Unlocking the Power of Attention
Why Attitude is Key for Mastering Focus
In a previous post, I discussed the importance of attention and proposed some strategies that might help you strengthen your attentiveness skills. While these strategies are essential for laying the foundation for more excellent thinking, they may not solve all the challenges we face with attentiveness in learning.
As the great Coach Lou Holtz once said, “Ability is what you’re capable of doing…Attitude determines how well you do it.”
In the context of thinking and learning, our attitude and approach to learning greatly influences the quality of our attentiveness.
In other words, your struggles with attentiveness might stem from not making a meaningful connection with the topics or material you are trying to learn.
To put it bluntly, you might have an attitude problem.
In this post, I explore the connection between attitude and attention and suggest ways to make more meaningful connections in our intellectual efforts as we pursue more excellent thinking through growth in the Cognitive Skill Stack.
The Connection Between Attitude and Attention
If you’re still with me, I want to clarify what I mean by suggesting that our attention problems might be an attitude problem. We often get defensive when someone implies we don’t care enough about something we are invested in. After all, you’re reading a post about improving your thinking—clearly, you care!
By “attitude problem,” I am simply suggesting that there are some intellectual tasks that we approach with our arms crossed and a pout on our face. There are subjects that we have closed our minds off to and are not open to engagement with. There are activities that we have written off as boring and not worthy of our attention. (All of this is normal by the way – if thinking were easy, everyone would do it.) When these tasks, subjects, or activities inevitably come up, we tend to struggle. Focus becomes more difficult and we get frustrated.
Along with a variety of other reasons, this is why tax season tends to frustrate so many of us. Tax season forces us to think about math and money, and most people tend to have a negative attitude when it comes to these subjects.
As I mentioned elsewhere, focus tends to come more naturally when we care about and enjoy the subject. Conversely, a negative attitude toward a subject makes us lose focus, become frustrated, and procrastinate. However, when we have a positive attitude,whether from prior knowledge or experience, we tend to find it easier to focus and learn.
The best teachers are the ones who inspire and possess the pedagogical gifts that make any subject enjoyable. Similarly, the best students are those who possess the “Creative Imagination,” to find meaningful connections between the less enjoyable subject and the subjects they love.
In the rest of this post, I provide some strategies for making the kind of meaningful connections that promote a positive attitude and therefore greater attentiveness for any subject.
Three Strategies for Making Connections that Improve Attention
(1) Make it Personal
Replace “I can’t focus on this” with “I haven’t found why this matters to me yet.”
If our ability to pay attention is positively affected by our personal connection to a subject, then one of the biggest levers we can pull in strengthening our attentiveness is to make more personal connections with the subject.
As I highlighted above, attentiveness is not an effort in forced willpower. Rather, it’s about connecting dots to what matters to you. So, make it personal.
The best learners aren’t those with naturally long attention spans. They’re the ones who actively find ways to make subjects relevant to their interests and goals. Further, the strongest motivators for our work (according to this research) seem to be those which are closely tied to our personal identity.
In other words, the motivation for emotional pleasure or more economic benefits do not seem to be as strong as the motivation that comes from doing something for the sheer purpose of “that’s just the kind of person you are.”
The employee who deeply identifies themselves as someone who loves learning will find it much easier to focus through the training seminar than the one who is just in it for the credential. Here’s the good news, with practice and intentionality, we can get better at making these connections.
The next time you find yourself struggling to engage with a particular subject, take out a sheet of paper and give this exercise a try:
The C3 Framework for Making it Personal:
Connect: make as many personal connections as possible with the subject. Reflect on your personal interests, daily life, career goals, and calling or broader life purpose
Clarify: Why does this subject or topic matter from a big picture perspective? Why are people interested in studying this? What makes this topic interesting? What questions do I need clarity on to find it more interesting?
Customize: How can you customize your engagement with this topic? Maybe you have a lot of unanswered questions? Maybe step two was really difficult for you – Good! That means you have a lot more to learn.
There are no boring subjects, just subjects you haven’t made a personal connection with yet. It’s difficult work, but making a difficult or seemingly boring subject more personal can dramatically help you feel more connected and therefore more attentive.
Finding this helpful? I share this newsletter freely with students and educators to support their growth. If you enjoy it and find it valuable, please consider supporting more of my work. Your help keeps this free resource going strong!
(2) Make it Valuable
Replace “this is not worth my time” with “how can I prioritize this more?”
No one is immune to the habit of procrastination. We all do it. Some of you will do it later…
Jokes aside, procrastination is one of the biggest intellectual struggles we tend to face. I know that is certainly true for me. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it seems so mysterious – we have a difficult time understanding why we procrastinate.
Everything changed for me, when I started viewing procrastination as a value problem. In other words, I tend to procrastinate, because I value the distraction more than the activity I really ought to be doing.
In the realm of thinking and learning there are a variety of explanations for why we tend to undervalue certain subjects or activities. Perhaps most notably is the reward delay that we experience in these areas.
For example, the enjoyment I get from watching my favorite show or spending time with friends is immediate, while the enjoyment I get from finally “cracking the code” to some complex statistical model is delayed for days, months, or sometimes even years.
If I am the kind of person who is wired to seek immediate gratification, then I will likely be tempted to procrastinate more, since I would tend to value immediate pleasure over the delayed reward of learning.
Making a subject or intellectual activity more valuable will help you avoid the distractions and commit your focus towards higher value activities such as thinking and learning. To do this we can do things to reduce the reward delay by breaking things down into smaller units and rewarding ourselves at each milestone. Or, we might make it personal (above) and try to understand why it matters to you and your long term goals.
(3) Make it Interesting
Replace “this is boring” with “how can I make this more interesting?”
When we learn to put it in its proper place, boredom is not necessarily a bad thing. Boredom is a sign that we are not as engaged with the material we are seeking to learn as we should be. It is an alarm bell that, if we are attentive to, will help us improve our thinking.
Here’s what I mean. The best response to boredom is not avoidance, “how can I do something more interesting.” Rather, it is to dig in our heels and seek out ways to make it more interesting.
So brainstorm. What would it take for the subject to be more interesting? What do you want to know? What questions do you have? What are its connections to the other topics you are interested in?
The best thinkers are the ones who can make the most connections with the subjects they are trying to learn. It’s difficult work, but well worth the effort! The key is being aware of what is happening when we get bored, and recognizing boredom as a sign that we are not engaged and need to change our approach.
Looking Forward
Attention is not just about willpower—it’s about attitude. By shifting our mindset and making it more personal, valuable, and interesting, we can enhance our attentiveness and overall learning experience. Remember, the journey to excellent thinking is ongoing. As we grow in our development through the Cognitive Skill Stack, embrace the process, stay curious, and commit to putting some of these ideas into practice. With time and effort, you’ll find that even the most challenging subjects can become opportunities for growth.