Focus Is Our Friend

I think we can all agree, that 2020 so far has been an interesting year. To say the least. One, not many of us would likely recommend to a friend. For sure things have been and continue to be difficult, even overwhelming at times. But how can we best deal with all of this? Or with other difficult situations? Certainly, focus is our friend, here. The right focus, that is.

When things feel out of (our,) control and we are overwhelmed, we easily lose focus. All the things, we can’t really control, are rushing through our minds like some kind of continuous loop. And the feeling of having lost control is further increasing. A vicious cycle.

And of course this can also happen, when there is no pandemic going on, but just our regular life is happening. Our day to day life has a lot of potential for feeling swamped. Not to speak about things going on in the world, especially if you are a very empathetic person.

I definitely have days, where I feel it’s too much. Where the thought of getting up and facing all the things is scary even or at least not very enticing. I am i.e. pretty scared and concerned about the current political situation in the US and the development of hate. It has a lot in common with Germany during Hitler’s times. Combined with Covid-19, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor (and many others) and the ignorance far too many people are showing, it’s a lot for me.

What’s the most stressful part of all of this? I can’t control any of it. I can’t even vote in November to help change the direction this is going. And that feeling of helplessness really is the worst.

Thankfully, there is a way out of this combination of fear and helplessness. Years ago, things out of my control would easily make me lose sleep. I would try desperately to fall asleep, but would not be able to shut off my mind or the thoughts racing through my head. Not anymore. I learned, that focus is my friend. And that does not only apply to these overwhelming situations, it applies to a lot more things.

So, how exactly is focus helping with a pandemic, when on top of that other scary and sad things are happening? Well, it definitely depends, what you are focusing on. If you continue to focus on the uncontrollable things, focus will absolutely not help you. The opposite is the case.

However if you are making an effort, to focus on the things you CAN control, you will start having positive experiences again. With everyone one of these positive experiences, confidence and the feeling of being in charge will return. Focus will help you get back to a “clear” head. Ultimately it will help you develop strategies to cope with the overwhelming stuff that is happening, too.

Easier said then done? Maybe. The most difficult step is to shift your mindset towards these areas in your life, that you can control and off the areas, that you can’t. This will take work. In order to be able to focus on the right things, you need to intentionally distract yourself. Sounds weird? Bare with me, it will make sense, I promise.

When your mind is stuck on the negative and overwhelming things happening around you, you won’t be able to focus on the controllable things. There will just not be any room for that. Or time. You are also going to expose yourself to more and more information about these things, in the unsuccessful attempt to find an outlet. Another vicious cycle you need to break.

So in my example, I am overwhelmed by the current situation the US is in which includes the way, the pandemic is handled and how hate is spread, fear is incited. All in an attempt to maintain power and ultimately turn this country into a dictatorship. When all this began, I have been watching the news as if my life depended on it. I listened to the hateful words, watched the nonsense said about the pandemic etc. and that did not help at all.

Instead I shifted my mindset, by first of all intentionally distracting myself. I stopped watching the news entirely. Instead I started reading news online, giving me the ability to chose the topic I want to learn more about vs. the ones I know would not be good for me. Intentionally distracting myself, was my first step towards controlling, what I can control.

Then I started to write a blog about the pandemic situation. I could not control the behavior of the “Covidiots” (check out my social distancing “diary” for more details about this https://mykindofsuccess.net/category/social-distancing-diary/ ). What I could control was, how I personally dealt with it. And on top it was an outlet for my frustration, as well.

Whenever things get overwhelming in my life, I am making a list of things, that I can control. Sometimes I am writing these things down and literally check the boxes, whenever I am accomplishing something off the list. Most of the times, I am creating this list in my mind. And then I am just checking the box in my thoughts. This really depends on my mood.

I am following the WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers) program. In order to be successful, I need to plan my food choices and ideally prepare meals for stressful times. Most importantly, I need to track the food I am eating. Many people following the program are “taking breaks” from the program, whenever life gets stressful or overwhelming. The opposite is the case for me. In these situations, pre-planning, preparing and pre-tracking my food is one major thing I can control. I am always focusing on that.

Focus on things I can control definitely helps me navigate difficult and challenging situations. Give it a try – especially these days. And never forget – you might not always be able to control, what’s happening to you. But you certainly can control your attitude about it. It’s your choice, where to put your focus – hero(ine) or victim? https://mykindofsuccess.net/hero-heroine-or-victim-to-me-its-a-choice/

Focus also helped me achieve, what I have achieved and consider “my personal success”. The focus on my strengths instead of my less strong skills. Which honestly I do not consider weaknesses at all. Since perfect is a myths, we like to focus on instead of enjoying the perfectly imperfect life we are living, we really can’t be strong at EVERYTHING.

But we all have our strengths. Some of us are more and others less aware of our own strengths. Which is mainly because we have been trained to focus on what was considered our weaknesses or flaws. And not only to focus on these, but really work on those to turn them into strengths. I got bad news for you – it’s VERY unlikely, that you are going to turn something that is a weakly pronounced skill into your super power. But in focusing on these, you are going to be having an at best mediocre performance in everything.

Luckily you can take a different approach. Very much like not focusing on the things you can’t control and that overwhelm you, you can choose to not focus on your “weaknesses”. Instead you can focus on your strengths and try to further develop those.

I always had a sense of the things I was good at. I have a good intuition in hiring the right talent for open roles. My brain defaults to “potential solutions” whenever someone presents a problem to me. With a nearly photo-graphical memory, I was good at learning things and memorizing them plus I am also a curious person, which helped, too. However, I was not necessarily able to talk about my strengths and describe them well to other.

On the flip side, I am someone that prefers speaking their truth over a harmonic environment. I am good at making decisions quickly, but I am not enjoying to analyze huge sets of data and I am not looking at numbers and seeing a story in the numbers right away.

As I said before with the things I am good at, it’s not easy to explain the things I am not too great at to others. The right words (language) was missing. Maybe that’s the same for you? Or you are just not so sure, what you are actually good at? If you are interested to learn more, I highly recommend doing this test from Gallup https://store.gallup.com/p/en-us/10003/cliftonstrengths-34 . It is not too expensive but really helpful, if you, like I, would like to focus on your top strengths moving forward.

And if you are a people leader, knowing all about your top strengths has another benefit. My top 5 strengths are

1. Individualization (seeing people for their individual talents – hence I am good at hiring)
2. Achiever (getting things done, no matter what it takes)
3. Strategic (hence my brain defaults to solutions vs. thinking in problems)
4. Arranger (good at organizing and structuring resources but flexible to react to the unplanned)
5. Learner

I am not very analytical or someone that likes to dive deep into context and details. Knowing this as a people leader means, I can now hire following the motto “opposites attract”. Because why would I hire someone with the same top strengths instead of hiring someone, that completes my skills to make a more rounded team? Exactly!

Back to focus. I am aware of my strengths and now even have the language to describe them. Both combined allows me, to focus on these and try to further develop and grow them. Yes, I do have to do analytics and I can. But I will not focus on getting great at it. Instead I have team members, that are providing the analytics to me, enabling me to do what I am good at – strategizing and finding the solution.

Focusing on what I am good at vs. what I am not great at, is what makes me successful (per my own success definition). It also is a lot less frustrating. Competitiveness is not a strength of mine. I am not one to measure my progress against the performance of other and do not strive to win first place and revel in contests. I honestly even believe that comparison is the thief of joy https://mykindofsuccess.net/comparison/ . Imagine me trying to become a competitive poker player. Yeah, that would probably be quite frustrating. And not really successful.

I am navigating my personal and professional life by focusing best possible on the things I can control and the strengths I possess. You could consider this me taking a positive approach to life. Unlike grieving the things I can’t control and trying to improve upon my weaknesses.

What’s your choice? Please share your thoughts in the comments!