On finding focus: part 1 / 3
How to keep your eyes on the prize in a world that incentivizes divisive posts and viral negativity.
This is a three part series introducing Meaningful Transformational Focus* - a simple process to help individuals, teams and businesses to get fired-up about impactful issues.
Step 1:
Reduce distractions and shift mindset to focus on others
Years ago, no matter what steps I took or what sights I saw, everyday my eyes and ears reinforced my deeper misgivings and dread about the world.
Despite being off Facebook for years, investing time in research and corroboration from multiple perspectives, I could no longer confidently tell how much of my perception was based on evidence and how much was fed by personalised recommendations.
All of which distracted me from pursuing things that can provide enthusiasm and meaning.
So I did what a normal person should do.
I pulled the plug on social media. I limited my news intake. I limited YouTube since it had become like a tabloid newsstand of doom. I went off grid.
Along the way, things become focused - digital noise reduced and something much louder emerged.
Ideas.
Better yet, how to make them a reality, because what usually happens after having an idea?
Nothing. Most ideas die young. If you are self-critical - guilty as charged - your ideas might die because you think they are rubbish. Your ideas might die because you procrastinate and you forget the essence of the thought.
Our inner-voices are very creative when it comes to discouragement.
To make matters worse, that’s when the killer of young, budding ideas appears.
Distraction.
Neuroscientists revealed that, as of 2017, the average person processes 74 gigabytes of information daily* - 131% more a 2009 study by University of California. This number is estimated to grow by 5% annually, while Dynata reports that we encounter 6,000–10,000 ads daily. Astonishingly, about ≈5% of our total brain capacity each year is consumed by digital data and noise***.
Numbers, unfortunately, don’t lie.
Fake news, social challenges, cynical influencers & movements, TikTok virals, trends, tweets, clickbait and bad bots. Let’s not forget the Three Social Stooges: Like, Share and Subscribe - the noise that drowns out what you care most about in the world.
Your idea: 0. Negative world: 1.
With every idea killed, a little piece of change dies with it.
Maybe give up? When it comes to ideas, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.
Instead, it’s time to get fired-up, because those that strive for better know that only dead fish go with the flow.
Finnish people know a lot about fish. They are also the happiest people on Earth and have been for seven consecutive years. Frank Martela, Finnish Philosopher, says this is down to three things:
“We don’t compare oursevles to our neighbors”
“We don’t overlook the benefits of nature”
“We don’t break the community circle of trust”
Finding your own harmony is Meaningful Transformative Focus.
“When we fixate on worries and fears, it can take focus away from WHO we care about”
The winning strategy in a lost world? Empathy.
Who do you want to connect with in a meaningful way?
Meaningful connections can always be fostered with any audience or community that shares your interests or engages with your views.
The most important thing is to capture something they struggle with, based on your experiences and observations, for example:
Startups that don’t stay-up, being too focused on selling-up to realise their true value.
SMEs that struggle with resources, vision and skills to make change last.
Corporate change-makers that aren’t able to stay the course, because they last less time than the anyone else on the C-suite.
Part 2 will focus on defining a meaningful problem to solve.
*This framework was inspired by the Massive Transformational Purpose created and distributed by the Singularity University for the purpose of enabling moonshot business ideas. As an advocate in using and adapting open-source materials that democratise benefits for a wide range of users I don’t shy away from adapting things I find, especially if the result is aiding a crystal clear vision in a world thick with the fog of distraction.
**Heim & Keil study. 74 gigabytes of information is equivalent to watching about 16 movies / reading over 200,000 words / spending almost 7 hours online, with 50% of that time on a smartphone
***Rough calculation based on 2.5 million petabytes total brain capacity (source) and prefrontal cortex, in charge of executive functions, comprising one third of brain volume (source)