If You Build It, They Will Come

Where you place your attention is where you will go. This is a thought that keeps surfacing in the philosophy discussions I'm a part of on Friday nights at yoga school. It has come up in conversations relating to two traditional texts that we are reading, the Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. As we are surrounded by unlimited distractions, this sentiment is possibly even more relevant today because so many things are constantly competing for our attention.

If this is a true statement–as I believe it is–it gives us a lot of power to make change in our life. In fact it tells us exactly what we need to do to make change happen: focus our attention on where we want to go. When we give our attention to something, we spend time more thinking about that thing and doing that thing. It begins to be more present in our life, which in turn makes us think about it more. It seems like a pretty obvious cycle, right?

This principle is already at work in our lives, but we may only notice it when we intentionally decide where we want to go. For example, let's say you want to make healthier choices about what you eat. You start putting more thought into the foods you are consuming, examining nutrition labels and browsing health blogs. You might start to collect recipes that incorporate whole foods or join a CSA. It's likely you will talk about your progress with others and share what you are learning on your Facebook feed. Consciously directing your attention to healthy food choices allows you to make decisions in line with that goal.

However, this same cascade also works when we aren't paying attention to where we are directing our attention. And for many of us, this is what's happening most of the time. If you spend a lot of time with a friend who likes to gossip and put people down, you are giving those behaviors your attention. You might find yourself participating in the same behaviors even though they aren't in line with your values. If you have a crush on a coworker and start to fantasize about what that relationship could be like, you might make excuses to spend more time with that person, despite having a deep love for your partner at home.

I have realized that where I place my attention is incredibly important. We give life to the things that we think about, so it is best to use care and discernment to decide what those things are. Explicitly thinking about this every day is helping me to create new patterns of behavior and taking me in the direction that I want to go: more kindness, more honesty, more authenticity, more love. Where are you going?