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Why Is Focus Important for Success?

Why Is Focus Important for Success?

Ingafay Faison Cavitt and I met at a virtual networking event. She introduced herself as a Confidence Coach for Women. Since that was one of my specialties in my hypnotherapy practice, we scheduled a video call to get to know one another better. She works with women in direct sales to become the person they were destined to be. At the end of our conversation, she decided that my approach as a focus coach would work well on her podcast.

Being able to focus is vital to being successful in business, so that’s the approach we decided to take. I shared my story of  how, when I focused on one item at a time on a long to-do list, I was finally able to complete items in a short period. Ingafay agreed that doing one thing at a time is more productive.

We discussed how getting distracted can feel rewarding, but you don’t get much done. And it can cause you to seek out more distractions. Oddly enough, one hour of focused time is equivalent to many more hours of distracted time.

I shared 4 steps that anyone can use to develop the skill of focus. One of those steps was to take breaks after a period of concentration to give the mind time to recover. Ingafay asked if a break could be like doing household chores and I said, “Yes.”

At the end of the podcast, she asked me about something I’d mentioned  when we’d had our first conversation. She asked, “Can you talk again about introverts and extroverts?” I explained that introverts and extroverts need different types of stimulation to focus for productivity. Extroverts work best around other people and introverts work best alone. I shared how a friend had tried me to work her way, and I couldn’t. I really enjoyed talking with Ingafay and wished we had more time. We both have the mission to lift women up, support and empower them to have better lives. Women have the power to fulfill their dreams.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Focus, the Power Behind Success

Focus, the Power Behind Success

by Linda-Ann Stewart

"Your ability to focus is the most important success skill you can ever develop." Brian Tracy

“Your ability to focus is the most important success skill you can ever develop.” Brian Tracy

In today’s world, it’s hard to stay focused. It seems that every minute, there’s something to divert your attention. You probably check your email several times a day. Every time there’s a notification from your phone, you have to see what it is. That’s in addition to interruptions from co-workers, family and friends. After a distraction, studies show it takes at least fifteen to twenty minutes to get focused again.

Also, your mind can focus on only one thing at a time. Each time you shift your attention from one thing to another, you’re “task switching” and it burns up extra mental energy. When the entire day is filled with these intrusions, you end the day feeling drained and exhausted, with very little to show for it.

Benefits of Focus

However, when you’re more focused, you feel more in charge of your world, get in the flow and get more done. You also have less stress and overwhelm, because your mind has one thing to do at a time. In addition, you have more clarity, so you make better decisions, as well as being more efficient, effective, and productive.  

Therefore, to achieve your goals and dreams, your ability to focus is vital. Fortunately, it’s a skill that you can cultivate and develop. The more you focus, the more you’re able to focus. It’s just like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

How to Create the Habit of Focus

You can’t be focused all the time, because the unexpected does happen on occasion. But you can set aside time each day to pay attention to your most important tasks. Schedule time into your day to focus on important projects. Here are some ways you can get started and cultivate your ability to focus.

Motivate yourself to focus. Decide how having increased focus benefits you, and remind yourself of that incentive when you set aside time for it. As you build your motivation, and act on it, focusing becomes a habit. Jim Rohn said, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Once you establish the habit of focusing, your mind will automatically know what to do when you want to do it.

Use visualization. Choose one task that will move you towards your vision or goal. What is it you want to focus on and achieve in this period? Before you get to work on it, take a couple of minutes to visualize yourself performing your task and accomplishing what you want. This increases your motivation, and primes your subconscious to start solving any issues you might encounter. You’re rehearsing your actions, which then makes them easier to execute.

Eliminate distractions. Find a way to minimize the effects of whatever can intrude on your focus time. For instance, research shows that if your phone is in the same room as you’re in, your mind is always tuned to it. Even turning your phone off doesn’t work. Therefore, put your phone in another room, where you can’t see it or hear it. Turn off your email. Close your door.

Minimize multi-tasking. Constant multi-tasking trains your mind to hinder your focus. However, you don’t have to completely avoid multi-tasking. When you’re performing automatic behaviors, such as doing dishes, watching television doesn’t drain you. Or you can pay bills and listen to a podcast. But when you do activities that need you to think, multi-tasking uses up mental bandwidth and exhausts your energy. Your mind is always seeking something new, and when you multi-task, you jump from one attention getting novelty to another. Multi-tasking triggers the reward centers of the brain, therefore gives you an incentive to repeat the process, which makes multi-tasking addictive.

Strengthen your focus muscle. Set aside time to focus on one task without distractions. Start off with as much time as you can before you need a break. You may need to begin with only ten or fifteen minutes. Each week, increase the time. Aim to have a sixty to ninety-minute stretch of focusing on one topic or chore before you take a break. When you take your break, do something that rests your mind for several minutes, such as going for a walk, getting a drink, or something to eat. This gives your mind time to replenish its energy and get ready for your next work period.

Being able to focus is an inherent talent that we all have. But it’s not an skill that is exercised much, so most people have gotten out of practice with it. With the above tactics, you can cultivate your natural ability, strengthen it, and develop it into a habit that will support your success.

Affirmation:
I have a natural ability to focus and pay attention to what’s important to me. It’s a skill that I can develop and grow through practice. The Universe flows Its energy through my focus, supporting my endeavors and smoothing my path to maximize success.

Watch the accompanying video, Guided Meditation to Focus and Accomplish More.

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Manage Your Attention, Not Your Time

So many stimuli compete for your attention each day that by the end of it, your brain feels like scrambled eggs. You can prevent that from happening by being more conscious of how you divide your attention over specific tasks. Here are three ways to keep your focus flowing.

5 Habits That Turn Off Negative Thinking

Negative thoughts only affect you if you give them power. But all too often they catch your attention and disturb your effectiveness. But you have the ability to turn that around and reduce their damage. You have control over your mind, and this article gives you some direction on how to take charge.

Impostor Syndrome: Why Success Makes You Feel Like A Fraud

The imposter syndrome typically happens to high achieving individuals who have a hard time adjusting to their success. It refers to the fear of being found out that their success is due to luck and not their abilities. This article explores this syndrome so you can understand it more fully and suggests ways to combat it.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

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We Are What We Repeatedly Do: Four Plans for Healthy Habits
Health and happiness have more to do with your habits than your circumstances, because your habits contribute to what you’re experiencing. Fortunately, with some focused effort, you can change your habits. Contrary to popular belief, however, willpower and self-discipline alone won’t create new ones.

3 Ways to Handle Disturbingly Negative Thoughts
Negative thoughts and judgements can pop into your mind when you’re least expecting them. And they can lead to more negative thoughts and sometimes unproductive actions. But they don’t control you. You can corral them and change them to something more constructive.

In Our Brutal Modern World, Science Shows Our Brains Need Craft More Than Ever
Technology consumes our time and attention, and both causes and contributes to stress. Now, more than ever before, we need to find a way to unwind. Learning a craft not only reduces stress, it builds a sense of capability and confidence. It’s also a way to get into a state of flow, which helps all areas of our lives. This is a fascinating article that explores all the benefits for practicing a craft. On a personal note, my primary craft is weaving.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

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Knowing yourself allows you to make decisions that are authentic for you and that you can live with. Because you know who you are, you’re more confident. But too many people rush around doing stuff, without taking the time to look within. When you do, you don’t have to be afraid, because you’ve been there all along.

Want to Improve Your Memory? A Decade-Long Stanford Study Suggests You Should Stop Doing This 1 Thing
Aging isn’t the only factor that reduces our ability to process, store and remember information. Researchers find that multitasking contributes to your problem with memory. It also erodes your ability to concentrate and pay attention. Spending less time multitasking may be the key to improving your brain’s performance and memory. Here are 3 tips on how to break that habit.

18 Habits That Will Make You Smarter
Your intelligence isn’t set in stone. It rises and falls with your attitude about it and what you do. Even those who are born smart don’t just coast. They develop habits to maintain and build on it. This article shares many of those habits, and if you just add one to your arsenal, you’ll notice an improvement.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

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Flagstaff Aspen Rainbow6 Exercises for Positive Emotions: Start Your Upward Spiral Today
Over the past few years, many researchers have found new and scientifically proven ways to increase positive emotions and well-being. The techniques described in this article have all been shown to boost positive emotions. They take some commitment, but they’re well worth the effort. Choose one, practice, and enjoy the changes.

7 Myths About Meditation Preventing You From Grasping The Amazing Benefits of Mindfulness
Meditation is becoming commonplace. But there are lots of misconceptions about it. People think mistake the goals and how to practice it. Meditation improves your concentration, self-awareness, and productivity, and your ability to show up in the world.When you’re able to better connect with yourself, you improve your relationship to yourself and others.

How to Make the Best Decision When You Have Too Many Options
Research has shown that when people are faced with too many choices, it can produce anxiety that actually makes us less likely to choose. As a result, we’re less likely to succeed. A study has the best strategy to use confronted with a large number of choices. When you’re having trouble choosing from too many options, use this technique to reduce your stress.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Break Your Trance

Break Your Trance

Most people have misconceptions about what hypnosis is and isn’t. What they don’t realize is that they’re using this process in their lives every day, for their benefit or detriment. This is a brief explanation of hypnosis, by a hypnotherapist of 30 years. Join me to learn what it is, how you’ve been using it, and how you can use it to now benefit yourself.





Transcript:

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart. Ok, so I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. But most people have all sorts of misconceptions about hypnosis. They think that someone takes control of their mind and makes them do things they don’t want to do. Not. They don’t realize that it’s a normal, natural process that they access several times every day. And they walk around in a trance that’s impacting their ability to either achieve or sabotage their goals and their vision.

So today, I’d like to give you a very brief explanation of the natural process of hypnosis. I hope that you’ll walk away understanding how you hypnotize yourself every day. And how you can use this natural ability to benefit yourself.

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. Like I said, I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. Clients came to see me to create change in their lives. Over time, I discovered that they had to also have a vision of where they wanted to end up with that change to be truly successful. Now, as a vision strategist, I help women entrepreneurs get a clear vision, get focused on its strategies and get back in control so they’re able to accelerate to the next level of their business.

When people hear that I’m a hypnotherapist, they have various reactions to it, based on their beliefs about hypnosis. Swinging watch. “Look into my eyes, and sleep.” It’s not true. And I can’t tell you how many clients have asked me, “Am I going to walk out of here barking like a dog?” My reply, “Not unless you want to.”

Not their fault. Their beliefs are based on what they’ve seen on TV and in movies. They don’t believe that an ordinary man can really “leap tall buildings in a single bound,” but they believe how writers sensationalize hypnosis because there are already so many misconceptions about it.

What TV and movies depict isn’t hypnosis, it’s Hollywood.

Did you realize you’re in a mild state of self-hypnosis several times every day? When you’re daydreaming, watching a movie, get so involved with a project that the distractions of the world go away, you’re in a light state of self-hypnosis. You’re driving down the road, daydreaming, and miss your turn. Have you ever done that? Should ask, “How many times a day.” We all do. Light state of self-hypnosis.

You walk around in a trance much of the time, not fully aware of what you’re saying (“Hi, how are you”), thinking (“I’m never going to get it all done”), doing (eat that donut without being aware of it, and wonder where the powdered sugar on your fingers came from).

That trance is self-hypnosis, and you’re hypnotizing yourself every day. It isn’t magic, a strange, mystical or other state of mind. Nor is it the “deep sleep” that people normally associate with hypnosis. It’s a natural state that most people drift into and out of many times during the day. Hypnosis is when the rational, analytical part of your mind isn’t as present. Hypnosis is simply a more focused state.

The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis defines hypnosis as a state of inner absorption, concentration and focused attention.

Secret – hypnosis also occurs whenever you’re upset, stressed or worried. Just for a moment, think about what you think about when you’re upset or stressed. Those thoughts become auto-suggestions. Scary, huh?

What most people don’t realize is that the things you say to yourself over and over that you’re only half aware of, are actually being said when you’re in a light state of hypnosis. Things like, “I know this won’t work,” “I don’t have enough time,” or “It can’t fail.” Do any of these sound familiar?

You then act on them as if they were true, whether they were or not. How that works is, suppose you’re afraid that your phone call to a potential customer won’t be welcomed. If you call at all, you’ll be nervous, not make a good impression, and end the call quickly. Your belief would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. All from what you were telling yourself. Has that ever happened to you?

Remember, hypnosis is just focusing the attention. So it all depends on the direction and the beliefs that you’re focusing your attention on. And your attention determines your actions. “Energy flows where attention goes.” Heard of that before? Not airy-fairy. Psych truth.

It’s like driving a car. You’re aware of the traffic, the landscape, your dashboard. But the majority of your attention is on the direction you want to go to your destination. If you’re driving, and you stare off to the side, what’s your automatic response?…. To drift in the direction of you’re looking, isn’t it? The same principle applies to your daily life. Your attention drive your actions. So keep your vision directed towards where you want to be headed and not rear view mirror.

So how can you use this natural process for yourself – other than just focusing on your direction? When you have a goal or a vision, become aware of what you’re telling yourself about it. They’re auto-suggestions. Do you doubt you can make it? Are you afraid of any step along the process? If so, these are the hidden hypnotic suggestions you’ve been giving yourself. Break your trance. Change them with auto-suggestions. You can do this. Even if you don’t believe it right away, repeating new ideas with consistency and persistence will start changing the old ones. The old beliefs were simply ideas that you accepted some time in the past.

When you change your beliefs, your emotions and responses change. You’ve already been using the process of hypnosis every day, by what you’ve been focusing on. I hope you start using the natural process of hypnosis to create what it is that you want.

If you want tips to you increase your productivity and accelerate your success, download my free guide Take Control of Your Day. It will also give you information on a process I used with my clients that helped them achieve their goals and vision.

Thank you for watching. I hope you’ve learned how to use this process for your benefit and use it to improve your life.

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6 Simple Ways to Take Control of Stress

6 Simple Ways to Take Control of Stress

In today’s fast paced world, we experience more stress than ever. A lot of it comes from our feeling like we have no control. When we feel like we have more control, stress and its impact reduces. Wouldn’t you like to be able to channel all that energy into something more productive? Learn 6 simple ways to take control of stress so that you have more clarity and are healthier.



Transcript:

Got stress? We all have it, some more than others. It happens as a result of everything from running late one day to having 3 projects due at once. A lot of our chronic stress is due to feeling out of control or not having any control over conditions. So I wanted to share some ways you can get some control over the stress that I’ll bet you’re experiencing.

I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. For almost 30 years, I’ve been a hypnotherapist and coach. One of my specialties was to help people deal with stress. We identified the causes and reframed their attitudes about them, as well as giving them other strategies to reduce the stress.
Now, as a vision strategist, I help women entrepreneurs get a clear vision, get focused on its strategies and get back in control so they’re able to accelerate to the next level of their business.
It helps them handle their stress so they can be more successful

You know how, when you’re stressed and can’t get a handle on it, you tend to get overwhelmed easily? You flip into reactive mode. It’s like you have a hammer and everything is a nail. Right? But you hammer things that aren’t nails, and that can be counterproductive. Instead, you need to grab some control so you can deal with things more rationally. Feeling like you have some control also allows you to channel that energy into something productive. Isn’t this what you want?

I want to share 6 easy ways that you can start to manage your stress and get back in control. Are you ready?

1. 1 thing. Take 1 thing you can control and handle that. Handle your email, / turn off your phone notifications so you can get some work done it quiet, / say NO to a request that you know will send you over the edge. I did this last one just recently. Handling 1 thing gives you a center to work from. What 1 thing would that be for you?

2. Daily routine. Instability and never knowing what’s next contributes to stress. Creating security through a daily routine can give you some breathing room. It gives you a sense of organization and control over your time. It’s especially good to have one it the morning, as it sets the mood for your day. Do you have a daily routine?

3. Self-hypnosis / relaxation training. This is one of the things I helped people with in my practice. I led them through some relaxation, and taught them self-hypnosis. I had a client who’d used massage, yoga, and other types of stress management techniques tell me that what we did was the most beneficial of all of them. This helps reset your body and mind, building resiliency. Doesn’t it feel good to relax?

4. Reframe. When you’re anxious or worried, you go into the fight or flight mode and you get paralyzed. Shuts down your thinking processes. But if you’re able to reframe the feeling to excitement or challenge, you’re able to come up with possibilities and be more innovative. Even using different words, such as “hassle” or “pressure,” can reframe the stress. How could you reframe things that stress you?

5. Help others. This one sounds counter intuitive. When you help others, you’re giving your precious resources of time and energy. But studies find that people under stress who helped others didn’t experience the damaging effects of stress. They also felt more satisfied in their lives. Don’t you feel good when you’ve helped someone?

6. Practice meditation or mindfulness, both of which helps the skill of concentration. Yes, concentration, attention and focus are skills. In today’s frenetic world, they’ve gotten rusty. Meditation / mindfulness train you to be more focused. They also keep your mind from spiraling out of control and keeps your attention on what you can handle. It also helps you to let go of what you can’t control. What can you do to build the skill of focus?

Don’t try to do all of these at once. That would throw you back into being overwhelmed and stressed. Take one of them and practice it. Which one would you want to start with? Practice and see if you feel better. Then add another one. The whole idea is for you to take more control. And once shift your attitude towards stress from it being a buggy bear to it being manageable, you’ll have more clarity and be healthier.

If you’d like more tips on how to make your day flow more smoothly, download my free guide, Take Control of Your Day.

Thank you for watching. I hope you’ve gotten an idea that works for you to manage stress.

Read the accompanying article, How Your Beliefs About Stress Affect It.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

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Are We Losing Our Ability to Concentrate?

Are We Losing Our Ability to Concentrate?

According to Daniel Goleman’s book, Concentrating on Chess GameFocus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, due to our obsession with multitasking, the internet, social media and cell phones, we’re losing our ability to concentrate. When we constantly check our email, read tweets, or play an online game, we get a jolt of adrenaline. It feels good every time we do and it lights up our brain’s reward circuits. We can’t stay focused on one thing too long or we get itchy for another rush. But it also undermines the ability to focus for any length of time.

Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence also says that the good news is that within a short time of slowing down and not jumping from one thing to another, we regain the ability to pay attention. Our focus and concentration improves within a couple of weeks. When we run from one activity to another, we train ourselves to do more of it. We’re training ourselves to be ADD. But the same is true when we let go of the obsessive need for stimulation. As we break the addiction, we train our minds to focus for longer periods of time.

To accomplish more, reduce stress, and be calmer, we need to reduce the number of times we check our email or cell phone. Within a couple of weeks, notice the difference. We’ll get more done, be healthier, feel better and be able to focus on a chess game or reading a book.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart