You get what you focus on!

“Would you tell me please, which way I go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to”, said the cat.

“I don’t much care where”, said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go”, said the cat.

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Have you ever embarked on a journey to nowhere in particular? Where did it get you? Maybe you enjoyed the journey even so, as sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. At other times, we would do well to plan ahead and consider where exactly we are going.

We travel a lot. In our minds, that is. We go back into the past to remember what happened there and forward into the future to imagine what might happen there. Have you ever noticed that when we visit these places in our minds we can create very different feelings? If it is a good place, then we will enjoy our visit and feel happy to be there. If it is a painful or negative place, we will feel discomfort or pain during and even after our visit. Consequently, we learn which places in our minds to avoid and in which to take refuge.

The basic rule is this: You get what you focus on.

When we focus on positive events – remembered or imagined - we feel more resourceful and we experience life more effortlessly. When we focus on the past or future negatively, we mostly get more pain and struggle. We ourselves are responsible for creating our emotional (and often physical) experience, as it is a direct result of what we choose to focus on.

• Which places do you visit regularly in your mind? 

• How do you feel when you go there?

• What are you doing there? (Are you enjoying the experience or have you found a place to visit when you need or want to feel bad?) 

• Is there something useful you can take or learn from those places that would allow you to move to a better place (in your mind initially and then in your life?)

• What would you like to move towards in your life?

• Where do you want to be specifically and how will you get there?

“Focus on what you want not what you fear”

Tony Robbins