Why Attention Is Powerful

Oct. 9, 2019 - updated Oct. 7, 2020

The journey I took of self discovery revealed a lot about the ways of a creative mind. The realization of just how much connection impact our daily lives I’m sure isn’t new, but understanding it's link with creativity felt special to me. I had already built a love of connecting well (link to that blog entry at end of this blog), so now it made sense that I started understanding the part of all this, attention.

Attention is something I’ve always seemed to struggle with, as is the case with most creatives I've chatted with. Not allowing distractions to “carry me” elsewhere seemed like an endless battle of focus with my mind and it led to my greatest moment of depression, which I’m long past thankfully.

Focusing attention allows you to zero in on relevant stimulation, eliminating distractions. It allows you to find focus in the moment, develop consistency in what ever you're doing, and be consistent in your pursuit of passion and purpose, and your vision. It also allows you to focus on how you are feeling, and people that truly love and support you, which are incredibly important.

So much of life is about what you give attention to as well as it impacts daily life tremendously. Two people in love give attention to each other, and when people drive they pay attention to the road. Giving attention to yourself also allows you to focus on feelings, which then helps you better deal with depression.

A sleeping giant linked with attention is curiosity. I call it that, because it’s a part of human nature, and hard to resist “waking it up”, and we all use it. Many people, including myself, use it to help connect well with others. However, I discovered that creative minded people feed off their curiosity to help unleash their creativity as well. It get’s our interest going, grabbing at our attention, but it also causes great distraction and even addiction.

If you see a text from someone you might get drawn to the text, curious what it might say. Same with social media; you keep scrolling (locked in) because you are curious what others are sharing. Even with nature; your curiosity to know what outdoor adventure might bring, so you go outdoors.

The reason you are able to give attention to doing certain activities, or to certain people, is because the “love” — passion, or curiosity you have draws you in. This means you can use that “love” or curiosity to shift attention as well, which you can use to your advantage to power you forward.

Everything we take in makes us think a certain way, which then leads to an action of some kind

That’s why attention is powerful.