Episode Description:
In this insightful episode of What If? For Authors, Claire Taylor tackles a topic that resonates with many: struggling to focus. Claire explores why maintaining focus can be such a challenge in today’s world, how societal structures often work against our ability to concentrate, and what we can do about it. Whether you’re battling distractions from your phone, dealing with trauma, or feeling overwhelmed by perfectionism, this episode offers practical advice and mindfulness techniques to help you regain control over your focus and improve your writing productivity.
Key Takeaways:
Understanding the Challenge of Focus: Claire discusses how modern environments, especially the pervasive influence of smartphones and digital media, make it difficult to maintain focus. She emphasizes that this struggle is not a personal failing but rather a systemic issue exacerbated by technology and societal demands.
Mindfulness as a Tool: Claire shares mindfulness practices that can help you reclaim your focus. These include deep breathing exercises, checking in with your body, emotions, and thoughts, and addressing any underlying needs or fears that might be hindering your ability to concentrate.
The Impact of Trauma: Trauma can severely affect your ability to focus. Claire encourages listeners to seek therapeutic interventions if they are struggling with unresolved trauma, assuring them that working through these issues can enhance both their well-being and their creative output.
Practical Steps to Improve Focus: From turning off phone notifications to setting up a supportive environment for writing, Claire provides actionable steps to help you minimize distractions and create a conducive space for focus.
Why Listen? If you find yourself frequently struggling to concentrate on your writing or other tasks, this episode will offer you both understanding and practical solutions. Claire’s compassionate approach to the topic reassures you that you’re not alone in this struggle and that there are effective strategies you can use to improve your focus.
Join the Conversation: Do you have a question or topic you’d like Claire to explore? Send an email to contact@ffs.media.
Happy Writing!
TRANSCRIPT:
Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, sustain your author career by going to ffs. media forward slash sustain. I think we're going to have a great time together today.
The topic we'll be looking at is one that I take great joy in working with authors on because there is so much good news I get to deliver. If you're listening to this close to when it releases, it'll be early September ish, Labor Day maybe even Labor Day precisely, if my calculations are, are somewhat correct.
Um, I think that's appropriate for the topic we're talking about today. Earliest September is when many folks with school age kids are able to take their first deep inhale of the new school year. So I think this is coming in at a perfect time for y'all, [00:01:00] uh, if I do say so myself. And if you listen to it later, well.
I reckon it'll still be applicable. This is, this is not something that is a seasonal struggle for people. So, , okay. Today's question is what if I'm struggling to focus? And boy, is that one we can all relate to, huh? The environments we spend our time in are not necessarily designed for focus, for the most part.
Society hasn't been structured with focus in mind for a very long time, if ever. Yet, we put the ability to focus for long periods of time on this pedestal, and then tell everyone who's struggling to adhere to a very narrow definition of focus That, well, there's something wrong with them. Right? And if your focus naturally flows towards something that's not beneficial to generating income, shame on you.
Shame! Okay, so clearly I have some feelings on this topic. You probably [00:02:00] do too, and why wouldn't you? It's sort of a dream to be able to sit down and focus for hours of uninterrupted time, and, you know, you knock out all your work and then go, I don't know, sit in a garden and read for the rest of the day, or go meet up with friends, or whatever.
But that's just a dream most of the time, right? Dreams are important to have, but they can also be a bitch. They can also haunt us. So when I'm talking about focusing, inevitably a question about ADHD will come up. A lot of folks have it or suspect they have it, and there's a big conversation around it recently, so it's sort of front of mind for us, and I think that's great.
I'm all for destigmatizing the different ways in which we experience life. So here's what I'll say about ADHD in the context of our discussion today about focus. Please don't say that won't work for me right away because you have ADHD. Okay. So we're, that's not a, I'm not even going to try it excuse if you have ADHD.
So the Enneagram is all about noticing where our attention flows [00:03:00] And there are a lot of reasons why we may not feel in control of our attention and therefore may struggle to focus our attention where we want it to be. Most of the non medical interventions , like mindfulness that can help , us with focus are also suggested to help people with ADHD.
So, the things that we talk about on these episodes, the mindfulness practices, are also things that you can do that will help your ADHD, right? So, If you need medication, go get the medication, right? Go talk with your doctor, , you two are the best equipped to make that decision. But you can also do these mindfulness practices, right?
You can build these in as well. There's no, you know, , interfering with your medication by doing mindfulness. So if you're dismissing some of these mindfulness interventions and practices because you have an ADHD diagnosis, you are doing that out of fear instead of knowledge.
[00:04:00] Just to, uh, just to put some words to that, so. Um, the last bit I'll say about ADHD before we dive into all the other focus stuff is that yes, the discussion of it enters my conversations with authors of two specific types most frequently. , there are two types where I end up having this discussion, essentially.
Are those the only two types that could have it? I don't know. I don't think so. But it does make sense in the context of how these two types respond to their fear. One of the types that I commonly, uh, have this ADHD conversation with Their fear is, , manifested through muted attentional patterns or checking out, right?
So that makes focus very difficult because everything's kind of feels kind of distant. , and then the other is their fear manifests through scattered attentional patterns. So the stronger and more unaddressed the core fear is of these types, the more likely they are to suspect or possibly even be diagnosed with ADHD.
And, you know, [00:05:00] they may have it. So I'm not saying they don't. Yeah. But I know there are always questions about which types can have what when it comes to things like, you know, depression, anxiety, or even being on the autism spectrum. My experience is that all types are fair game. Um, but with ADHD, there are two types where it shows up.
It makes a lot of sense for showing up most frequently. So yeah, I'm not naming those types. You might be able to guess. Um, feel free to guess. I'm not going to confirm or deny, but yeah, if I'm working with you one on one, it may come up. Anyway, moving on from ADHD because I'm not a doctor and I'm getting exhausted from towing the line here to make sure I stay in my lane.
Alright, so today we're going to look at why it's really fucking hard for everyone to focus. Why the world makes an uphill battle. Uh, what other factors may be at play besides environmental, what you can do for yourself to retrain your brain, and why you might be beating yourself up about it for no good [00:06:00] reason from the start.
Alright, let's see. I think I want to talk about phones, trauma, emotions, perfectionism, capitalism. Uh, there's a lot to get to. In this discussion about focus. So I'm just going to pick one and dive in, I guess. So we need to talk about our phones first, obviously, and like computers and screens in general. So you're either listening to this on your phone or maybe a computer, right?
Maybe a smart TV, whatever, either way, these devices. We're not, and are not designed with human flourishing, let alone focus in mind. They are designed for maximum use. There's a book called Irresistible by Adam Alter. That's incredibly illuminating on this, the sort of design that goes into Our devices.
It breaks down how the mechanisms of our smartphones have exceeded our brain's [00:07:00] capacity for conscious decision making, essentially, we're starting to recognize this more as a society lately, right, that this is happening, but it's important for everyone listening to hear me when I say You will not beat the addictiveness of your phone with willpower alone.
Our brains aren't evolving as fast as this technology is. Hubris will tell us that if we're just strong or smart enough, the phone won't control us. But that is That is hubris because the science shows that the phone is able to hijack our dopamine receptors before we even know what's happening. If you play video games, it's the same thing.
So these gamification techniques have surpassed I would go so far as to say that phone and app interfaces are actively toxic to our focus. They really are. [00:08:00] Uh, there are even apps now that you can buy to help you practice your focus. Don't do it. That is, that is such bullshit. It's like the drug dealer saying they 3 supplements.
I clearly am not a fan of what smart devices are doing to our focus and yet I have an iPhone. Of course I do. I run a business. You'll hear about these anomalous folks in Hollywood. I think Christopher Nolan is one who don't have a cell phone. Right? And every time I hear that, I think, wow, it sure would be nice to have a full time assistant to take all my calls from me so I could be so unburdened.
Every time I hear someone famous and rich talk about not having a cell phone, first of all. He's always a man. Make of that what you will. And then I think, what woman does he have doing his labor for him? Splitting her focus constantly so that he can preserve his like a delicate baby bird. Anyway, I don't like what smartphones do to our focus.
And [00:09:00] yet for most of us, we don't really have a choice about owning one or not if we want to work at the pace of the world around us. So that is kind of the reality of it. What can we do about it to protect our focus? There are a few things that everyone needs to be doing today. Turn off push notifications and those little red numeric note notifications on your apps.
The little ones with the numbers, turn them off. All of them go into your settings and turn them off. I will not be swayed on this point as being step one. If you give a shit about having focus, as soon as you feel or hear that vibration or that ding, your focus is toast, especially when you're writing.
You got to be diligent about this. So most phones have a setting where you can turn everything to silent except calls from specific numbers. So I recommend doing this too. Be selective. , but if you have children, add their numbers and their school's number. Add your [00:10:00] spouse's maybe. I don't know. I don't add mine.
Because anything John's calling me about can usually wait until one of my writing breaks. And if it's an emergency, He's a police detective, so he knows much better people to call about that than me. So if you're wondering, no, I don't, I don't give anyone this exception that they can, uh, that their call will go through, but I've spent years, , rehabbing myself from feeling responsible for fully grown adults and I don't have kids, so yeah, nobody needs me right away.
Everyone in my life can wait 25 minutes until I finish my writing sprint. And I love that about my life. But your life may be different, and that's totally okay. There are still options. , I'm not gonna let you go, Well, Claire doesn't have kids. So she doesn't understand. So I'm not gonna do any of this.
There are still things you can do. Right? , but be very choosy in whose problems you let interrupt you during your writing time. And this goes extra for Enneagram twos because you're hooked on helping people and an opportunity to do that will always feel more appealing to your brain than writing the next sentence.
Even if there's no [00:11:00] urgency to whatever request is coming through. So if you are not someone's emergency contact, do not list their number as one of these that can come through. Okay. Okay, so phones. Allow them to interrupt your thoughts as little as possible when you're not actively using them for something.
When you are not proactively going, I need to look this thing up, right? Erase those interruptions. Eliminate them as much as possible. Now, when you are actively using your phone, Um, I suggest you don't give yourself complete free reign, use apps to limit your screen time, especially on social media and news outlets.
So social media is built for us to scroll endlessly on it, and our brains will just do that if we don't build interventions prior to starting the scroll. It's not only the fact that your brain is going from one image to the next, it's also what those images are that can really screw up our focus.
Thanks. So think [00:12:00] about this. Within the course of like 10 minutes on something like TikTok or Instagram, you might see two authors celebrating big milestones, right? Activate envy or some other feeling of inadequacy when you see that. And then you see a puppy video. And right now, I want a puppy so bad that just seeing these makes my heart ache. , and then maybe you see an image of, uh, bloody body parts from Warzone. I don't even think that that sequence I just described, the author celebrating to puppy to, uh, Warzone, is even an extreme example that I'm giving, right?
This is like everyday scrolling social media for many of us. So, what the fuck is your brain supposed to do with all that? You think you may close the app, move on with your day, and your brain isn't somehow still scrambling to process all that emotional information? Yeah, no wonder we're struggling to [00:13:00] focus.
We just gave our brain impossible homework to do in the background of our activities. So this is the same with news outlets. We're social creatures, and we're not built to take on the worries and pain of the entire world all the time. It makes it very hard to focus on the worries and pain of those around us, who we can actually impact, uh, when we're carrying the weight of the world.
So I was chatting with Becca Syme a few months ago, and she said something to the effect of, People need to check the news, not watch it. Absolutely spot on. And I would actually go a step to say that most of us don't even need to be checking the news on a daily basis. Right? Maybe check local news every so often because that's your community, right?
Staying informed about your community, that's totally normal. And humans have been doing that since the dawn of time. but maybe keep up with the national news from time to time to be an informed voter. World news can [00:14:00] also keep us informed since voting for federal officials requires some knowledge of their beliefs.
On global politics and maybe there's something going on in a place in the world and you think, okay, I do want to donate, or I do want to do a little something for this. But if you stop to think about how often you are actually taking action based on the information you read about on the news and, you know, getting freaked out and in a panic is not action.
It's not productive action. Then you may realize that most of your consumption of the news Is not being turned into useful action. It's being used to fuel an outrage, addiction to fortify your existing beliefs. And to fill you with adrenaline. So do those sound helpful to being able to focus your attention where you want it to be?
Or do those sound like the kinds of things that hijack our brain by putting it into hyper or hypo aroused states so that calm focus becomes impossible. So you have to make a choice [00:15:00] here. You have to make a choice between focus and the consumption of news and social media. And I want. Everyone listening.
And I probably needed to do this myself to look with honesty at the choice we have been making, because we may try and fool ourselves into thinking that we could do both or that we are choosing focus when that is not the reality of the patterns we've been following. So I promise you that the days when you spend the least amount of time on your phone or computer will on the whole.
Be some of the best days of your life. So think about it. Outside of a few exceptions, the times when we forget about our phones are when we're out with friends, in nature. Watching our kids sporting events, reading a paperback book, maybe a pool day, all of those. Those are the kinds of activities that strengthen our muscles of focus, too.
So consider that when [00:16:00] you're fighting against the idea of limiting access to your phone. The way to well being is not through a screen.
There are other things that can negatively impact our ability to focus, so trauma is a big one. Focus requires being present. And it's difficult to be present when your body is stuck reliving a past event over and over again, and it can't move from the past into the present. So, thankfully there are a lot of effective therapeutic interventions for trauma nowadays.
Some cost money, yes, but some don't. So I can't think of a better investment to make in your author career than spending money to help yourself address a traumatic event or something like CPTSD. So that would be the chronic PTSD from your childhood or maybe like an abusive relationship, something like that.
I know it feels scary to poke at that part at all. But I promise that doing so won't lose any parts of you that are helping you be [00:17:00] creative, right? So there's this idea that our traumas might make us better writers and I hate that notion. I call bullshit. Lessons learned. Can help us be better writers, but that's not necessarily what trauma is.
You can have lessons learned without the trauma. You can have the strength of getting through something without the actual trauma living in your body. So maybe once we get to the other side of traumas, they can inform our writing and give us compassionate insight. But when your body and mind are stuck in trauma, you are not a better artist.
Okay. So let's release that idea. Trauma. just makes things harder. So working through the trauma with tools like EMDR, this is the rapid eye movement, , therapy, , cognitive behavioral therapy, plant therapy, meditation. It's just something we all deserve to give ourselves and it's not going to hurt your writing or your creativity.
It's not going to hurt your [00:18:00] career. It's going to make your career easier. easier for you. So until we start to do these interventions, and I do suggest if you have something big that you need to work through, it's worth, uh, just sort of finding, scrapping together the money to go see a therapist to have that support.
But until we do it, until we start taking that first step, we can't expect our brains to have the bandwidth To focus deeply on the task at hand, on whatever that task is, especially if it's a creative one. So, those are some of the general causes that I mostly see when authors are struggling to focus.
There is another one, and it's simply an internalized attitude. And so, I will mention it. This internalized attitude is capitalism. I always feel like I have to say that I do support capitalism, so that a bunch of tech and crypto bros don't at me. Um, I do think capitalism is pretty good. And can create prosperity for most people.
But I also don't [00:19:00] think that it's immune from critique. Uh, and I think it's dangerous to assume that anything should be immune from critique. Even the Enneagram. so yeah, I don't think it's immune from critique. And I don't think the U. S. is doing a very good job at capitalism lately. Because it's not generating prosperity for most people at the moment.
It tends to be, uh, very heavily weighted towards a few people. So maybe there are some things we can adjust while still keeping it capitalism. , anyway, there's my Type 1 Strive for Fairness showing up. Capitalism comes with its own belief system, as all economic systems do. So one of the beliefs that's perpetuated by it is that your value is determined by how effectively you can produce.
So that's more of an implicit than an explicit component of it, but it is there. We are trained, starting at an early age, that our job in the workforce is to create as much value as we can in as short amount of time as possible, and that, and at the cheapest possible cost. I don't feel [00:20:00] neutral about that idea.
I Believe, and this is what we, uh, learn as we do this Enneagram study, but your value as a human is inherent and you don't have to earn it. But when we learn that we do have to earn our value, we start to look at any time that isn't focused production as points off of our value. This holds especially true for Enneagram type threes, the achievers, but I've seen the belief knocking around the minds of people of all types. And, you know, it's a cause of consternation when someone's struggling to focus. So this leads me to this specific point. Is it actually a problem if you struggle to focus from time to time?
I mean that on a human level. Is it actually a problem? Or is some of the concern around it created as a result of beliefs? [00:21:00] That all the time you spend being unfocused is time wasted, and that time wasted is value wasted. So I don't want to dip too far into the natural fallacy here, but I think often about, , how even just 200 years ago, humans needed to be able to maintain sharp focus.
for no more than like a few minutes at a time. So even the deepest thinkers in history are philosophers and poets. They spent a lot of time just kind of fucking about, right? Write a little, fuck about. Think a little, do some manual labor, fuck about some more. What I see changing is that our environmental demands on our attention have increased in the last few centuries and our beliefs about focused work have shifted towards squeezing every last drop out of each worker.
And the outcome of that mentality hasn't become an important conversation. We haven't had a very large conversation yet [00:22:00] about whether any of this makes any goddamn sense. Instead, we have everyone running around like, My brain is broken because I'm struggling to focus on my manuscript. Listen, I find myself feeling that way sometimes too, right?
But you see how we might get to that conclusion and how ridiculous of a conclusion it is. Maybe our premise is faulty here. So the first really big idea I propose for everyone listening is to consider that maybe your brain isn't broken or faulty. Maybe your brain could simply benefit from some more proactive protection. Against the state of the world in which it is trying to function. So what if the world has run amok and your ability to focus is just fine. What if the modern world was constructed sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.
with other values and goals in mind than the [00:23:00] average person's ability to feel sane.
Some people's natural patterns of attention are going to be better suited to the existing structures than others, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily have broken parts in your brain when it comes to focus. I think that's really important for us to start with as a major concept in this discussion around focus.
Maybe we are not the problem. Okay, so now that we've sorted through the fact that there might not be anything broken with you specifically and you are likely instead trying to shoulder responsibility individually for a systemic problem, let's look at some of the things that are within our power to do to help protect our focus from the interruptions of the world.
So I already talked about the phone stuff, so I won't repeat that. , if you have trauma that's being left unaddressed, it may be time to start looking at that with lots and lots of support. Uh, and there's plenty more we can look at. So, okay. Imagine this. You sit down at the computer. Your phone is on silent in the other room.
You open your manuscript. [00:24:00] Maybe pull up your beats if you work with beats or an outline. And you know what needs to be written next. Yet, you can't get started. Something is interfering with your focus. You feel like your eyes are just darting everywhere but the computer screen. What do you do? Here's what I suggest.
Start by checking in with your body. Are there any aches and pains that need to be addressed? Are you hungry or thirsty? Did you get poor sleep the night before? If it's one of those things, take care of that need. Grab a snack, get a glass of water, make yourself a coffee if you don't have time for a nap, whatever, then sit back down.
If your focus still isn't there, move on from your body to the next center of intelligence. So how was your heart? What emotions are you experiencing right now? For many of us, we won't know how to answer that right away. And that can become a big factor in being unfocused. Because [00:25:00] emotions work on their own logic and time frame.
A lot of us would rather just ignore them, if we can, and just sort of Move on. Nothing to see here. Just set them aside and get to work. And if we absolutely have to check in with our heart, we might start by asking ourselves what we're feeling and then deciding if any of those feelings are valid enough to bother with.
Have you caught yourself doing this? Have you checked in with your heart and started judging your emotions without feeling them? So, let me ask you this, who decides what emotion is valid or not? What is a valid emotion? What if all emotions are valid simply because they are?
So our pattern of sorting our emotions based on some template of validity is not a healthy pattern. Feelings aren't meant to be sorted and herded like sheep. They are meant to be felt. Now, I'm not saying you should act. On every emotion you have that, that's important, [00:26:00] right? But while that emotion is inside of you, you're allowed to feel it.
Nobody can stop you. No harm comes from just feeling it, right? So you're allowed to feel it. And sometimes that's the only way to keep it from tripping up your focus. So can we think about our feelings? Can we deconstruct them? Certainly. Right? And that can be very helpful. But many of us skip right over the feeling part to the deconstruction, and that is not going to take the edge off like you think it will.
It just makes feeling that emotion a later problem, and in fact it can actually damage your connection to your feeling center of intelligence if you judge your feelings rather than feeling them. So, this looks like checking in with your heart, and you notice you're sad, maybe. , maybe you're grieving something.
What many of us will do is ask if it's valid for us to be grieving, right? Ah, that happened years ago, I should be over it. That's judgment. That's determining the validity [00:27:00] of your emotions rather than feeling the grief. But taking a moment to feel that grief, maybe even a cry, that is a step towards completing the emotion and it's very likely to help you feel more settled and able to focus on the other side of it.
So maybe you check in and notice you're feeling inadequate, right? That's not a flattering emotion to notice, right? Oh, I'm feeling inadequate. A lot of people would, , do very well to notice that they're feeling inadequate, , and feel it rather than acting on it. So it's not fun to feel, right? But if you check in with yourself, if you allow yourself to see that feeling without judgment, Then you'll be much more able to walk yourself through it.
So talk to the emotion. I know this is going to sound lame. Talk to the emotion like you would a small child. So you're talking to the child that's still inside of you, living sort of amongst the patterns you learned when you were young, that child may be scared that if they're not living up to some nebulous expectation, , that they're afraid that they won't, Um, you [00:28:00] know, be loved or cared for as a result.
So that's big, right? So pause and talk to that version of you. The adult version knows better, right? The adult version of you has some perspective that if this particular scene you're trying to write doesn't come out the way you want in the draft, you won't lose any love or protection that was worth having, right?
But our emotions usually come from a much simpler place inside of us. And so they do kind of require special care. Your other option is to. Ignore the feeling or invalidate it and continue to wonder why you can't focus. So yeah, it's your choice. So much of our inability to focus is from fear. So your amygdala sends signals to your sympathetic nervous system to prepare for action.
Your body redirects blood away from your vital organs and toward your arms and legs. Your attention shifts too, from focused and calm to very scattered. You're scanning for threats for new developments to tell you if you're safe or still in danger. So this is why mindfulness practices. [00:29:00] Are essential to focus.
They are the best thing we know of to retrain our brain. So I've read so many studies examining the impact of mindfulness practices on amygdala activity. It's, it's just nuts. , although to be fair, the sample sizes are usually not large enough to be statistically significant in their results, but I've certainly experienced the benefits throughout my life of mindfulness on my own fear.
So I had so much anxiety all of my life. And it showed up largely as perfectionism for me. So yes, perfectionism is a, , manifestation of anxiety, , for all you type ones out there and some of the other types who have perfectionism. Uh, it's, it's not a, uh, badge of honor. It's, it's anxiety. Maybe she's born with it.
Maybe it's anxiety. And anyway, now I experience Very, you know, sort of infrequent bouts of anxiety. And when I do, I'm like, Oh, weird anxiety is back. So granted, some of [00:30:00] that is probably related to my life situation. So I feel much more secure in my relationships and finances now than I didn't like my twenties when the anxiety was on full blast, right?
Of course, of course, that's going to be a factor, but at the same time, someone could be in the same situation as I am and not feel secure. So my sense of security in my relationships and finances is pretty dependent on my outlook and that outlook has been shaped by mindfulness practices. So let's distill this down so I can give you something useful, , for focus to take away from this episode.
So if your focus has been jumping around throughout this episode, notice that. Bring it back to my voice. , and I'm going to give you a practice. So here's the full practice I do when I, , can't sit and focus on the manuscript. I've been putting off, you know, some particular emails for a while, , which happens, step one, very simple. Sit up straight. Okay. Step [00:31:00] one, sit up straight. It's impossible to breathe properly for relaxation when you're slouching. So you end up with shallow breathing instead of steady, calm breaths. , even just being at your screen. I was reading this article about this concept of screen apnea, where we start to lose mindfulness around our posture and our breathing changes.
And , we spend hours breathing like we can't breathe, right? Like we have apnea. Anyway, Sit up straight, place your hands on your thighs, roll your shoulders back, and breathe into your belly through your nose. So you should feel your stomach expand on the inhale. Draw your breath into your belly and then upward until you feel your diaphragm start to expand.
That's really important, feeling that diaphragm start to move. So let out the breath slowly. There are all different time amounts here that people advocate for on the in breath and the out breath, but breathing [00:32:00] in and out of your belly and diaphragm is already a step ahead of where most of us started from.
So good enough. Just breathe in deep, slowly. Breathe out deep, slowly. Whatever that means to you, right? Just, you know, if you start to get lightheaded, maybe, maybe change the the rhythm a little bit. Now, check in with your head center, okay? Is there more information you need before you can tackle this task?
What is it? Do you still have questions you need answered? What are those? How are you going to figure those out? Is it your thinking center of intelligence that's making it hard for you to focus? So this is, we're looking at this center. If you can't think of anything else you need before, , taking the step that you need to take on this project, then maybe it's not your head center that is getting in the way, right?
So then move on to the next center. Let's look at your heart. Check in with your emotions. What are they? What do you need to feel before you can focus on the task at hand? What emotion is making it [00:33:00] hard for you to be present and focused? Feel what needs to be felt without judgment on whether it's valid and then, you know, make sure you talk to the emotion kindly and with care and compassion.
Next, move on to your body and check in. Are there any aches and pains that are making it difficult to be present? Do you have to pee? Are you hungry? Are you tired? What maybe needs five to ten minutes of care right now for your body? Okay, now bring your attention to the task at hand that you're struggling to focus on.
What is the first step? What fear is it triggering that may be splintering your attention? So in this relaxed, relaxed state that you've created through the deep breathing, through the introspection, walk yourself through that fear and imagine yourself taking that first step. If you start to feel anxious when you imagine this, return your attention to your deep breathing.
And then go back and try again. If it still feels [00:34:00] impossible, , to take that first step, if you're trying to imagine it and it's just not happening, ask yourself what support you need to take the first step. Do you need an accountability partner? Do you need a writing buddy? Do you need a more conducive environment?
Hell, do you need a shot of espresso? So take a few more deep breaths and then open your eyes. So now not only are you calm, but you may have some really interesting answers that you weren't taking time to seek out. So maybe you have a few steps to take, like caring for your body, asking for support, doing a little research, having a cry.
Um, probably not all of those things, maybe just one or two, but on the other side of doing that. You can feel pretty confident that you're, you've cleared the path for your focus, or maybe just the stillness, the deep breathing and reflection was all you needed, right? That's very often the case. So maybe you open your eyes and you feel inspired and focused, and then you dive in.
[00:35:00] That's great. Okay. Now, fair, fair warning, real talk. If you are new to this technique, You're not suddenly going to be focused throughout it. Your mind will wander as you check in with your three centers, you'll find yourself slouching, doing shallow breathing, again, all kinds of things. When that happens.
The most important thing is to not get upset at yourself. This is not a failure. This is just a thing that happens with our attention. Anyone who does mindfulness practice regularly can tell you that this is going to happen. So when we notice it, we just bring our attention back to whatever, , whatever we were focusing on before.
And we just continue on, right? You lose focus. You're like, Oh. I'm I've lost focus. I'm thinking about something completely different. Well, that's interesting information is observed that thought, but now it's time to go back to my heart center where I left off, right? So yeah, this is just not a big deal.
Don't get mad at yourself. That's counter productive to the [00:36:00] exercise. So mindfulness is never an invitation to abuse or castigate yourself. It's opening a door for love and compassion, which both deeply improve our focus. So, if you are wondering, what if I'm struggling to focus? My answer is, you and everybody else, friend.
Let's just be real about this. The degrees to which we struggle and the flavor of that struggle will be different, but we all face it. There's Nothing wrong with you. The systems we are living in are not designed for all types of attentional patterns. So try to avoid taking your struggle to focus as a personal failing when you're doing the best you can in poorly designed systems.
That being said, You always have the option of increasing your ability to focus and troubleshooting when you are struggling by using mindfulness techniques like deep breathing, curiosity, and self [00:37:00] compassion. You do have tools, right? You have some power here. And sometimes, When you do all the things, and none of it seems to work, that could be your mind, your body, and your heart's way of saying, Today's a day for messing around, right? And just being playfully unfocused. So you deserve days like that too, even if they didn't make it onto your calendar in advance, right?
Adults! Also deserve to play hooky sometimes. I'm a big advocate for this. So that's it for this episode of What If For Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks for joining me and staying focused for this entire episode. If you want to book some time with me, be sure to go to ffs. media and you can poke around my offerings.
I have group courses, individual coaching, and so much more to support you in your lifelong passion for writing. So thanks again for joining me and we'll chat again soon.