day, because typically what you pay
attention to also determines what you
miss in life. Are you paying attention to
the right things and if not, what are you
missing?

Have you ever had one of those days
when it seems everything has gone
against you? You got up in the morning
and the alarm didn’t go off, so you’re
running late. You’re thinking to yourself
‘Great, my boss is going to be wondering
where I am’. Paying attention to what’s
going wrong with your day is a difficult
mindset to shake. All of a sudden, the
weather isn’t what it could be, the bus is
too crowded, then you realise you don’t
like commuting to a job you don’t really
like, then all of a sudden, you’re thinking,
‘What’s the point of even bothering? I
hate my job, I’m not being paid enough
for this and I hate my life!’
You’re missing the fact that you have a
job, your boss isn’t even in the office
today, your partner made your breakfast
to help you get out of the house a little
quicker, and someone got up and gave
you a seat on the bus. You missed it all
because you weren’t paying attention to
what was good; instead, you chose to
focus on the negative. What you pay
attention to, you’ll get more of!
Psychologist George Miller in his 1956
research paper put forward what’s
become known as ‘Miller’s Law’. It
suggests that as humans, we can only
store in our short-term memory, or pay
attention to at any one time, between five
and nine pieces of information; so
depending on whether it’s numbers or
larger concepts, seven is the average
amount of items you can keep hold of
before you start forgetting things. That’s
pretty scary when you think of exactly
how much information we’re expected to
take in at work or socially, within a 24hour period. Considering this, you could
be forgiven for forgetting to pick up the

GREG
SELLAR

YOU CAN CONTACT GREG VIA:
Web: teamlifehack.com
Facebook: greg.sellar
Twitter: @gregsellar
Instagram: @gregsellar

dry cleaning or that important meeting
time. Translated, that means that when
you’re presented with too much
information, your brain is going to decide
what to keep and what to throw away
because it’s regarded as not important.
We have to make sure it’s keeping the
important stuff that’s going to help us
move forward.
The problem with such a selective
attention capacity, is that it becomes
vital to focus on what you want, rather
than what you don’t want. You need to
focus on the aspects in life that are
working well for you, rather than what’s
not working. If it helps, try and not think
of it as ignoring, but moreso as
repositioning and reframing.
There’s a term called ‘attention density’,
which is a reminder that in order to create
any kind of change you need to pay
sufficient attention to it. Often you can
forget all that’s great in your life and how
well you’re doing because you’re too
focused on what’s not working or what
you don’t have.
If you can provide enough attention
density – your mental focus and
concentration on what’s great with your
lives and what you’re learning – you can,
literally, flood the brain with serotonin
(the brain’s ‘feelgood’ hormone).
The power is all in your focus. Your
positive individual thoughts and acts will
become a new part of your brain circuitry,
reshaping who you are and, ultimately,
how you see and interact with the world.
Change your attention and you’ll change
your world! To find out more visit
www.teamlifehack.com