32, 33 & 34: Objective Attention

Holding a Vision of Yourself So Firmly That Doubt Cannot Find a Seat

I am happy to report that life has been lively, and I have been keeping up. The days are full, the mile gets walked, and gratitude keeps showing up on schedule. But these past three weeks have given me something more than busyness. They have given me a concept I keep turning over in my mind like a smooth stone: objective attention. Here is what I mean by that:

Most of us spend our days in subjective attention. We filter every moment through our moods, our fears, our old stories, and our running commentary about ourselves. We do not simply see the day—we see our worries wearing the day like a costume. Objective attention is different. It is the practice of holding a clear, steady concept of who you are and where you are going, and then giving that vision your full attention—so completely that there is simply no room left for second-guessing. Think about that for a moment. Doubt requires vacancy. Second-guessing needs an empty chair to sit in. Irrational thoughts slip in through idle attention the way weeds slip into an untended garden. But when your attention is fully occupied—when you are moving toward your vision of yourself with genuine force and momentum—doubt knocks and finds no one home. Wayne Dyer taught this for decades. He urged us to focus on the self we intend to become, not the self our history says we have been. He believed that we become what we think about, and that holding the feeling of the wish fulfilled—living from the vision rather than toward it—is the quiet engine of transformation (Dyer, 2012). In his view, the concept you hold of yourself is not wishful thinking. It is instruction. It tells your days how to arrange themselves. Albert Ellis, the father of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, approached the same truth from the other direction. Ellis spent his career showing that it is rarely events themselves that disturb us—it is the irrational beliefs we attach to those events. The catastrophizing. The "I must be perfect." The "I cannot stand it." The "this always happens to me." Ellis taught that these thoughts are not reality. They are habits. And like all habits, they can be disputed, dismantled, and replaced (Ellis & Harper, 1997). Put Dyer and Ellis side by side and you get a powerful formula: Ellis clears the ground, and Dyer plants the vision. First, we learn to recognize the irrational thought for what it is—a squatter, not a landlord. Then, we fill the cleared space with a deliberate, chosen concept of ourselves, and we move toward it with such purpose that the old thoughts have no time to reassemble. These three weeks, I have been practicing exactly that. When I walk my mile, I am not walking as someone recovering or someone behind schedule. I am walking as the woman I have decided to be—strong, present, grateful, and in motion. When the calendar fills and the blog slips a week, I do not hand the microphone to the inner critic. I look at the facts objectively: life is full, I am keeping up, and I am exactly where my attention has brought me. That is the discipline of objective attention. Not forcing positivity. Not pretending challenges away. Simply refusing to give irrational thoughts a seat at a table that is already full—full of vision, full of purpose, full of forward motion.

This week's invitation: Write down one sentence that describes the person you are becoming. Keep it where you can see it. Each time an old doubt or irrational thought shows up this week, do not argue with it. Just return your attention—fully, forcefully, objectively—to your sentence, and take one action in its direction. Watch what happens when doubt finds no vacancy. The life you are moving toward is already arranging itself around your attention. Give it your best.

References

Dyer, W. W. (2012). Wishes fulfilled: Mastering the art of manifesting. Hay House.

Ellis, A., & Harper, R. A. (1997). A guide to rational living (3rd ed.). Wilshire Book Company.