Could it be that what we choose to focus on impacts multiple aspects of our well-being? Yes. How can our focus determine so much in our lives? How can we choose our focus to best improve our well-being?
I gained more knowledge of a clever strategy French police detectives use regarding the connection between what you see and what you believe when I was teaching the MBA course in Monaco decades ago. The wisdom was that if a detective had a particular focus or theory about a crime, they would tend to only see evidence that supported their theory or focus. A second police officer, believing that theory was wrong, would have the opposite focus and only see evidence that falsified the first detective’s theory.
The difference can be summarised as the contrast between: you will see it when you believe it, and you will believe it when you see it.
Now, that wisdom has spread and many people know that seeing only what they focus on under the name ‘confirmation bias.’
What we choose to focus on has massive implications for our well-being. Here is a real-life example. Imagine a highly motivated, ambitious young manager, whose number one focus was on becoming more and more effective at making great things happen for their organisation. They spent almost every waking hour working, preparing to work, or travelling between work locations. Every aspect of their lives was recruited and sacrificed to serve their ambitions. They achieved great results, and were often promoted to take on even more demanding responsibilities. The amount of energy required was increasingly massive, and they did what was necessary to rise to the ever-tougher challenges. They were excellent at their work, and almost everyone acknowledged that. Their mono-focus brought them self-esteem, success, wealth, and recognition.
While their minds were focused on success in one area, they deliberately chose not to focus on others. Their diet was focused on getting as much mental energy as possible.
Constantly demanding more energy from themselves, as each year passed, they became progressively more obese, until, in their mid-40s, the inevitable happened. The lack of focus on their health, gave them an instant, massive and permanent ‘lights out moment’ that lasted for eternity.
How many people have died as a result of just that one focus-based cause of poor health? Vast numbers.
In such cases, the mono-focus takes years or decades for the damage to have fatal consequences. Could an instant of lack of focus harm our well-being? Most definitely.
Across the globe in the last 24 hours, many people died in road traffic accidents because their thoughts and focus were on their smart phone, when it should have been on the risks around them.
Can our repeated thoughts gradually become our habitual focus? Yes. Our thoughts tend to self-validate; we see evidence to support our thoughts, whatever they may be.
Let’s take two people who are faced with identical circumstances. One has a bleak view of the world, and focusses on the negatives, on the disadvantages or harms contained in any situation. The other person’s focus is on the benefit or upside in every situation.
Because the naysayer starts off focusing on “we are all going to hell in a handcart,” they filter everything that happens through that focus, which means that only ‘the end of the world is neigh’ evidence is seen, which increases their conviction that the globe is long past its sell-by date. Their focus becomes habitual.
By contrast, the mind of person whose thoughts start off expecting and looking for the best, filters in everything that supports that focus. They then see more ways to make life better, which again reinforces their focus, eventually turning it into a habit.
The person with an optimistic and empowered focus, all other things being equal, will have better physical and mental health, stronger and better relationships, be more successful, and will live between 10 and 15% longer than the naysayer.
Why? Because what we choose to focus om massively determines so many aspects of our health and well-being.
Specifically, how can our mental focus shape our health and well-being?
By way of psychosomatic and somatopsychic processes.
Although we don’t fully understand how the mechanisms, connections, and systems in our body and brain function, we do know that what goes on in our minds has a huge impact on our bodies.
Our minds can and do influence every system in our bodies. The psyche influences the soma: psycho-somatic. Anyone can quickly test that for themselves by imagining a dangerous situation, and noticing the bodily and somatic, changes induced by psychological fear.
The flow of information and influence is two-way traffic. What goes on in our bodies has a profound impact on our minds. The soma influences the psyche (somatopsychic). When we are food or sleep deprived for even a short time, we can experience the impact our body has on our ability to think clearly and, in extreme cases, to think rationally.
Our minds and bodies are inextricably linked. What goes into each impacts the other in a never-ending cycle or feedback loop.
When we choose an empowered focus, with, for example, thoughts of gratitude, intentionality, and maintaining good relationships, our brain sends signals throughout our bodies. The hormones released have an impact on every system. They include dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. The ‘healthy hormones’ seem to be curative, preservative, growth-promoting, and life-enhancing. They have profound effects, such as reducing blood pressure and heart rate, creating feelings of joy and well-being, and boosting the immune system.
If we have chosen a disempowering focus, the “health horror hormones” are released, such as cortisol and adrenaline. As a quick aside, most of the horror hormones enhance our short-term chances of survival when faced with real physical threats, but when habitually released over long periods of time, they cause huge damage. They weaken and suppress the immune system, increase the heart rate and blood pressure, cause sleep disturbance, and are heavily implicated in long-term depression, anxiety, increased chances of a stroke, cancer, and a host of other problems. All based on, stemming from, what we choose as our focus.
When it comes to well-being, this quote from Dr Wayne Dyer is very apt: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
That is, our focus, to a large extent, determines our well-being. When we focus on eating healthily, exercising, managing our sleep, keeping our stress levels low, and having empowering thoughts, we live longer, fitter, and better lives.
If we choose to focus on fast, convenient foods, our cravings and impulses, and disempowering and negative thoughts, then we pay a heavy health price.
The first step to harnessing the power of focus to improve our well-being is to become aware of what we focus on habitually.
Once we know our habitual focus, we can assess the extent to which it is helping or harming us.
We then choose what focus is optimal for us. Too much focus is placed on health and well-being and we miss out on other great things in life. There is too little focus on health and well-being and our lives, and the quality of our lives is short-changed.
As with most aspects of life, there is a sweet spot: enough focus on health and well-being to enhance our lives, not so much that we take the pleasure out of life.
Professor Nigel MacLennan runs the performance coaching practice PsyPerform.
