167: The 3 Types Of Focus And How to Maximize Them In Your Life

Focus is everything in life. From love to business, if you can't focus then your results will show it. But how do you focus? How does focus even work to begin with? In this episode, I share the only 3 ways you can use your attention, and how to benefit from each, as well as recognize which one is your "go-to" way.

Transcript

This is episode 167,

The three types of focus and how to maximize them in your life.

My name is Tudor Alexander and this is the Dance of Life podcast.

Every week my goal is to inspire you to take action towards what you love,

Live a transformed life,

And enjoy the journey there.

Are you ready?

Let's go!

What's up,

What's up everybody?

Thank you so much for joining me today.

My name is Tudor Alexander and this is the Dance of Life podcast.

Bruce Lee once said,

The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.

I absolutely love that quote for today because to me Bruce Lee is just so inspiring.

I mean he's such a fantastic example of focus and you know you look at everything from his athletic discipline,

The one-inch punch,

The way he moved,

The way he talked,

Everything the way he was embodied focus,

Embodied that certain and absolute confident direct ways.

Very inspiring especially for today's topic.

So I thought I would pick that quote to help us anchor today's conversation because that particular quote what makes it really special to me is that it shows how focus can take the average person to a successful warrior in this case in the quote but really successful at life.

You know focus is much more important to me than talent.

It's much more important to me the ability.

It's purely the the biggest factor in your ability to be successful in anything you want in life and today we're talking about the three types of focus and how you can maximize them in your life.

You know what it really comes down to is that there's only three places for your attention.

At any point in time you can put your attention in any one of these three places and when you really get a mastery over these in your life this is about training your awareness today.

It's about seeing where does your focus go from all the variety of different commitments and things that you have.

You can put your focus in three different areas only.

That's it.

So those are the three areas we're going to be talking about today because as you distinguish them in your own life you'll be able to exercise a little more control over where your attention is going.

So my goal is to help you see these three places where your focus is going and also to see where your dominant place is because we all have a dominant one that we go to so that you can take action and cultivate the other areas that are maybe a little difficult to focus on you know to channel that focus in those other ways.

So super excited to share this episode with you.

A lot of really important valuable things you know focus is such a big part of my life and I truly believe that it is a key factor in anything that we want to achieve.

So I wanted to put this episode together for you to really empower you to get some practical tools in your awareness so that you can be more focused that you can spot yourself when you're out of focus and take action accordingly.

Now if you find this episode useful if you like this kind of content make sure you subscribe and share it with one person in your life who needs to hear this message today about focus.

You know it's such a big part of our life and I think we could all use a little more focus from time to time.

You can also hit me up on Instagram,

Facebook at Tutor Alexander Official with your biggest breakthrough from today.

I'd love to know what you got out of this episode so let me know I'm on Instagram,

Facebook and with that here we go let's dive into the three types of focus and how you can maximize them in your life today.

All right guys so we're going to jump right into this the three types of focus and how to maximize them in your life and they're all going to start all the different words that I picked for this it's a little bit of an alliteration you can think of these as the three S's of focus and they're going to be symbolic,

Sensory and specific.

So again symbolic,

Sensory and specific and we're going to break that down in this episode.

So the first one is symbolic where is that what does that mean?

So symbolic is the world of language it's the world of symbols of words of ideas of concepts it's basically anytime your focus is in the symbolic world it is when you are thinking.

Now thinking can come with a wide variety of things sometimes productive sometimes unproductive but it doesn't really matter because ultimately we're thinking our focus is in our mind in the mental constructs that we are.

You know if you've ever had the experience of driving you know let's say you're driving somewhere that you know the scenery is kind of boring you just check out you just check out you start thinking about life and then suddenly you get to where you needed to go a few hours later and you don't even know how you got there.

You know it's a perfect example of this exact type of focus because literally your mind and attention your attention I should say not your mind your attention was on your mind and the ideas and things and all the pictures in your mind that that constant movie that's running was playing so your focus was totally not in the present moment in the sense like you weren't taking in anything from your environment not anything unless it was some crazy thing that happened your attention was off in the world of ideas.

Now this is important again all these things I'm presenting to you they're not good or bad they're just areas the three main areas where our focus goes and they each have things to watch out for as well as things that are important and productive you know being able to go into the world of ideas and planning and visualizing and seeing those pictures in your mind that's a tool that's a skill that's a very important skill actually if you want to plan your life and be creative and create all these things and live a transformed life all these things we talk about you have to be able to paint those future pictures as I always say and if you want to become masterful at painting those future pictures it's important to you know think use like use a journal spend time I usually spend a lot of time meditating reflecting spending time to myself breaking up my pattern throughout the day taking a walk you know all these things that allow me to just think and kind of be with myself and all these things you know kind of related like let's say if I go to take a walk or ride my bike that's going to be also a sensory experience too so we're going to get into that in just a little bit but give yourself time to plan engage your future engage your mind you know engage the things in your mind your ideas you make lists make you know organize your mind organize your mind as a giant computer and if you avoid it it's just going to get messier and messier unless you continually organize it so that's really important now it's also very important that you're aware that when you're in your mind and you're thinking it could be productive thought it could be unproductive thought obviously we don't want to have the second one but regardless you know even when you're creating even when you're being creative and this is something I'm guilty of too you aren't really in the present moment you know and that's going to be our second one which is the sensory experience you know your mind your attention is in the symbolic world it's like opening this little treasure chest with a bunch of shiny objects in there and taking a peek inside when you when you're inspired when you have a new idea and you're just you know your brains on fire with all kinds of new ideas it's very addicting it's very fun you know but at the same time it pulls your focus from the present moment you aren't in the present moment you know it's kind of like it's kind of like breathing I'll give you a quick example that runs through all three of these up until now if I just told you that you were breathing you probably weren't aware of it because you were focused on my voice you're focusing maybe if you're driving on traffic all these other things you weren't aware that you're breathing even though it was happening if I tell you now that hey you're breathing you are aware of it and suddenly you realize that it's happening to you your attention is very sensory now you're tuning into your body the final one which we'll get to in specific which is now you are addressing that but it's okay take a deep breath in for four seconds and then breathe out for four seconds now you're engaging that process and you're very detail oriented you're specific you're right on top of it you're very connected to it so in the same way your focus can be in three different places not three different places all at once but in one of three different places and the first one is that symbolic world so the good part of it is that it allows us to create that future and the negative part is you know you're not in the present moment when you're doing that so watch for these as I present them to you and see where because we're going to ask some questions at the end where do you tend to naturally fall so listen and and see where do you tend to naturally fall if you're a creative person if you're add like me and you always have a new idea you know I tend to float around this world quite a lot the next place where our focus can be is the world around you the world of body the sensory which is the immediate environment that you're in the present moment right here right now the physical experience of the present moment this is your senses this is where you know like if you're in the forest or a park or something you're just sitting there taking it all in you're not thinking you're not judging you're not trying to do anything you're just letting it come into you and that is a very important part of you know in my book all these three types are important to a healthy life you got to be able to put your focus in all three of these types and to use them as tools to create what you want because again because again outside of these three areas is your awareness your awareness is king it is the one that chooses where to put the lens you know these are different types of lenses your awareness is the eye it is the seeing eye that decides where to see now you can only be aware of these as tools if you separate yourself from that because most of the time we have one dominant way of being like for example if if your dominant way is to be in the symbolic world all the time of thinking and language ideas then you're not aware of that then you're missing out on a whole plethora of experiences of life of being in your body you know let's say the last one being specific and we're going to get into these too but sensory is the world of the body it is the world of the the following of of submitting to nature of just being open and present of downloading seeing listening you know it's basically like when you engage in an art like cooking dancing painting you're engaging the physical world you're in the sensory world you're training your mindfulness uh you're training your ability to sense to connect to the physical world and to to connect to space to resistance to all these things that are so important to balancing the mind the mind is in the world of the symbolic and that world is very hectic it's all over the place you know there's no up and down it's there's no form to it it's just this formless void where anything is possible and that goes for negative things too so unless we're very grounded in that sensory world through those things i was telling you about you really take up a physical practice i say this quite a lot i'm a little biased with dancing but i think dancing is a phenomenal way to take this up but anything works you know cooking do some painting classes do some pottery do some art do some yoga whatever it is to you do some meditation some tai chi take up something to ground you on a daily basis especially today we live in the world of the symbolic and the last one which is going to be the specific because of our phones because of our jobs everything is just words words words notifications information platforms it's all just invisible stuff on a screen so we need that sensory experience we need to train our ability to focus on the present moment in the physical in our body and in what's around us this is very important now the downside to this again everything comes with a downside it's all a tool and my goal is to empower you to see these tools to see how you can use these different lenses and also be aware that they can be used you know against you as well if you are unaware of them if this is your default you know i've seen a lot of people especially in the industry i'm in where i teach you know i teach movement um you know different people come in everybody has a default type of focus so for example somebody might come in and there's so much in their head but somebody also might come in and they want to let's say learn how to move and dance and they're very much into their body so much so that they avoid their mind you know they avoid their mind you know the mind is a very important tool it helps us improve and sometimes people are so comfortable with the sensory experience that they don't even want to think oh i don't want to think about this too much let me just do it and sometimes you can't just do it you have to think you have to slow down you have to address it and we're going to get into the third one being specific which is what that relates to but beware to not be too much into the sensory experience in the sense that you avoid the others another thing i've seen too uh in you know people around me and and other people out there you know it's just in my life experience is you know we run away from the present moment actually which is funny using the sensory experience so what does that mean that's i'm talking about being desensitized being you know over usage of alcohol drugs all these stimulants pleasure running away from the mind through you know constant distraction pornography whatever it is we have an abundance of things to distract us these days and that stimulate our senses that kind of give us these quick little hits in the physical world and that's not what life is about eventually you're going to burn out eventually you're going to do some damage to yourself and you're going to ruin your ability to appreciate in my book the gratitude map one of the major obstacles was in fact desensitization that i talk about which is basically when you get to the point where you can't use your senses and everything has been you know if you're on high stimulus all the time then it's a lot harder to sense the little things in life to take pleasure from the little things when you're constantly used to high level of stimulation so this is another thing with this focus when your focus is too much in the physical that you actually avoid the present moment right so we're so much in the physical that you're avoiding connecting the present moment you have to have that hit you have to have uh you know that and that hit could be anything it could be drugs could be news could be social media you know it could be another cat video like just put the phone down and just take the moment in so it's very important so that you practice your ability to be mindful really that's what it is it's that type of focus so symbolic sensory and the last one is specific now this is the world of details you've got the world of language and symbols which is kind of ideas big ideas right you've got the world of the body which is the physical and kind of being present there and then you've got the world of details which kind of you know goes along with the world of symbolic but this is kind of the the world of the little things the little the little details that we have in anything whether it's you know a project that you're doing a relationship something you're trying to do being able to deal with details and to focus at a level of detail is very very important in life you know most people want to say focus they don't we don't realize that focus comes in two flavors well three really according to this episode but in terms of the mind you have two flavors you got the flavor of the big picture right being able to see you know what are you doing why you're doing why you're doing visualizing your future planning it that kind of thing and being able to dial that focus in like a laser beam and be very specific about the details being thorough you know in episode 155 if you caught it we talked about the four keys for a disciplined life and you know really what it comes down to is focus is the one key but it's it's four things being specific being thorough being sequential and being mindful a lot of that stuff will overlap with what i'm talking about today but go check it out if you haven't listened to it if you did this is a great another episode to kind of complement this one but really it's all about focus and like i said focus comes in three different ways this one is all about details and being able to to dial in to be thorough in everything that you do and when you're in detail mode it's very important you don't get lost in the details because you know for example i'm a perfectionist and i know that when i dial into something and i'm ready to like clean it up and get it to the level that i want i have to continually remind myself okay take a break change your focus go out for a run go out for a bike walk whatever you know relax get out of that detail mindset because it's very easy to burn yourself out of that especially if you're a perfectionist you know if you're not a perfection of details scare you and you avoid them that's also another problem you know if you have a if you don't have the skill to focus on the details that's something that you should improve in your life because details are very very important now look all details in all aspects you're never going to master them you know technique will always improve in anything skills will always improve you're never going to get a full handle on all the details in every aspect of your life absolutely not and some of the times you know you're gonna have to delegate those things like certain things i just don't care about and i just delegate them but for the things that are important to you for you to be detail oriented that's a skill that is the ability of your focus that shows that you can dial it down when you're in the sensory experience it shows that you can connect to the present moment and you can focus on the here and now and be in your body and when you're in the symbolic world of ideas and pictures and things like this you shows that your focus can be in creating that future in being creative and seeing possibility and being open-minded all right so those are three types of focus and again if you're aware of when you are in each one then you know it's very important to know that because every situation where you experience resistance or it's not going your way or it's not going the way that you wanted it to or plan one of those reasons is because of your focus what can you focus on how is your focus being measured you know we only have 24 hours in the day all of us the difference is what we focus on truly so here's some questions to ask yourself you know as you consider these three types of focus and your own particular mastery of them as well as your own comfort level with each you know the first one is this is going to relate to kind of what i do but i want you to really put it in your own life in my own industry you know i distinguish something between a studio dancer and a performer and what that really means is somebody who's comfortable in the studio environment is somebody comfortable doing detail work grinding it away you know going slow doing repetition practice there's no pressure nobody watching you like there's no external you know component there's no judges you're just practicing and working so somebody who is the back end who's in the technical aspect of it versus are you a performer are you somebody that's more comfortable being out on stage being out and taking action like i don't want to think about it let me just do it you know is that come naturally to you and both of those are very important types you know what i find is that we're all one type or the other by nature and the important part to know is which one are you because that's going to give you an access to the part where your weaknesses are where you lack focus you know somebody who is a performer by nature is going nature and just wants to go and take action chances are they're not going to be very detail oriented you know at first that means they're going to skip details they're going to see details as a problem that's bogging them down that's over weighing them they're going to maybe avoid their own mind it's exhausting them to use their mind like that you know so that that's a weakness that's a weakness because you should be able to you know the strength of a muscle you know we use bruce lee as a quote for today and it's so appropriate because he talks about flexibility there's a quote that he has on flexibility i don't have it on me right now but so good you know it's about you know like your mind is like a muscle and the stronger your mind is the more flexible it has to be just like a muscle strength comes from flexibility not from size so the same thing is with your ability to focus having these three dimensions of focus you know these three types and knowing how to utilize them each to the max and being you know practice them in your life will give you a lot of power in your life because you'll you won't be obstructed let's put it that way by anything you can handle details you can handle being present and you can handle the big picture when you can do all three of those to some extent in your life you're gonna be very successful and you'll be able to utilize your time very well as opposed to somebody who can only who can only you know let's say live in the moment and be present but they they are afraid of their own mind they can't you know it's not that they can't but they refuse to address their future because it's scary they don't want to work on details because it's exhausting they haven't practiced it you know it's hard from the focus you can be very limited in your results or you're going to have to delegate you know it's your either way you're going to have to work in some fashion so are you comfortable in the studio or are you a performer which one are you and what does that say about your weaknesses another one that kind of relates to that is are you a feeler or are you a thinker you know are you the type that feels their way through life or the ones that defaults to thinking you know for me personally dancing has been that's why i said pick up a physical art of some kind or something that draws you to the physical world that grounds you for me personally i'm a thinker you know i i'm big idea person i think a lot i always have something going on in my mind so having a practice of gratitude having a practice of dancing of all these things i'm talking about to you guys about mindfulness has been a huge part in my ability to live a balanced life and the balance my mind because my mind is home my mind is home for me and if you can relate to that uh you know the mind is home and there's nothing wrong with that the mind is i'm very grateful for my mind even though things are some crazy things sometimes you know i'm very grateful that i'm creative that i think of things but you know you need to balance it out with the body with the physical world with the sensory world because otherwise your mind will run away on you you know in the mind you can literally go anywhere you want right now with the snap of your fingers but in the real world doesn't happen that way so the real world tempers what your mind creates it's a dance between the two that's the dance of life that's really what it's all about so you know another question is do you have a journal do you plan do you engage the future on a regular basis do you leave time for yourself what's your vision these kind of things will help you really connect to that symbolic world and you know allowing yourself to visualize that's that's such a key thing at night i do a little meditation uh kind of to surmise the day and picture three things that i enjoyed about the day as well as one thing that i'm excited for you know three things that i'm grateful for like practice your ability to make pictures in your mind that's so important you know because if you can't paint those future pictures the future is going to be painted for you by default uh you know another thing again do you connect to your body on a regular basis are you exercising are you doing physical movement are you eating mindfully are you playing are you doing creative stuff all these things in the they're all overlapping like when we're doing those monday series on building a daily gratitude practice through my new book the gratitude map that's one of the habits it's you know a lot of those habits are actually in there about being creative going outside talking to plants all the stuff that we covered uh super valuable super valuable to help you connect to your body to help you again focus on the sensory to be in that present moment open and allowing and connecting to the earth it's so important and the final one is how do you handle details you know how do you how do you work around situations that are very complicated what's your response to that you know are you patient you know patience to me i love patience because a lot of times it's a misunderstood word like patience is all about you know waiting and delaying gratification and sure those are fine but really to me patience is about focus if you're patient that doesn't mean like you're withstanding something you don't want to do and just gritting your teeth hanging on for it to be over that's not what patience is patience is focus so rather than acting on a short-term impulse you focus and you act on what you know you need to act on which is the long term and you take action you're still taking out you can be patient and very highly active so that's very important patience doesn't mean don't act patience means you know focus focus on what you need to act on not on what your instincts are telling you to act on so your response to the details when details change when they're going out of your control that's one of the you know one of the main things that we're constantly dealing with is the details you're never going to control all the details but how you respond to them are you patient are you focused do you delegate are you sequential are you organized in your mind that's all going to give you a clue as to you know what kind of focus is come natural for you and as if that comes naturally if you're a very detail-oriented person number one i'd love to get to know you because i am constantly surrounding myself with people like that that could help me with what i'm doing but number two uh you know look at the other two areas so if you're detail-oriented then chances are probably being big picture oriented symbolic or maybe even being in your body those things are a little bit more difficult for you so those are opportunity areas to train your ability to focus so again the main premise here out of these three types of focus is that your strength your power your ability to be successful is based on how you can leverage these three types of focus in your life so focus is everything and remember that by mastering these three things uh we can we can distinguish them through our awareness and we can shape our destiny i truly believe that we can shape our destiny if we use focus in all three dimensions as much as possible so those are the three types of focus and how you can maximize them in your life all right guys well i hope you enjoyed that episode you know remember we only have 24 24 hours in a day but that doesn't mean anything because at the end of the day everybody has that same amount of time the successful people the most successful people in life have the same amount of time as you so what that really means is that learning to manage those 24 hours with your focus is all the difference it's all a matter of the decisions you make and those decisions are based on the focus that you have your ability to focus my goal for this episode was to empower you with some practical tools to see where your focus is going first off and second off to cultivate where the areas that you could focus better or more opportunity areas let's say those areas don't come natural to you and develop those through specific actions like if you're if sensory if focus doesn't come to you naturally then you know what to do go take up a skill an art of physical practice to help you get in the the prism go outside you know that book the gratitude map go get that free book it's the gratitude map.

Com you get a free book free mini course to give you plenty of uh habits in there that will easy to help you create your own gratitude practice to help you get present that's that's really all it is is help you get present in the present moment the physical moment and use that physical focus so that you your mind doesn't run away on you so i hope you guys have enjoyed this episode it's been a pleasure to put it together for you focus such a big part of my life and i hope it's a big part of yours too i mean ultimately i think anything that we want to create is a matter of focus so if you enjoyed this episode make sure you subscribe don't forget to share it with one person in your life that needs to hear today's message about focus i'm always curious to hear what made the biggest difference out of this episode for you guys so let me know tag me on instagram or facebook at tudor alexander official and let's not forget our quote from bruce lee the mighty bruce lee the successful warrior is the average man with laser like focus i love that quote you know it's so perfect for the Bruce lee is just the absolute epitome to me of focus and focus is everything in life the great reminder with that quote is that any person with good focus can become extraordinary so i truly hope you take that to heart today thank you so much for listening i hope you have an awesome rest of your day tune in on monday as we continue our 12 weeks here's we're on week 10 already while time flies on building a daily gratitude practice it's gonna be with habit number 10 being spontaneous so it's going to help us connect to that sensory focus that body earth connection so it's really good stuff so tune in on monday for that and remember as always that your life is a dance so go out there and dance it well so for more episodes and weekly content stay connected at dance of life.

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Tudor: I am grateful for you. Dancer. Musician. Thinker. Teacher. It is one thing to think, and something else entirely, to be able to articulate your thoughts as you do. Thanks for keeping it real. Thank you. 😀☯️

Brilliant as usual. Thanks Tudor. Love and blessings 💜 x

Really enjoyed this. I am very much a thinker, and move next into details. I have had a physical practice involving both tai chi and walking daily (virtual racing) to help maintain the balance among the three areas of focus. It was nice to hear them articulated so clearly by someone other than myself when asked to explain it to people around me. 😊 Thank you for sharing this. I see the light in you. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻