We all know that we need to “concentrate” to execute a task successfully. However, to keep one’s focus for an elongated period of time is easier said than done. It takes a lot of effort and practice. It is also sometimes a test of individual’s willpower. Hence, the key question that I am trying to address here is why some people find it easy to concentrate, and most others find it very difficult? But, before we go forward investigating it, we need to agree on what we mean by the “act of concentration”?
To “concentrate” is to focus our “awareness” towards the task that we intend to do, which is nothing but us attempting to keep the other thoughts/distractions away. “Thoughts” are like “bubbles” emanating on the surface of a “boiling water”, which keep erupting randomly without us making any conscious effort. These “thoughts” are driven by our experiences of past and present, and based on it, the mind creates a “mental model” of the future — the outcome it expects to happen or what it hope to accomplish. Some “thoughts” are pleasant — when the mind is optimistic about future, and some are painful — when the mind is pessimistic about. Generation of these “thoughts” are very important, as our actions are driven by it. So, in order to sharpen our concentration towards a task, we must learn to control these thoughts, as these overwhelms our ability to “concentrate”.
But, how do we prevent ourselves getting overwhelmed by these random thoughts? There could be many ways. The most effective way is to generate interest in the task that we intend to do. As we tend to focus more on tasks that we are naturally interested in. It does not require any extra effort. Why? As we derive pleasure while doing it. We perform these tasks, not under any duress but willingly. We like them so much that when we are involved with them, we loose the track of time and tiredness. Hence, to concentrate, we must learn to generate interest in tasks that we intend to execute. But how?
This is where the situation gets tricky and most surrender. As a large number of these tasks are repetitive (routine) in nature, and therefore are extremely boring. We quickly lose interest in them. So, how do we generate interests in these tasks, especially when they are too trivial and do not challenge us intellectually? This we can do so by activating the “reward mechanism” in our mind. The mind’s “reward mechanism” give us a sense of pleasure, and elevates our motivation level. But, isn’t this contradictory? How can our “mind” feel good about tasks which are not exciting? Let’s investigate.
We all love to make progress. This triggers our “sense of achievement” which in turn activates the “reward mechanism” in our minds — resulting in a “feel-good-factor”. Hence, to stay interested and motivated we have to generate “progress”. But the challenge is that “progress” is always incremental, and within a small “window period” one cannot even notice it. Therefore, we quickly lose interest in the task and also our ability to concentrate. For the progress to get noticed, we have to keep repeating the task a sufficiently large number of times. Which we won’t, unless we are able to break the initial barrier — when progress is negligible to be perceptible. But, how? This we can do by training our minds to always see the larger picture, i.e cultivating the “feeling of faith” that if we repeat the task for a sufficiently large number of times “progress” is inevitable. While measuring progress, it important to align one’s expectation properly. Having unreasonable expectations from any activity can be extremely demotivating, even though actual progress will still be significant. Ability to train the mind to see the “larger picture” and set a “reasonable expectation” are the most important things we all must learn to stay focused. If we accomplish this, we can concentrate on any task, and even those, which we hate to execute.
