How To Master Your Focus
A Roman Emperor’s timeless advice on avoiding distraction
“Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.” — Marcus Aurelius
It’s incredibly easy to lose focus — especially in this day and age. Focus is, however, even more important than IQ. It doesn’t matter how smart or skilled you are. Without focus, none of your efforts will align towards a pure, outstanding outcome, and you will achieve nothing.
Focus is everything, and we live in a world where focus is a dying art. It’s under fire. Ads want us distracted, to pull us here and there. The rapid, instant gratification-based economy in which we live opposes focus entirely.
We’re constantly being sold to. We’re growing up in a world that tries everything it can to destroy our attention span and fix our sights not on what matters, but on what sells.
The Art of Focus
Countless others have been where you are today. One of them was a Roman emperor. Marcus Aurelius (121AD — 180AD) was not only an emperor, but a philosopher and an avid writer. His famous writings to himself, the Meditations, are dated to the last decade of his life.
This was a dark time for him. He was forced to cope with struggle in many areas of his life: the abortive revolt of Cassius, the deaths of his wife, Faustina, and his friend, Verus, and the growing realization that his son and successor, Commodus, was not the man he had hoped would take over the Roman Empire.
He would breathe his last breath in Pannonia (one of the few Roman emperors to pass away so far from Rome) while leading a campaign against the invading Germanic tribes.
Marcus would be the last of the Five Good Emperors, and his death would mark the end of the Pax Romana, ushering in the beginning of the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire.
These were dark times indeed, and Marcus had to fight his fair share of battles — battles of the mind, battles of the body and battles of the spirit. Yet through all of this, he lived a focused life despite the innumerable distractions and challenges that come with being the most powerful person in the world.
How did he maintain so much balance and composure that everyone who met him exalted him as the wisest man they had ever met?
He practiced the art of focus even during his darkest times.
The Value Of Your Focus
How much value do you gain from an hour of bouncing between thinking about celebrity gossip, checking your social feed, watching YouTube videos, worrying about upcoming deadlines and recalling that you’re four hours into the day and still at square one on your to-do list?
How much value do you gain from an hour of focusing on one of the major, life-changing passion you’ve dedicated yourself to?
Just because we’re doing, just because we’re busy, that doesn’t mean we’re creating value for ourselves or others. You can be busy every second of the day, but the important question is busy doing what?
The value of your mental focus depends on what you’re using it on, just as the value of paint depends on what it’s being used to create.
The small things don’t deserve much time or much focus. So give them as little time as you can get away with giving them — and no more.
How do you do this? It’s unique for everyone, but start by getting into the habit of asking yourself if what you’re doing is worth the precious, irreplaceable time you’re putting it on.
Imagine your time is worth, say, five-hundred dollars an hour. Put a value on it, even if it’s just pretending, and it might just expose the little, irrelevant things that you, as a valuable person full of potential, should not let bleed you of your greatest resource.
Marcus had another way of saying it:
“The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.” — Marcus Aurelius
Now Is All You Will Ever Have
“The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?” ~Marcus Aurelius
We can plan ahead, yes. We can dream. We can visualize. Indeed, these are all helpful things to do. But at some point we’re going to have to don our gloves and get to work.
Where? When? Right here and right now, of course. Whenever else could you possibly start building what you’ve been dreaming of other than now?
We can focus on the past, or focus on the future — and a little of each can help. But the only time we will ever have to change our lives is in this very moment — not ten seconds from now, not a minute from now, not two years ago, but right now.
Internalizing this idea helps you keep your mind on what truly matters, and helps you catch yourself when you’re mind wanders to the unchangeable past or future.
Focusing on the time you have, on what you’re doing in the present, is to focus on the only true resource you have to build towards your future. Knowing this alone helps instill more focus in one’s life.
You can’t lose yesterday, nor can you gain tomorrow by thinking about it now. You can only, and will only ever, have what is at this moment. Using it well is of the utmost importance, and focus is at the heart of a well-lived life.
What’s In Front Of You?
Do what’s in front of you, and free yourself of the tiny, irrelevant things that are trying to distract you. As Marcus said, eliminate distractions by cultivating the attitude of treating every day like your last, understanding that it could be your last.
We don’t focus because we don’t appreciate how precious this moment is. Focus goes wherever you perceive value.
All too often people have to reach the end of their lives before they focus on what really mattered all along.
You can do refocus any moment, every moment — to concentrate like a human being capable of personal mastery. Center yourself on what is, on this moment of opportunity to change, learn, grow, give, love, laugh, understand, and achieve. It all starts with focus.
Simplify
“‘If you seek tranquility, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential . . . Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” — Marcus Aurelius
Take control of your day and demand that answer from everything that seeks your attention.
When your phone vibrates and you feel the urge to check your twitter feed, ask “Is this necessary?” When you start losing yourself in the rabbit hole of meme videos on YouTube. “Is this necessary?”
When you start worrying about something you can’t change, or something far in the future that may never happen. “Is this necessary?”
We often don’t ask enough questions, and most people never ask questions about the things that do, or should, demand their attention. The idea pops in their head, and they go with it, aimlessly, led along like cattle — the result of not being the master of their own minds.
So simplify. Cauterize the cancers of distraction from your life, and you will find the time you’ve had all along — the time you can now use to transform into an even higher expression of yourself.
Let philosophy guide you. Know that it’s not in doing many things, but in putting your strength into doing less — less of what doesn’t matter, so you can focus more on what does — that brings you closer to living a fuller life.
The Takeaway
Focus is the key to consistent, life-changing growth. No focus means no growth.
A magnifying glass focuses the sun’s otherwise impotent rays into a powerful point. Likewise, focus takes your effort, your energy, your personal power, and hones it all on one target.
Without focus, your efforts and energies go to and fro, this way and that, anywhere but on a common target — they merely go to waste. So focus the rays of your life. Every day. Every hour. Every moment. Focus on what matters.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as reminding yourself that this could be your last day, your last hour, and that you shall use it well.
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Living a focused life is harder today than it was in Marcus’ time, but it’s not impossible — focus is a simple process that just takes daily effort. The more you practice it, the stronger it gets.
“Practice even what seems impossible. The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice.” — Marcus Aurelius
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