Know Yourself to Eliminate Distractions

Observe Yourself

If you find yourself getting distracted and losing focus it is probably happening without you knowing how it is happening. If you don't know the process, it is challenging to do anything about it. Discover how you do it.  ​

“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.” 
― Adam Smith

If you find yourself getting distracted and losing focus take the time to write down what you are thinking that takes you away from the moment (the now). The process of doing this helps you step outside yourself and observe what is really going on. It may be a worry, stress, fear or the situation.

Whatever is disrupting your thoughts or actions needs to be written down because when you write it down, it requires that you label it, by labelling it you make it more specific which can reduce the distracting thoughts power to return again and again. You can then work out how to deal with them so that those thoughts no longer affect you.

Three suggestions for you to experiment with:

1. Once you have your label, for whatever it is that is distracting/disrupting you, look at the word and ask yourself “Is this really true?” You may find it is not! When this is the case it is as if all the energy drains away and you get back to focus.​ 
2. Words have power. So again when you have your label written down; find a synonym for it, from your own mind, then with that word written down find a synonym for this second word and repeat it a third time. For example “tedious” could become “dull” which might be “ho-hum” when you compare the feeling associated with ‘ho-hum’, does it have the same power to disrupt you and take you away from the here and now as ‘tedious’? I’ll let you be the judge.
3. Again going back to your label for the thought that removed you from the moment, ask your self: “What thought am I choosing instead to support me to stay in the moment?”​

​Now you may be thinking to yourself that this process just magnifies the problem, but if you do nothing, nothing will shift and you will continue as before. So go on, give it a go.