Fight, flight or change your focus?

Do you spend a portion of your day worrying about what could go wrong, complaining about what did go wrong, beating yourself up for missed opportunities, or feeling frustrated with life's many set-backs and disappointments?  There is a body of research evidence showing that we are actually "hard-wired" to pay attention to threats and problems.  From an evolutionary stand-point this makes sense - how else did we escape lions, tigers and bears unless we were on guard to protect ourselves from them?!

Although it may have been logical to worry about the threat of an attract by a sabre tooth tiger, is it as logical to worry about the threats that are in today's world? Are we doing ourselves a favour by worrying about missed deadlines, communication difficulties, and problems with  productivity, when they are not matters of life and death?  This is an important question to ask ourselves - is paying attention to what does and could go wrong the best route to accomplishing our goals?

Positive psychology suggests that it might be fruitful to look at opportunities, successes, and strengths, as we go about the business of living.  There is much to be gained in expanding our focus to include life's better points.  No need for rose-colored glasses, there is strong empirical support that a solutions orientation and strengths focus actually works!

What we think about, we bring about! It's the Law Of Attraction.  I am learning for example not to focus so much on my financial debt, but instead to focus on earning money, or ways of attracting more money into my life.  And its working!  When a challenge arises, my fiance is a master at focusing on the solution, rather than the problem.  Even last week we had several challenges face us, and I found myself reverting back to an old habit where I used to believe that bad things happen in 3's.  I used to believe it was a great explanation that made it seem 'normal' to have a lot of things go wrong at once.  But, when I focus on this old wives tale and expect 3 'bad' things to happen, they do - or I attract the 3rd!

You see we have a system in our brains called the RAS, or Reticular Activating System, that is designed to filter incoming stimuli to discriminate irrelevant background stimuli.  It acts to seek out the things we are focused on.  Ever noticed that when you buy a Mazda, suddenly you notice everyone on the road drives a Mazda!?  Wether you are focused on something good, bad or indifferent, your brain will search for the stimulus you want.  So if you are focused on finding the bad things in your environment, your brain will search for it - same as if you focus on finding the positive things in your environment.  This is why practicing gratitude is so important.  It trains the brain to search for the positive things that surround you. The result?  You have a happier, more positive life!

Want to live a happier, less worrisome life?  Practice becoming more aware of what you habitually focus on and train your brain, and your RAS, to focus on the positive.  Notice how you can activate the Law of Attraction and attract into your life exactly what you want - not what you don't want!

  

Reference:
'Invitation To Positive Psychology' Robert Biswas-Diener