Choice is a Superpower: Our Focus
A few years ago, I had an opportunity to attend a BMW driving class. They taught us defensive driving and how to drive on a racetrack. Before they let us jump into the cars to race, we had to take a class where they talked about the importance of focus. They showed us videos of people crashing because they didn’t maintain proper focus. We learned that we tend to steer in the direction where we are looking. Many people crash because they focus on the obstacle—instead of where they really want to go—which is past the obstacle.
I’ve found this to be true in life. Wherever we choose to focus our attention is where we will go. If we use our superpower to choose to stay focused on the past or the good old days, that’s where we’ll stay. If we choose to focus on what’s going wrong in our lives, we will be sure to hit those obstacles. We can also end up just driving round and round on a track, never getting anywhere because we allow our minds to jump from thing to thing, unfocused and therefore unable to accomplish anything. The good news is, we can choose to use our superpower to focus on the things we want to do, the people we want to become and the things we want to have.
I had a friend who was treated very badly in her marriage. She used to tell me, in great detail, all the ways she was mistreated. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she had been divorced for over a decade! Every time she told me about her experience, she seemed to relive it. It was as if it had happened just yesterday. It’s not that it wasn’t painful or that she hadn’t suffered, it was that she chose to keep her attention and energy on that time. She eventually realized that she had a superpower and chose to focus on the life she wanted, letting go of the life she once had. She changed careers, remarried and is living a very happy life. Don’t spend another minute fighting what was, focus on building the new!
Presiding Action
Take a moment to think about your life. This will tell you where you are focusing your time, attention and energy. Are you stuck telling the stories of the past? Are you focusing on all of the things that are going wrong in your life? You have the power to look past the obstacles and focus on where you want to go. Here is something I do when I’m stuck and focused on the obstacles in my life—past or present. Get out a piece of paper and write out what it is you really want. Don’t judge it or worry about what you should want or what others will think about what you want. Write it all down. Pick one thing from your list and focus on a small action that will move you in the direction of it. When I decided I wanted to leave the bench and become an entrepreneur, I found people who were doing what I wanted to do and I studied them. I focused on one small thing and then, the next small thing, until I was able to live my dream. Remember, ‘Where your focus goes, your energy flows.’ -Tony Robbins
