Finding It Hard To Focus? Try This Out
A Beginners Guide To Practicing Mindfulness.
In today’s world, our lives are consistently filled with noise, stimulation, pings, and whirls. Many of us find it hard to focus.
When was the last time you finished reading a book? In my youth, I was a regular reader, but now I can barely finish a 15-second video clip of a goat bleating like Taylor Swift.
Mindfulness is often cited as an antidote to our attention problems. It provides a structured framework to retrain our attention skills, drawing from centuries of Eastern philosophy and supported by modern scientific evidence. If you want to learn more about the background of mindfulness, I encourage you to jump on Netflix and watch Headspace’s Guide to Meditation.
But is mindfulness really going to “cure” our attention problems? What about all the other reasons we struggle to focus, like social media and stress?
I agree, the true solution to our stolen focus lies in a combination of both individual and societal changes. However, we can hardly storm the strongholds of Zuckerberg and Musk’s fortresses and reclaim the attention economy. For now, we need to focus on what we can do, like building new attention habits.
So, if mindfulness is part of the solution, where do we start?
First, most new skills benefit from dedicated time and practice. If you are a whizz at solo pursuits, try setting aside a regular time and place in your weekly schedule to practice mindfulness, download a mindfulness app, and get started. When building a new habit, it is best to start small. Whatever goal you choose, I encourage you to halve it! Almost all of us have a tendency to bite off more than we can chew, which can accidentally set ourselves up for failure.
If solo hobbies are not really your thing (and let’s be honest, most of us learn better together), I suggest joining a local mindfulness group or attending a mind-body exercise class. I love yin yoga, a very slow and meditative type of yoga that is offered at many yoga studios. Otherwise, there are plenty of free mindfulness groups advertised on MeetUp or paid ones through Eventbrite.
Best of luck on your mindfulness journey. In the meantime, I’ll gather ropes and ladders to lay siege to Silicon Valley.
At SisterTalk, we begin and end all our sessions with a mindfulness exercise, so our courses are another great place to start practicing these skills. You can check out our courses here.
