How to be More Focused and Stay Focused
Hey everyone, it’s Ron White here, I’m a 2-time USA memory champion. I would like to start off by saying that without the ability to focus, I would have never become a national memory champion. I want to share some of my tips and strategies on how to be more focused and stay focused.
Let me ask you this, Why do you need to focus or be more focused? Why can’t you just continue to be distracted and fascinated by everything that comes across you?
Being distracted is fun sometimes because watching TV and listening to music while reading a book and drinking a cup of coffee, texting your friends and trying to multi-task everything sometimes can be a little exciting, even if on a mild scale. It releases a dopamine and our brain finds that as rewarding and you get involved in this frenzy and it’s sort of like an adrenaline rush.
It’s a fun atmosphere but here’s what’s wrong with not being able to focus, it eventually develops in to brain fatigue. When your brain gets tired, trying to focus, even just a little the next time, becomes such a strenuous work out for your brain, which can drain your mind. So it is very important to develop and practice the skill of being able to focus; because if you don’t, over time, your brain is going to get fatigued, and it’ll become really hard to be more or stay focused.
First thing I recommend you do, is to find your mission and define your goals.
Whatever you’ve set as a goal for yourself that day is what you must try to do, if it’s to read something and find out information, then set your goal to be about that.
For example, lets say your goal is to research information about Abraham Lincoln. When you’re researching about him, if something pops up on the screen, don’t click on it, unless it is relevant to Abraham Lincoln.
Another thing to remember is to set a clearly defined goal and stay focused on that goal.
Be sure to know your mission because when you know your mission, it’s easier to say no to things that stray you from that mission. Start saying no to things that do not help you get to where you want to be. People will come to me and say “Ron, you have to do a podcast,” or “Ron, you have to do a periscope,” or “Ron, you have to do this.”
But guess what? I know my mission. My mission is clearly defined. My mission is building with my youtube audience and my customers and connecting a with them in my videos.
Because I know my mission, when I see all these other distractions, that aren’t necessarily wrong but they don’t fit with my mission right now, I find it easy to say no to them. Get in the habit of saying “no.” It’s harder to do for those people who tend to say yes to everything but that lack of focus is draining their energy and time and it’s keeping them from reaching their goals.
Another suggestion I have is to ignore the clutter. Whenever I was training for the USA Memory Championships, my coach, TC Cummings, wanted me to memorize a deck of cards in all kinds of chaotic situations, so I would go to a country western bar, where people were dancing, singing, laughing, talking and drinking and there was loud music and bright lights flashing everywhere and I would just sit and memorize the deck of cards in my hands, training your brain to be focused despite the distractions helps you to focus your brain.
You can use this strategy on anything. Before you open up a book, ask yourself, “What do I want to learn from this book?” ask yourself questions to force your brain to focus. Learning how to be more focused can improve your study skills tremendously and cut your review time in half. When you’re focused, you’re internalizing information better and that technique helps you to create a habit that allows you to focus better.
Click link below to learn other ways on how to stay more focused.
http://www.wikihow.com/Stay-Focused
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