Paying Subscribers Get More Of Life!
Harnessing your attention has been a major focus of mine. By “harnessing your attention” I mean you doing the harnessing rather than me captivating you.
(Stay tuned for an invaluable offer for paying subscribers!)
A big part of my boundaries philosophy is based on attention: maintaining, captivating, directing, holding, growing, directing and generally utilizing all the attention you have to your own personal edification. The way I see it, boundaries (not unlike forgiveness) are mostly an inside job, almost completely personal. Boundaries are not marks of delineation between you and other people to be defended. Rather, they are a framework and structure around you desires. Boundaries are a discipline in service of your goals and ambitions. They defend what you want out of life from your primitive, self-sabotaging impulses, even when those impulses drive you to sacrifice yourself for others. It may look like other people, but it’s almost always you destroying your plans.
This part is especially significant because people often blame their excessive self-sabotaging behaviors on their sense of guilt or owingness to others. Their focus gets steered singularly on the external relationships and factors rather than the true compromise in the integrity of their boundaries coming from lack of personal discipline and a lack of value and attention placed on their own goals and direction.
Let me put it this way. People can be largely rudderless or refuse to pick a destination, or chart the course (much less learn to sail), then blame the wind, current or the tides. Ironically, with a little knowledge and practice, these “disruptive” factors may have otherwise expedited getting them exactly where they wanted to go, likely more quickly. I’ve noticed that even when people examine their failure to maintain their inner focus, they take their attention away from the goal and get caught up in the struggle. More time and energy wasted…
At a certain point though, one who is ready to change and take their boundaries seriously, takes their attention more seriously. They kind of come to Jesus in a manner of speaking. Accountability is the key. It helps to journal or at least contemplate where one’s attention and time is primarily spent, what engineering or structures are keeping one’s attention in place, what practices can be made to realign structures to support a more productive use of attention, and how others might serve to keep the focus forward on the path to personal success (whatever that looks like to you). I do believe the way forward is through taking honest accounts, journaling and keeping records of progress and setbacks while checking and pursuing balances.
If one of your motivators or drivers toward self-sabotage is a fear of reputation, fear of what others think of you, you can use this to your advantage. Exploit your fears for your benefit. Find other people whose opinions you value to hold you accountable to yourself. Productive, successful people often build relationships on this foundation of mutual success. They form accountability partnerships. Despite their desire to coddle one another in perpetual codependency (most crappy relationships do some version of this and many want to keep it going for the benefit of having someone pat their back when they frequently fail themselves), they honestly acknowledge one another’s failures and make suggestions to help each other have more success going forward. No excuses.
This has been my most valuable tool for harnessing my attention. I believe in this so much that I am offering accountability sessions 5 days per week, 4 hours per day exclusively to my sponsoring Substack subscribers as part of their subscription benefits. You can drop in at any time, stay as long as you wish, and depart at your leisure. The point is that you are harnessing your attention, building better relationships and striving toward your ambitions. You will have up to 20 hours per week with me and others who join to take action toward your own goals and be held accountable for it at the end of each session. I will be starting these sessions THIS COMING WEEK, the first Monday in February. We will be meeting via Zoom and working from 10am Mountain time to 2pm each Monday through Friday until the end of 2024. That’s 5pm-9pm for my pals in the UK.
What do you want to achieve in 2024? What can you do with 20 hours per week of focused action taking and accountability in 2024? How well can you maintain your focus without supportive structures in place? How much is it worth to you? Less than $10 per month to harness your focus and blaze a trail toward your dreams? It’s up to you to decide. I, for one, have made my commitment to my dreams and to you. The first step for us is to just show up for ourselves. It all begins on Monday! Why don’t you join me?