When we want to become excellent at something we need to put in a lot of focus. Daniel Goleman discusses how to reach the ability to focus and grow thanks to that. In fact, he argues that in order to become successful we need to sustain the ability to focus.
Bottom-up and top-down
There are two types of mind systems according to Goleman. Bottom-up serves for short-term thinking and impulse. The top-down part of the brain was developed later on and helps us to regulate our attention, emotions and make plans and decisions.
Attention
Engaging our attention is a top-down activity. When we give our attention we are staying alert to what is happening around, we evaluate it and sometimes we try to improve it. This activity consists of reflection and creative process.
Innovation
In today's world I think many of us have a problem. We thrive for high performance, thus we overwhelm ourselves with long to-do lists and that results in innovation being killed. Innovation and creative process needs open times. We need time for rest. Time to take a walk, a long bath or holidays. That is when we can focus our attention and go through a creative process.
Mindfulness
According to Daniel, the walk on the street is not enough because we give our brain a lot of aspects to focus on. Instead, we can go to a park or stare at the sky. That is when we trigger our bottom-up attention and allow top-down to refresh its energy, restore memory and improve cognition. A good way to practice attention is mindfulness. Focusing on the present moment without any judgment. What personally helps me a great deal is also meditation. If I practice regularly I find it much easier to give my undistracted attention when I need it. Plus, not only are we growing and getting better at something, we are also much happier.
High achievers
The 10 000 hour rule is only half true. If we practice the same mistake for 10 000 hours we will not improve. We need to practice, invest many hours, but we also need to give our focused attention and seek feedback. After some time, when we achieve a certain level of some skill, we let it become a bottom-down operation. That happens after around 50 hours of training. However experts pay attention to what they can improve and they don't let themselves automatize the activity in order to keep improving.
Daniel also discusses how in today's world full of distractions it is difficult for us to keep attention. He suggests setting priorities, managing email and social media use. I personally believe that many of us are still putting this on the back burner. It is easy to end up overflowing with daily tasks. And that's why it is even more important to pay attention to this and consciously work on maintaining our attention and giving our brain healthy doses of information.
