You are not who you think you are. Your personality and identity is significantly more malleable than you realize. With a few simple tricks, you can exploit your brain's innate functionality to change just about anything about yourself. Here's how.

You Are Not Necessarily the Person You Think You Are

You are not who you are, but rather the product of many influences. The saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" exists for a reason: the longer you've been the person you think you are, the harder it becomes to change. The thing is, you can dramatically change who you are. It's actually not so much that it's difficult to change, but that you've developed patterns and habits that make it easier to do things the way you do them. Trying something in a new way can feel very awkward, it will be generally less efficient by virtue of being something new to you, and it often lacks excitement for you when it involves giving up the comfort associated with your way.
That's not to say you aren't born with some inherent abilities, but most of what you consider part of your identity is a product of influence. While we don't know the exact ratio of nature to nurture, there is undoubtedly a combination of both that makes us who we are. We have a tendency to think that change is difficult, but it's really just a matter of changing your influence. You're probably familiar with Stockholm syndrome-the term used to describe how hostage victims tend to develop positive feelings towards their captors. Stockholm syndrome isn't a kind of brainwashing by the captor; instead, the victim adapts to the poor situation he or she is in. If most people can adapt to something as awful as being kidnapped, most people can adapt to smaller positive changes in their own lives. You can even make enormous changes if you're willing to put in the work and you provide yourself with the proper influences. We're going to look at how to do that on high and low levels, from priming your brain to manipulating your own emotions, and also look at how your environment and the people you know shape your life.
Most of these methods won't make you feel comfortable, and, at times, they may sound a bit crazy, but it is possible to "hack" your own brain. Here are just a few ways to do it.

Priming Your Brain

Priming is a ridiculously simple technique because all it involves is talking to yourself. On the dull end of the spectrum, it's similar to self-affirmation. On the crazier end of the spectrum, it bears some similarities with neuro-linguistic programming. Priming your brain involves reciting a given set of words that are designed to alter your mindset. It is not brainwashing and it cannot make you do anything you don't want to do. What it can accomplish, however, is putting you into a state of mind that will be more useful to you with a given situation or task.
Before we get into the specifics of how to prime your brain, let's talk about how and why it works. If you were to say the word mustard out loud, and then you were to see a portion of the word later, you'd be reminded of mustard. For example, if you were to say "I must have this" you might be reminded of mustard because of the word must. If you were hungry and liked mustard, you may even want some. It's the same phenomenon that compels you to buy a particular brand of shampoo that you saw on television even if you 1) don't remember seeing the commercial, and 2) couldn't care less what kind of shampoo you use. This is essentially how priming works, and it's all thanks to your memory.
While you're not going to remember everything you say, that doesn't mean what you say is gone forever. While everything stored in your recent memory may not be immediately accessible, all you really need to bring something up is a trigger word. This is conceptually similar to using acronyms as a memory tool (e.g. Roy G. Biv) but isn't designed to help you actually remember anything. Instead, the goal is to place common words that, when apart, have no real specific value, but when together, have an associative value that make you think of happy things, sad things, specific people, or ambition. If any of those common words come up again later in the day, you'll immediately associate that word with the associative value of the group. Here's an example:

• drive
• do
• go
• make
• objective
• important
• create
• commitment
• purpose
• enthusiasm
• eager
• motivation

This is a list of words synonymous with or related to ambition. It's designed to be read aloud to put you in a more ambitious mindset, focusing your thoughts and priming your brain to react ambitiously when these words, or portions of these words, come up later in your day.
Another exercise involves taking a shorter list of priming words and making a sentence with it. Here's an example:

• the
• smiled
• looked
• girl
• and

These words can form the sentence "the girl looked and smiled," which should bring to mind pleasant associations for most people. Constructing sentences out of word lists (which you can create yourself) can help put you in the right mindset.
These two methods can be used to prime your brain. They are not magic tricks that will instantly make you feel happy, ambitious, or whatever, but they can help to provide you with the mindset you need to better accomplish your daily tasks.
For more reading on priming, and a look at some really interesting studies, don't forget to check out the references for this article.

Using Your Emotions

If you've ever found yourself making out-of-character decisions based on your emotional state—such as binging on ice cream after a breakup—you know how easily your feelings can overtake your actions. Rather than letting your emotions lead you towards poor judgment and irrational behavior, however, you can learn to compensate for different emotional states and to fabricate emotions to alter your mood. In order to do that you need to, simply put, get in touch with your feelings. The idea isn't so much to cry into a pillow about your wasted childhood, but understand what you're feeling when you're feeling it, what the root cause is, and what you can do about it. We're going to take a look at how you can dissect your emotional state to use it to your advantage, and also look at how you can fabricate emotion to change how you're feeling.

Take an Acting Class

You can't really control your emotions if you don't understand them, and one of the best ways to understand them is to take an acting class. To some this may sound fun, and to others this may sound like hell. Love it or hate it, acting lessons are one of the best ways to explore how and why you feel certain things. Your goal should be to find a class that will make you uncomfortable every time you go. In my experience, any class teaching the Meisner technique is very effective if you put a lot of effort into the exercises. It can be slow, tedious, and uncomfortable, but it's capable of bringing out emotion you might not realize you had.

Make Yourself Uncomfortable

Your emotions aren't in full force if you're not really doing anything, so you need to put yourself in uncomfortable situations in order to bring them out. This doesn't mean you should make yourself feel horrible, but that you should go out and do things that you might resist because you're worried about the downsides. Meeting new people is something that makes most people uncomfortable, and it's a great place to start, especially if it's a first date. Try new things that scare you. If you notice you're glued to the couch and don't want to get up, do the opposite. Spend time with people you don't like. Go to a movie you're sure you'll hate. Your experiences won't always be pleasant, but they should incite emotion that you can later analyze and better understand.

Keep Track of How You Feel

Like an abbreviated diary, every time you have an emotional reaction to something, write it down. You don't need much detail, but just a sentence or two noting the emotion you're experiencing and the (possible) cause. For example, I get extremely irritable when I'm hungry. I will lose my temper far more easily when I'm hungry, so whenever I notice myself thinking irrational (and sometimes hateful) things, I always remind myself that I'm just hungry, I'll eat in a minute, and the "asshole" who accidentally missed the garbage can and didn't notice is mostly a result of my frustrated stomach. Until I started to pay attention, I never really noticed that I was a jerk whenever I was hungry. Instead, I just thought I was a jerk. This is a simple example, but the point is this: pay attention to how you feel and the other issues currently present, and you'll find it much easier to manage your negative emotions.

Emote in Front of the Mirror

Fabricating emotion is difficult. Once you understand your emotions you'll find it a bit easier, but it helps to be able to recall how it feels, physically, to emote. We all know how to smile, for example, but you can probably count more fake smiles in family photographs than you can real ones. If you don't know how to create an authentic smile (also known as the Duchenne smile), it will be very obvious to everyone around you.
The easiest way to learn to fake expressions is to practice them in the mirror. You can try them out to see what you look like and you'll immediately know if they're passable or not. You'll also note that it feels physically different to create an authentic-looking emotion than it does to create a fake-looking emotion. For example, an authentic smile shows more in the eyes than it does in your mouth. When someone smiles a true smile, their eyes wrinkle (creating "crows feet") because a new musicle—the orbicularis oculi muscle—is used. You'll come to remember this feeling and be able to replicate it away from the mirror after a little practice.
It's not necessarily easy to emote in front of the mirror, but that's not as hard as you think. If your goal is simply to learn to smile better, you'll get there if you just stare at yourself for awhile. Eventually it will get so ridiculous that you'll have to laugh. If you're less patient, you can try to make yourself laugh by making strange faces or just being ridiculous. If you're comfortable, have a friend over to help. For other emotions, you simply need to find a source of that emotion and bring it into play in front of the mirror. If you've employed any of the previously discussed techniques, you may already have a reserve. Alternatively, watch a movie that makes you laugh or cry and do it by the mirror. (Yes, this is absolutely a strange thing to do, but it'll work.) If you're interested in anger, you should have no problem getting there by just complaining to yourself or to a friend on the phone.
Emoting in front of the mirror is going to be strange and awkward at first, but after a few tries you'll get the hang of it and be able to create authentic expressions on demand. These expressions do surface from genuine emotion, so repeating them can actually make you feel happier/sadder/angrier/etc. through repetition. If you need to change your mood and your mindset, the ability to fake it ‘til you make it is very, very useful.

Consider Your Health

Anything you do is much easier if you're healthy—and that goes for mental as well as physical health. These methods won't be terribly helpful if you're seriously depressed. If you're not sleeping, eating well, and/or getting a reasonable amount of physical activity in each day, you're going to find them difficult as well. You can do pretty much everything better if you take care of your mind and your body, so don't look at anything you've read here as a panacea for the problems in your life. Everything here assumes that you take reasonably good care of yourself and generally start your day in a good place. If you're not feeling good on most days, you need to take care of those problems before you decide to start playing mind tricks with yourself. Always be healthy first.

“Original Fake” Photo Credit: courtesy of MashKulture
Is your self-confidence natural, or a daily struggle?

Many people’s confidence naturally wavers from day to day, leaving them too timid or confused at just the wrong time. Whether you are naturally confident or could use some better eye contact with your life, setting in place a few simple strategies goes a long way to stoke your inner confidence.
If you think you’re not especially smart or capable, or that failure is a given no matter how hard you try, you’re right.

And if you believe you’re brilliant and can accomplish anything you set your mind to, you’re right.
Amplifying your inner confidence is like any other skill you develop; you can do it in a blink. Day by day, step by step, you will get closer to your goals. No one runs a marathon fueled by decision alone. It takes days, weeks, and months of consistent exercise before your muscles, lungs and stamina will harmonize enough to give you winning results.



Same with confidence. Use these 10 tips to start appearing as confident on the outside as you will soon feel on the inside.

1.  It’s not about you. Understand people’s actions, even when hurtful, rarely have anything to do with you. It’s easy to read into the negativity of others and see it as a slight to our personality or challenge to our ego. Yet this type of reaction can trigger unnecessary stress and prevent you from focusing on the positive things in your life. People are people; there’s never a need to link their behavior and your happiness. Knowing this gives you freedom to feel the confidence you deserve.

2.  Buy clothes that fit. Wearing clothes that fit well and flatter, no matter the shape of your body, provides an enormous boost to your self esteem. Don’t wait until you’ve arrived at a magical ideal to start dressing your best. Clothes never make the person, but it’s hard to feel confident inside when your outside sends signals of uncertainty. Love what you’re wearing and the world is likely to love it too.
3.  Keep laughing. Let your brain give vent to the endorphins that will fill you with authentic happiness and internal confidence. Laughter releases some of the tension that invariably builds in your body each day. Pepper your routine with the people or media that make you most happy. You don’t have to overdo it, but a bit of levity goes a long way toward elevating your level of confidence.

4.  Embrace the quiet. Many people are eager to populate every waking second with activity. With a world moving at the speed of broadband, the problem blooms more with every passing day. Realize you can be comfortable alone with your thoughts and you will provide your internal processes the space needed to develop. This will make you more comfortable with yourself, helping you appear more confident to others.

5.  Make a budget. If this isn’t natural for you, take the time to do it anyway. Claiming control of your finances is an early step to a healthy attitude about money. Though many people believe confidence comes with having lots of cash, confidence accompanies a clear picture of what you have and what you need.

6.  Don’t gossip. Exit conversations that swim in hearsay. Indulging in idle chatter might make you feel in the loop, but the feeling is fleeting and will leave you wondering what others are saying about you when you’re not around. Take the high road – you’ll feel better inside and appear far more confident to others around you.

7.  Do as you say and say as you do. This doesn’t mean you have to draw neat lines through all of life’s to-do’s, but if you articulate your goals, and start to accomplish them, easy ones first, you will develop a mindset of success. This, in turn, makes it easier to feel confident. Your goals could be anything from running your first 5K to finally cleaning out the garage; learning how to strum a guitar or play the piano. Whatever your goals, find something you truly desire, make a promise to see it through to the end, then feel the confidence of success.

8.  Make peace with your body. You will always want to stay active and improve your health, but your confidence comes with the understanding that no matter your size, shape, number of wrinkles or height, you are a person who deserves love and dignity from yourself and those around you. Truly know this, and confidence will bleed through your skin.

9.  Realize you know more than you think you do. All those things you think everyone else just knows? Well, they don’t. If you don’t know something, there’s no shame in asking for the answer. Admitting you don’t have the answer is the first step toward finding it, and the right answers pave the road to confidence.

10. Be enthusiastic. Playing it cool is a great way to ignore your honest emotions and bury the authentic you. Be happy and excited, and allow the world to see it. Your joy will be infectious, your confidence contagious.

You don’t have to follow all 10 of these tips, but they are starters that will help you find your internal confidence and boost your sense of self belonging. No one feels confident 100% of the time, but there are steps you can take to make yourself feel far more confident than you probably do now.
Start with any of the 10 items on this list, and start feeling better inside out today!
Confidence is the key to EVERYTHING.

Ever wondered exactly how self confident you actually are?
Sean Platt is a content marketing specialist and better life blogger. Follow him on Twitter.

“Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder.
Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. On his computer sat even more stray objects than his surrounding environment. There must have been twenty browser tabs open. The tabs included political blog news, random Wikipedia entries, Facebook profiles and a Myspace page blasting more music at him. Two notifications with sound popped-up simultaneously in the top-right corner of his screen. One was an email; the other was a tweet. Behind his dozens of browser windows sat a pending music download and a handful of blinking IM’s.

Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. He’d write a little bit for his history paper, check his pending download, reply to his IM’s, and then start all over.

Do you know a person like this? I do. Those were my concentration habits at one point in my life. Yet, I made a series of decisions that resulted in a 180 degree turn. This book is about how to make that 180 degree turn. And this chapter centers on understanding a core component for getting focused: short-term focus (or concentration). We’ll first outline what science teaches us about concentration, and then we’ll dive into how you can concentrate when you feel overwhelmed through 8 steps.

The Science Behind Concentration

In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. Many fall into this pattern because constantly shifting attention and multitasking eases the pain of doing something you hate in the first place. We mitigate essays and projects with blasts of dopamine delivered through tweets, music and gossip.What science tells us, though, is that not only does multitasking make our work 50% less valuable; it takes 50% longer to finish. Plus, it’s physiologically impossible for the brain to multitask.

When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. And this rapid shifting kills the mind, it waters its effectiveness down significantly. When we follow Mike’s pattern above, the mind shifts through three phases:

Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert

When Mike decides to start writing his History essay, blood rushes to his anterior prefrontal cortex. Within this part of the brain, sits a neurological switchboard. The switchboard alerts the brain that it’s about to shift concentration.

Phase 2: Find and Execute

The alert carries an electrical charge that’s composed of two parts: first, a search query (which is needed to find the correct neurons for executing the task of writing), and second, a command (which tells the appropriate neuron what to do). This process propels Mike into a mental state of writing for his History essay. Your mind literally puts a writing cap on.

Phase 3: Disengagement

While in this state, Mike then hears an email notification. His mind rapidly disengages his current writing state, and then sends blood-flow back to Phase 1, which then leads him to phase 2, and then when he gets distracted again, he’ll find himself at phase 3.

The process repeats itself sequentially. It doesn’t work simultaneously (i.e. multitasking). The mind shifts rapidly through this phase at a rate of one-tenth of a second. This tells us two important things: it reinforces the case that we must only focus on one thing at a time, and second, it’s critical to master selective attention, which we’ll explore below.

Concentration drives intelligence

Research surfaced recently that revealed the true drivers of intelligence. They asked, “Is intelligence simply the ability to assimilate information and recall upon it whenever needed?” Is intelligence really a measure of memory? If not, than what makes a person intelligent? Amazingly, they found that intelligence is not founded on one’s memory. Instead, intelligence emanates from one’s ability to control their selective attention. It’s their ability to control the three phases above, and where they route their blood-flow to within the prefrontal cortex.

As you improve in the ability to strategically allocate your attention, your brain also improves. In fact, it rewires itself. As you exercise concentration and selective attention, your mind rewires itself to support your new habits. You get better and better at concentrating when you concentrate. That’s the good news. The bad news is that as you age, your mind’s flexibility slows down slightly. Meaning, you can’t rapidly jump out of habits and processes as well as you could in your earlier days. Yet, by practicing the small steps and exercises today within your mind, you can establish solid mental faculties for your older years. By practicing brain exercises through mental games you can significantly sharpen your mind. For brain exercises, I highly recommend Lumosity’s brain training games. They’re fun, effective and you can sign up for free. Click here and sign up for a free account. (free brain game training)

Now that you know a bit about the science and background of your mind, we’ll explore 8 things that will help you build short-term focus (concentration).

8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating

1. You can’t start concentrating until you’ve stopped getting distracted

The phrase above is self-explanatory. Yet, it’s amazing how most people look for some crazy, obtuse solution for the reason why they can’t concentrate. They reason, “I just have ADD. I can’t concentrate.” In reality, their situation likens itself to Mike’s situation above.

In the late 80′s, two researchers asked themselves a chicken-egg question. (“What came first the chicken or the egg?”). Their version centers on distraction and boredom. They asked themselves, “What came first, distraction or boredom.” What they found is rather subtle, yet it’s profoundly significant. They found that distraction leads to boredom (not the other way around). This displays that we must cut out distraction in order to get focused; or else, we’ll get bored.

2. Just do one important thing per day

Scientists also found that we can only focus on one thing at once. Nobody does that. We’ve always got something going on in the background of whatever we’re doing. We’ve always got two-dozen tasks on our to-do list. On top of this, we’ve got a handful of projects that we try and finish simultaneously.

When you’ve got a mountain of paperwork on your desk, the best thing to do is clear it all off. Pick it all up and place it in a drawer. Do anything required to get it out of your sight. After this, kick your feet up and daydream. Yes, I’m serious. Daydream and ask yourself the following question: “What’s the most important thing I can do right now?” Once you’ve identified the item that will actually make a difference, do it.

Try and make it a goal to do just one critical thing per day. This habit proves much more effective than living the routine everyone else lives: doing many insignificant things a day. They live on fooling themselves into thinking they’ve added value.

The quote below by John Wooden summarizes this quite nicely. Recall upon this daily if you’re having a difficult time breaking away from the ineffective lifestyle.

“Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” – John Wooden

3. Chunk into three’s

Most of the time your one important thing that you can do per day takes more than just one action. Oftentimes it takes a series of smaller steps to accomplish. For this reason, it’s very helpful to chunk activities into sets of three. If you set out to accomplish one important item without a plan, you’ll be just as ineffective as the crack-berry work-a-holic running around the office making copies.
Outline your three-step to-do list using an offline to-do planner (which we outline in another chapter); or if you’re working online, use a three-item FocusList to keep you focused on the task at hand. Click here for a simple, effective, downloadable To-Do List.

4. Questions that kill procrastination

The brain processes meaning before detail. This is where procrastination stems from. Your boss, professor or co-worker tells you that the task on your desk is important, but your brain doesn’t yet agree. If you push forth anyways, and embark on the task before understanding its meaning, you’ll end up frustrating yourself and wasting time because you may have to do it all over.
For this reason, whenever you find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself the following questions:

Question one: Does this really need to be done?

• If you’re in the business world, term it as, “Will this increase revenue, and/or reduce cost?”
• If you’re in school, ask “Will this impact my grade?” Note: In school, it’s not necessarily about preparing you for the real-world, it’s about assimilating information, regurgitating it on a test, and then hopefully remembering some of it in the future, which gives you more context for the real world. This is why, the question isn’t, “Will this prepare me for the real world?”

Whatever your environment, if you can’t come up with a compelling reason for doing something, ask why the task needs to be done. If it’s not your choice, and it’s your boss’ choice, have him or her step into your office and explain the situation. Tell them, “So, I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how to best approach this project, yet I everytime I advance further, I keep coming back to why this is meaningful in the first place. Can you help me understand the big picture and value this actually adds to our business?”

The result will be one of four things:

1. The person will realize that this is just busy work. Thus, you won’t have to do it,
2. The person will try and convince you that it’s important. In this case, assign yourself an insanely fast deadline to finish the project, and finish it. This type of boss values people that look like they’ve done something; he or she doesn’t actually care about its effectiveness, thus they won’t care about results.
3. The person will come up with a compelling reason for why it’s important, and thus you’ll be able to finish the project with grace and effectiveness because you understand its meaning and purpose.
4. The person will get angry at you for questioning the process. This indicates that you’re at a bureaucratic organization that devalues innovation and purpose. If you’re OK with this, enjoy a work-life of hell. If you’re not OK with this, sprint to the exit as quickly as possible.

Question two: Can I delegate this?

If you find yourself with a task that has meaning (with or without a lie from a boss), and you don’t want to do it, delegate it. Doing something you hate is a lose-lose. It’s bad for you, as well as your organization because you’ll likely turn in sub-par work.

5. Be Smart With Your Time

The Pareto principle is founded on a theory that 80% of effectiveness is driven by 20% of our activity (or causes). I argue that it’s more like 99%:1%. It’s amazing how many insignificant tasks we’re constantly filling our lives with. Don’t make it your goal to involve yourself with 20% of meaningful items during the day. It gets too confusing, and your untrained mind will still end up taking-on too much. As state above, just do one important task per day. Say no to everything else–even your boss. Be humble, but be logical.
There’s three types of people in corporations:

Type 1: Busy People

This is the person who constantly stresses themselves out by running around with paper, working on vacations and constantly checking email. They look like work-a-holics, but they get very little work done. They end up burning themselves out. They can even end up lashing out at others.

What ends up happening is that others perceive them as being able to get the most done, thus people assign more work to them. The work results in being half-assed because the busy person doesn’t have the appropriate time needed for the task. People end up giving the most work to those who are least effective. This is why busy people and work-a-holics are bad for organizations. They eventually end up hurting companies.

Type 2: Lazy People

Lazy people are those that put the blame on their external environment for a lot of things. In the back of their minds sits hope that they’ll one day succeed and hit that million-dollar home-run. Yet in the meantime, they fill their lives with activities that release dopamine.

Activities such as T.V., potato chips, video games, researching whether or not Tupac faked his death and conspiring over whether our government is run by free masons. I was this person once. These were my habits. I occupied my time with message-boards, reading hours of sports articles, and more. I wanted to achieve my dreams, but my mind craved dopamine derived from reading sports blogs. Getting out of this state and into the state below is what this book is about.

Type 3: A Sage

A Sage is one that doesn’t involve themselves in dopamine-driven activities; instead, he or she is very selective about what they do. They have a habit of asking themselves questions that most people are too busy to ask. They pre-occupy themselves with the unspoken, yet meaningful assumptions that others fail to address. Sages ask questions about the meaning behind any activity that they embark on. They view turning down work as a logical decision, not an emotional one. They even say no to their bosses in a strategic way. In order to become a Sage, you must become indispensable to your organization, which is accomplished through practicing Wu Wei (which we will cover soon in the chapter on Flow). Of course, when it comes to business, nobody is indispensable, even the CEO and Founder can be replaced (e.g. Yahoo’s CEO/Founder, Jerry Yang). By becoming indispensable, I mean you must be economically indispensable. Meaning, to the economy, you must be indispensable. In other words, you, yourself, can generate monetary value wherever you go–even if you work for yourself. The most empowering feeling is knowing you can land a job at any time, or just make money for yourself whenever you want to.

A true sign of being indispensable is not a pat on the ass from a boss. It’s not a bonus or a raise. A true sign of being indispensable comes from making money on your own and getting job offers when you’re not looking for a job.

In summary, in order to be a Sage, you must earn it. You must earn it by being economically indispensable, and we’ll learn shortly that this falls into place naturally.

6. Mind Maps

Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s critical to allow the mind to disentangle itself by mapping out your thoughts on paper.
There’s two types of maps: (i) PS Map, and (ii) Fear Map

I. PS Map:

A PS Map is short for a problem-solution mind map. This becomes a helpful tool when you’re trying to get something done, yet your mind keeps wandering towards a problem you think you have. A PS Map is also critical for when you feel restless–when your mind won’t stop racing. You tend to pace around the house contemplating a problem. Whenever you’re in this state, pull out a piece of paper and at the top write: “Problem.” Then map out every single detail and nature of the problem. Halfway down, on the same piece of paper, write out “Solution” And then map out possible solutions to this problem. This simple exercise slows down the mind, puts things into perspective and makes the solution shockingly clear.

II. A Fear Map

Sometimes, thoughts and ideas creep into our mind that are intrinsically negative in nature. These thoughts generate fear. In this situation, it’s best to outline the consequences of your fear. Through outlining the results of your fear, you can oftentimes find how insignificant the fear really is. And even in the case of where the fear still seems significant, at least you know what the worst thing could happen is. Oftentimes you’ll find that the worst thing that could happen, really isn’t that bad.
A fear map forces you to apply simple logic to the source of your fear. It’s founded on ‘If X, then Y.
On paper map out the following formula “if x, then y.” Where “x” is the fear, and “y” is your estimate of the fear’s result.

Through mapping out your thoughts, you can calm the racing mind, which will free your mind to focus on the task at hand.

7. Blame something

Other times, sitting down to concentrate is as simple as blaming a simple object for your inability to concentrate. As we discussed above, lazy people are those that blame almost everything on their environment. You don’t want to do this, as it’s not a long-term, sustainable solution. However, in instances where you can’t get excited to actually pump blood to your prefrontal cortex (phase 1 of concentrating), a simple object can help you out. Such an object would be coffee, a drink, a Bonsai tree or a walk. You can reward your mind for concentrating by saying, “OK, mind, here’s the deal–it’s hard to concentrate on this right now, but I’ll pick up a bonsai tree, which will create a more compelling environment to concentrate.” You’ll find that this object-based motivator actually works.

8. Interest

Researchers found that concentration is not a gift. It’s not about intelligence. It’s not about being a prodigy with a gifted memory. It’s not about possessing the ability to recall an insane amount of facts (That’s what Google’s for). Researchers found that concentration is driven by interest, and interest is driven by attitude. If your attitude towards a specific project swells with interest, intrigue and passion, concentration is astonishingly easy.

Conclusion

A core component of concentrating is building up a repertoire of purpose-driven habits that enables you to seamlessly step into “flow.” It’s my thesis that “flow” is the combination of mastering short-term focus and long-term focus. This book is about building this repertoire through goals, habits, exercises, philosophies and practices which will result in you becoming a more focused person.

What’s Next

As we covered, the key to proper concentration is creating your own purpose-driven habits that enable you to step into “flow.”
It’s my thesis that “flow” is the mastery of both short-term focus and long-term focus. In this chapter, we’ve outlined the science behind short-term focus, and the 8 actions you can do to improve concentration.
Remember – intelligence comes from focused concentration. Beware of the distractions around you. We’re all human and prone to laziness or becoming an inefficient work-a-holic, but we can choose to be strategically lazy, and thus, becoming effective.

More About ‘How to Get Focused’

This book is about building the habits of focus through goal-setting, exercises, philosophies and practices that result in an increased ability to focus for success.
In the next chapter, we’ll explore the concept of flow.
As always, please let me know how you liked this chapter and what can be improved in the comments section below.

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