Welcome to Module 10: Focus Control.
Last module was devoted to working on the development of Implementation Plans. This module is devoted to developing one very special kind of Implementation Plan: Focus Control.
Focus Control
If ownership is the foundation that all progress builds off, focus control is the skill that all progress builds off. It’s the foundation, the rock, the core and most important element in helping your clients transform their life.
What is Focus Control?
Focus control, as the name suggests, refers to the ability to do headstands whilst reciting the Koran backwards… No. It’s learning the ability to control where and when you direct your attention, your focus, in any moment.
It’s the power to choose between all the objects and events around you, as well as internal thoughts, ideas, habits, and sounds.
How does it work?
Depending on which information you believe, the human brain is processing somewhere between 10,000 and 4,000,000,000 bits of information per second. This information floods in through your senses – sight, touch, taste, hearing, and sound – as well as occurring inside your mind in the form of thoughts, opinions, and ideas. But are you consciously aware of all these elements at any given point in time? Of course not. You simply don’t have the capacity to pay attention to that many difference elements at once.
As you’re reading this, are you consciously aware of:
- How you bottom feels against the seat you’re sitting on?
- The feeling of your shirt against your skin?
- The noise outside your room?
- The noises outside your building?
- The way the light reflects around you?
- The shapes made by the shadows?
- The faint smells of the environment?
- The way the small muscles of your eyes adjust as you scan through the different lines on this page?
If you were consciously aware of all these elements at the same time, you would be completely overloaded and unable to do anything with this information.
Your focus is the spotlight that filters through the barrage of information and allows you to choose which ones pay attention to and which ones you ignore.
What determines where we focus?
Right now, your focus is (or at least should be) on the words on this screen and what they mean to you because this is important to you (I hope). Why? Because it’s the most important thing to focus on right now. You’ve chosen to dedicate this time to reading this information and so your attention is on this page and these words.
But if your seat started to heat up like a stove hotplate or a lion jumped in through the window (stranger things have happened), do you think you’d still stay focussed on this page? Do you think these words would be the most important thing to you in this moment whilst a lion mauled your face?
No, I don’t either.
Your brain is finely tuned to pick out anything in the surrounding environment that threatens your health, your life, or your well-being and make it the centre of your attention.
But what determines where you focus when there’s nothing truly life threatening around you? What criteria do people use to sort through the barrage of information and choose one thing to pick out of the mess?
This should be at least a little obvious now that you’ve worked through 9 modules of this program. Care to guess? Yes, it’s your Script. In the absence of anything truly life threatening, the default criteria you use to determine which elements you focus on and which elements you ignore is what you believe is going to give you the experience you desire.
If you experience loneliness, you desire connection, the outcome you’ve believe is going to give you that experience is finding someone with the same beliefs as you, and the mechanism you’re using to do that is to identify ways in which the world is unfair and complain about those with people who agree with you, the primary element you’re going to focus on is ways in which the world is unfair.
If you experience powerlessness, you desire power, the outcome you’ve identified as giving you that experience is to expand your perceived personal ability, and the mechanism you’ve chosen to do that is to challenge your perceived personal limitations, then you’re going to focus on finding your perceived personal limitations and pushing through them.
Whatever you believe is going to give you what you want out of life is the area you will direct your focus upon.
If we automatically focus on what’s important, why do we need to control our focus?
This is a good question.
If you naturally focus on what’s important, why would you need to consciously take control of your focus? Why would you need to consciously direct it to something new if you naturally focus on what’s important to you? The simple answer is: because there’s a difference between logically knowing something and actually believing it.
What that means is that if you’re working with a client who has an unproductive Script and together go through the entire coaching process you’ve learned up until now, he’s not automatically going to shift his focus over to the new Scrip you’ve selected.
He may logically know that his old Script is ineffective, he may know that the Script you’ve selected together is more effective and productive, but that doesn’t mean the synapses in his brain are going to automatically break from their previous patterns and form new patterns and associations automatically.
To prove to himself on an unconscious level that this new Script is actually going to give him what he wants, he needs to experience the results over and over and over again until his brain can reformat itself. And he can’t do that without first taking control of his focus.
Think about this: what’s the core difference between a guy who experiences power by putting people down and one who finds his power by pushing through his barriers?
No, I’m not talking about what you believe is the difference from an external perspective as a coach analysing his situation, I’m talking about from his first person perspective.
If he walks into a club and wants to experience power, where is the guy who experiences power by putting people down directing his attention? And where is the guy who experiences power by challenging his barriers directing his attention?
- The ‘putting people down’ guy is focussing on finding people he can make fun of and ways he can make them feel small.
- The ‘challenging his barriers’ guy is focussing on finding areas where he experiences fear and feels constricted and moving towards those.
And if ‘putting people down’ guy was your client, identified that ‘challenging his barriers’ was a more productive Script, and wanted to change, what would have to change about the way he engaged his world when he entered the club? He would have to change his focus from finding people he can make fun of and ways he can make them feel small to finding areas where experiences fear and feels constricted and moving towards them.
That’s why you need to learn to control your focus.
The pieces of information a person chooses to pick out in the collage of electrical pulses that enter their brain in any second is the core difference between the Script they’re following. And so to move away from an old Scrip towards a new Script, you first have to control your focus. Without the ability to control your focus, you cannot change Scripts. It’s simply not possible.
You can theorise, debate, learn, understand, asses and discover, but until a person can consciously control their focus in the environments where their unproductive Script plays out, they cannot and will not change their Script.
What’s the process for teaching a client to control his focus?
The process of teaching a client to control his focus is essentially the same as any implementation plan, but with a few small differences. We’ll start with the first one.
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Become consciously aware of his focus
This first step is a very interesting one. While most of your clients will be consciously aware of their focus on the role it plays in their creating their experience, you will come across some clients who aren’t even aware that they’re cherry-picking information out of a sea of possibilities and could be choosing something else.
If you encounter a situation like that, the first step you have to take is to help your client see that he has the power to direct his attention and that he’s directing it to something that’s not as productive as it needs to be. The way you do that is to give them a simple exercise to open their eyes up to the concept of focus and the role it plays in their experience of life.
The exercise is:
Get the to spend a day / week / month noticing what they’re choosing to focus on and in that moment when they notice what they’re choosing to focus on, list everything else they could be focussing on.
If your client is struggling in a particular area of their life, get them to perform this exercise in that area as it will be far more relevant to them.
For example:
To help you understand what’s at the core of your issue, you’re going to do a little exercise.
Set aside three 1 hour periods to walk the streets when you know there are going to be beautiful women around and when you see one you want to approach and freeze, I want you to stop for a second and notice what you’re focussing on that’s causing you to freeze.
Just write down what you’re thinking about at that point in time that’s causing you to freeze.
Once you’ve written that down, take 30 seconds to write down a list of other things you could be focussing on instead of what you are focussing.
So, do that three times this week for 1 hour each time and email me the results when you’re done.
You can copy that word for word if you’re working with a client with approaching issues or you can substitute it with whatever scenario you choose.
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Educate your client to the importance of focus control
Once your client is consciously aware of the concept of focus and has a first glimpse into the role that it plays in his life, the next step is to start to dive deeper into the role focus plays in his life. You do this by asking him leading questions designed to get him thinking about the impact that his focus is having on his experience and how he could change his experience by changing his focus.
These questions will usually follow a consistent format:
- Where were you directing your focus when you performed ‘x’ task?
- What kind of experience did that create?
- Where else could you have directed your focus?
- What kind of experience would that have created?
- Where else could you have directed your focus
- What kind of experience would that have created?
The basic idea is to keep going until they can clearly see that their focus was responsible for their experience and that by changing their focus, they could change their experience.
- Get your client to notice that he can actively change his focus by doing small exercises
Once your client is aware of the role his focus plays in his experience and that by changing where he’s directing his attention he can create new experiences, the next step is to get him to prove to himself that he can actually change his focus.
The way to do this is to give your client simple exercises in safe and low-pressure environments that allow him to play with his focus and prove to himself he can actually consciously manipulate it.
The easiest place to start this is a guided meditation built around a body scan, that requires him to move through different areas of his body noticing the sensations in each area. There are plenty of relaxation guided meditations available on the market that you can direct your client towards.
Here’s one I found on YouTube with 30 seconds of searching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Dkf3KJqIY
Use this to help your client see that he has the power to consciously direct his focus and start the process of learning how to consciously manipulate it. Obviously, you only need to go through this step if your client isn’t aware that he can do this, but if he isn’t, this is a very important step.
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Develop a focus control Implementation Plan
Once your client is aware of the concept of focus, the role it plays in creating his experience, and has proven to himself that he can consciously manipulate it, the next step is to develop an implementation plan that takes him from where he is now to being able to control his focus in the specific area that he’s facing challenges in.
It’s the same process as any progression plan you develop:
- Asses where the client is now
- Asses where they need to be
- Work backwards from their end point until you find a point that’s challenging but achievable
- Create SMART goals that help them know when and how they’ve completed their tasks
- Send them on their way
- Monitor, review, and adjust
But as this is such a common issue and most of your clients will have to go through the same progression, here are the standard steps I use with clients.
(You might recognise some of these from your guided meditation journey through this program)
The Focus Control Progression
As the process of learning focus control is a little more foreign than connection, power, or freedom, I’m giving you the standard progression of moving your client from where they are now to where they need to be
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Direct your focus towards something very easy to identify whilst being guided, without distractions, for a set period of time.
This is the first place to start. You want to give your client as much assistance as possible and reduce the challenge to as little as possible.
The way to do that is to get them practising focussing on something they can easily identify – like the physical sensation of breathing – whilst something guides them through the practice.
And to make this as simple as possible, get them to practice this in a space with as few distractions as possible.
This is usually done through guided meditations, which you’ve been given throughout this program and can freely use with your clients as well.
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Direct your focus towards something very easy to identify whilst being guided, with some distractions, for a set period of time
Once your client can control his focus without distractions, it’s time to include distractions into the mix. Why? Because I’m guessing that the area of your client’s life that he’s facing challenges in isn’t in a quiet cave in the middle of the woods with no people around. He’s facing challenges in environments that have distractions in them and without learning to overcome those distractions; he’ll never make progress. So, the next step is to increase the level of distraction your client faces whilst attempting to control his focus.
This can be done in a few ways.
The first and simplest way to increase distractions is to get your client to perform the same guided meditation but this time in a noisier area. More noise = more distraction.
Another way to increase the level of distraction is to get your client to open his eyes. More visual stimuli = more distraction.
And another way to increase the level of distraction is to get your client to practice the meditation whilst performing simple and repetitive movements. More physical stimuli = more distractions.
Keep going with more and more distractions until your client can control his focus in situations that are as challenging as the situation he wants to transform.
By doing this, you’ll help your client move towards his necessary end point of being able to control his focus in challenging and distracting environments.
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Gradually remove the scaffolding
Once your client can control his focus with numerous distractions around him, the next step is to remove the support frame-work he’s been using to assist him in controlling his focus.
That means weaning him off the guided meditation and the time limit.
You don’t have to do it all at once and cut him off cold turkey, but it is important that he develops the skill of controlling his focus without the guided meditation.
Start him out on only one meditation per day being unguided (usually the last one of the day) with the rest guided. Then gradually move to less and less meditations being guided till they’re all unguided.
If your client is dependent on the guided meditation, it’s going to severely limit his ability to control his focus to times when he can use the guided meditation.
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Utilise this new skill in transforming your clients Script
Once your client can control his focus with distractions around him, without a scaffolding to support him, that’s when the real fun stuff starts.
Why? Because that’s when you client can start to choose where he directs his attention and start to transform his Script.
And yes, there are several different places he can direct it.
He can direct his attention towards:
- The environment around him
- His thoughts
- His physical sensations
- His emotions
- His experiences
- His desires
- Creating his desired experiences
- Other peoples emotions
- Other peoples experiences
- Other peoples desires
And anything in between…
But here’s the tough question: which one should he direct them to?
The answer is: it depends on where he is right now.
As you know from your work through Implementation Plans, one of the key elements in developing an effective Implementation Plan is giving your client a challenging but achievable task.
It has to get him learning over his edge but not so far that it’s impossible for him to achieve.
Working out where you client needs to focus his attention next follows those same rules.
4a. The Physical Environment
Noticing the physical environment around you is simple. It’s there every day and you’re well trained to do it.
4b. Thoughts
But, what about noticing your thoughts? Not everyone is aware of the thoughts that run through their head and so noticing them can be tougher.
That isn’t as tough as it gets though because at least thoughts are concrete and don’t have an intensity gradient. If you’re thinking “I hope she doesn’t reject me”, that’s what you’re thinking.
4c. Physical Sensations
Physical sensations are a different kettle of fish.
Physical sensations have a gradient from very weak to quite strong and so are more challenging than focussing on your thoughts.
But that’s not as tough as it gets because at least physical sensations occur in a specific part of your body. If your feet hurt, your feet hurt. It’s in your feet, and they’re hurting. There’s not much that’s complex about that.
4d. Emotions
This isn’t the case with emotions. Focussing on emotions takes things to a whole new level.
Emotions aren’t like normal physical sensations in that they exist in one specific part of your body. For example, your feet don’t get sad and your left elbow isn’t happy.
They’re different. They occupy multiple areas of your body and can even move between different areas (check out this article to learn more about the physical signature’s of emotions) which makes them harder to identify and categorise.
But at least people are used to identifying and naming them, unlike experiences…
4e. Experiences
Experiences, as you’re aware, are different to emotions. Experiences are the bigger picture perception of a person in relation to their environment and not many people are used to identifying them.
In fact, most people aren’t even aware of this concept, let alone be able to pick which one they’re going through!
This makes focusing on your experience quite challenging for most people.
But not as challenging as desires…
4f. Desires
Desires bring an extra level of challenge into the ‘focus’ equation as they’re a combination between being aware of your current experience as well as the specific element you believe is going to transform that current experience into the experience you desire.
It’s focussing on your experience, plus one more thing and thus, which makes it even more challenging.
But not the most challenging of all.
There’s internal focus level that goes beyond experiences and desires that’s so far outside most people’s concept of reality that I’ve never talked about it before, but as you guys are working on this path and deserve to know everything that’s possible, here it is.
4g. Experience Creation
The final (that I’m aware of) and most challenging level of interna