1 Be Here now

we are all gifted: gifted with the power to think about our thinking. You can focus your thinking to

improve any area of your life; you are in control of what you chose to attend. You can continue to

allow your attention to be pulled by your environment, or you can decide now to direct it.

Many people believe super concentration is a magical state with which only a lucky few are born.

For instance, do you agree with this statement: big muscular biceps are something you are born with?

No of course not because we all know it takes many hours of training in a gym. Yet, people look at

attention as something you have or don't have. Concentration, like anything in life, takes practice.

Concentration is made up of many small choices consistently practised. Everyday brain research is

telling us that the brain is consistently changing when we learn something new. The people that limit

their attention are still using the 'your-brain-can't-change' model. We know that concentration can

and should be improved. You have everything in you now to take control of your bouncing monkey

mind and to take your power back.

Here is the average person's daily attention training: they wake up in the morning, not peacefully,

usually to some loud song or blaring alarm clock. They check their mobile phone for any messages,

just to see if anyone missed them. Then they jump out of bed into the shower and there they think about

a hundred and ten things that they need to worry about or need to do. Unfortunately, they haven't

allowed themselves enough time to get ready and can only manage a small unhealthy breakfast and fill

up with coffee. They get in their car, put the radio on, make phone calls, or even try to text messages

in the traffic. They get all angry, and they get all worked up about the traffic. The traffic is there and

won't change; yet, they think it should change. In fact, we worry and focus our attention on a 'million'

things which can all wait for the appropriate time, but we allow our attention to be pulled in different

directions.

Imagine your attention was an Olympic athlete. Would your athlete be able to be competitive? The

reason our attention and focus isn't that great is because we haven't trained it. We keep on switching

through the channels of our minds and never stop long enough on one specific channel. We pay

attention half-heartedly on almost everything we do these days. We live in an activity illusion and

think that 'busyness' is equal to good business. Busyness is sometimes just procrastination in

disguise. Busyness may make you feel good and make you think you are more productive but when we

look back at the end of the day we realize we haven't done anything worthwhile. We are training our

minds to have continuous partial attention, and our attention is being fragmented.

Training your concentration isn't that hard. You just have to learn to become more peaceful and find

the moment. You have to learn to be here now.