Give Yourself Your Undivided Attention

Human attention is at a premium right now. Marketers use clickbait headlines to make you curious and pay attention to their products. The people in your life send you text messages hoping that you’ll get back to them quickly. Your work wants you to apply your skills, talents, and time in service of their mission. There’s a lot going on where we’re being pulled in a bunch of different ways. 

But let me ask you this question… When was the last time you gave yourself your undivided attention?

A time when you just sat and reflected on what you want… When you slowed down to check in on how you were feeling… When you silenced all other inputs and allowed yourself to just be and not do…

Saying it out loud, it sounds like such an obvious thing to do, but it’s so rare. It seems as though the moment our attention frees up there are two things already there to claim it. And it also seems as though when we consider how we want to spend our time the one thing we most fail to prioritize is ourselves.

You deserve your undivided attention. You need to make sure that you have what you need, that you’re taking care of yourself and prioritizing your own well-being.

The reason why it might not be as natural for you is because it’s hard. It’s hard to sit with yourself, unstimulated. In fact we often add more to our plate and keep ourselves “busy” to avoid the unfamiliar feeling of being alone with our thoughts.

If you’re open to it, let me suggest a few questions you can ask yourself to check in: How energized have you been feeling? How productive have you been feeling? How is your mental health? What are you working towards, and how is it going? What are you most excited about?

Turn off technology, turn off the roles you feel like you need to play, and even turn off the other people in your life. Be intentional about giving yourself your undivided attention.

We know it’s the best thing we can do for everything else, isn’t it the same for ourselves? When you do you just might learn something new! Then once you know better, you can do better.