The Takeaway on Radical Attention and Deliberate Recharging
Key Points:
1. Find a formula that works for you - things that you can do to tweak your life to bring you closer to your goals and dreams.
2. Alternating periods of alertness & focus with periods of rest & reflection will allow for the optimal balance necessary to perform at our best at work and in life.
3. The key to a sustained high-performing life and good health is knowing when to be radically attentive, and when to deliberately recharge. Both are critical to take your life to the next level.
“The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.”
History is packed with amazing people whose accomplishments partly come from the ability to continuously learn and grow. It’s doubtful they were born with some sort of superpower. In fact, my guess is that they experimented with life tweaks—including what we might call “mental and physical health adjustments”—until they found a formula that worked for them. Some of them got up early—not to pack their days more tightly but to free up morning or evening time for personal and leisure activities. Some of them were night owls, for the same reason. Many—from Beethoven to Emerson to Einstein—punctuated their days with exercise. Others blocked out time for reflection or meditation. Gandhi was known for his baths, massages, and long walks. You get the idea.
Cultivating a passion for aspects of life and maintaining our ability to be engaged and to grow means intentionally activating your mental focus and performing at our best, but then alternating those periods of intense concentration with moments—or hours or days or weeks—to reflect and recharge. We can’t stay in an alert activated state at all times. We will only damage our minds and bodies through overwork or overactivation (in relation to our focus and beta state).
Remember the five sacrifices? Four of them are linked to a perpetually overactivated state: giving up health for wealth, quality for quantity, response-ability for reaction, and internal motivation for external rewards. The fifth names a culprit that steals away our focus when we really need it: sacrificing attention for distraction. To reach the heights of which we’re all capable—to be our own version, in our own way, of the contemporary or historical greats we admire—we need to take our mental abilities seriously and cultivate them sensibly, to be stewards and not just users of our minds and bodies. This means taking action against the world in some ways. Because let’s be honest: This is a world that sends us messages to go faster, do more, keep connected, and stay busy. Don’t listen to these messages! They’re dangerous.
Instead, use the science of performance to upgrade your life, elevate your wellness, boost your energy, and unlock your potential. Focus fully and deeply when you ought to—to bring your dreams to fruition. Recharge fully and deeply when you ought to—to nourish and sustain both that focus and that dream.
Radical attention to perform. Deliberate regeneration to recharge. This changes life from a marathon to a series of fun sprints interspersed with moments of recovery and recharging. That’s the key to sustainable high performance and improved health.
The Key to Unlocking Radical Attention
I believe that a prerequisite of high performance is the ability to refocus with laser precision and total immersion on one thing at a time when your mind is wandering. That’s how we unlock our ability to truly experience life at the highest possible level in each and every moment. Keep practicing and this will get easier and easier.
Today’s Call to Action: Start, Stop, Continue
That’s the end of the Practice Radical Attention module! Do you have any habits or routines that you’d like to start to help you unlock radical attention to get things done? Or are there habits that will help you switch out of beta mode when you need to rest and recover? Use the Start, Stop, Continue exercise on page 17 of the Rest, Refocus, Recharge Workbook.
Today’s Bonus Video
Click Here for a bonus Q&A video of Greg discussing the idea of finding time to be creative and execute. Also check out this podcast Here where Greg discusses the power of entering the Flow State, in which you're deeply immersed in the task at hand.
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.