Distracted? Increase your concentration with these tips

If often times you don’t know where you left the keys, you miss important dates, or you lose your phone, wallet, important papers, etc., and everything becomes downtime or chaos because of your “forgetfulness”, then its time to give your life a little bit of order and attention.  You must know that being forgetful and distracted does not help very much if you want to achieve great things in life, as a person’s capacity to focus and concentrate depends on the strength of their achievements.

If you can’t concentrate on small or big details, it means that your mind is lazy, it likes to jump from one thought to another, or tends to stick to stronger emotions, without being able to move or focus on what is truly important to you.

But with these exercises, you will be able to increase your capacity for concentration, and strengthen your mind’s qualities to create the things you like.  We just hope you don’t forget it!  Which won’t happen after you read the following.

Why do we forget or lose important things?

There are several reasons as to why we forget or lose things.  One of them is that part of you isn’t really interested in them.  You say, for example, how am I not really interested in my phone or house keys?  Well, maybe in some way you don’t want to have much of a relationship with your cell phone or your house keys at certain times because, most likely, there is a part of you that doesn’t “want to get home, or isn’t interested in it”, or you are searching for some excuse for people not to call you, or reach you with your cell.  Why do you “forget” tasks or papers that don’t interest you?  Because it isn’t something that you want to happen, nor that motivates you to follow through.

In love?

Another reason that people are forgetful is because some other subject absorbs their attention, that “weighs” more emotionally than all others.  For example, if you suspect that your partner is  going out with someone else, this subject might steal your attention, and then you abandon all others.  This also happens when you’re in love, and everything else becomes smaller, and you forget less the face and moments that you spend together, with whoever is stealing your heart.

And it is precisely this last phrase of “stealing your heart” that holds an important key for you to begin developing your concentration.  You must know from here on out that your mind is where your heart is.  This means that your concentration of thoughts are generally about things that are important or valuable to you, things that inspire and motivate you.

This is another point to keep in mind.  If you aren’t really motivated by anything in your life, then your mind won’t be either.  It will be lazy and forgetful, because in won’t have any special place to take you.  And another step for beginning to strengthen your concentration consists of asking yourself what it is that really motivates your heart.  What enlivens you, what would you like to do, or be?  Are you really where you want to be?  Are you interested in what you’re doing and where you’re going?

You can ask yourself these questions even though the answer may not be completely clear, because just the intention that you are generating by simply asking yourself, is a way to begin developing your focus.  Also, we must point out that if you aren’t that interested in “paying attention” to your life, that is because in some way, it doesn’t interest you that much.

They say that “distance is forgetting”

So: being forgetful could be due to your thoughts not being precisely in this present moment.  You might be constantly distracted, thinking about what you’re going to wear tomorrow, in what your neighbor will say once they find out, in how bad your friend looked at the party, etc.  If you heart becomes easily excited with thoughts like these, then your attention will greatly weaken for things that you need to tend to in the present.

One exercise to prevent your attention from wandering, and to strengthen it on this moment is to try to mentally describe what you do.  For example, if you are washing the dishes, describe how the water falls, how the soap feels and the temperature of the dishes.  This will help your mind to relax and to become conscious of what it does in the present moment.  It will bring you closer to the things that are important in the present.

I want to…but I forget!

A lot of time we also get over excited about things and we just forget everything else, no matter how hard we try to do it well.  If this is your situation, then your energy and willingness could have you too tense, causing the mind not to notice, or “erase” details.  This frequently happens, for example, when we’re traveling and we forget our passport, or we dart out in a hurry to our work interview, and we forget our resume, etc.  One exercise to avoid forgetting things when you actually want them to be perfect, is to mentally go over everything you’re going to do in the place you are going to do it, and make sure that everything necessary has been considered and prepared.

Pay attention to what you eat

Also, like the previous section, consider how a good diet promotes nervous system functioning and good memory.  So do not hesitate to try and eat quality foods that helps your mind be in the best condition possible.

Revised by: Dra. Loredana Lunadei on 09/17/2014

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