What gets your attention?

What gets your attention?

In this mad world of ours we are continually being bombarded by stimuli for our senses but how do you decide what gets your attention?

Particularly on social media, our feeds are a constant stream of “LOOK AT MEEEEE”… so much so that many of us are becoming immune to all but the most stand-out posts and find ourselves just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling… glazed over most of the time.

When we do stop and read something, what happens? We get something from it.

It makes us laugh. It makes us think. It makes us get in touch with a friend. It makes us share it. It makes us angry and compelled to respond. 

It makes us DO something.

Now consider your life.

Take away the digital interference for a moment. How much of your life are you doing the real-world equivalent of just scrolling past?

Whoa… sobering thought, no?

How much of your life are you just living through without paying it any attention?

How much of your life are you treating as if it’s simply not worthy of your focussed attention?

How much of your day do you spend just going through the motions without real engagement and appreciation?

One thing I am certain of is this: if you don’t pay attention you miss stuff.

Maybe you’re not bothered about missing some of the small stuff… but what if you’re missing the big stuff? What if some of the things you perceive to be small stuff are actually icebergs… small on the surface but flipping HUGE if you look more closely?

What if all the seemingly insignificant stuff that you’ve just scrolled on past isn’t insignificant?

It’s like when police are appealing for witnesses… there’s always that line at the end, “even if you don’t think what you noticed is important please still let us know”. How many crimes have been solved by paying attention to the tiniest shred of evidence?

What if all the really good bits of life are tucked away in the details?

You might like to try this…

Pick something in your life that seems so insignificant that you usually pay no attention to it. It could be something your partner says on a regular basis. It could be something your child does. It could be the way a car is parked on your street. It could be the birds in your garden.

Next time it happens, stop.

Just pause and take notice.

Ask yourself a question about it…

What can you appreciate about it? Why is that person behaving in that way? Is there more to it than meets the eye? Are they inadvertently showing, not telling? Is there anything you can do to have a positive impact on that situation? What could this have to teach you?

Go gently and pay attention.

I hope you find some icebergs you didn’t know were there.

P.S. One of the five happiness techniques you can learn in my free ebook How To Set Up You HQ is all about how to pay more attention. Get it here!