What Are We Missing?

Attention is not just about the things we focus on. It's also about the things that we miss. We know that attention is both selective and limited. It sometimes works just like we want, and other times, we don't understand why we struggle to control it. That’s because thousands of things are competing for our attention at any given moment. William James, the father of modern psychology, believed that the capacity to bring back wandering attention voluntarily is the root of judgment, character, and will. He also recognized that our ability to focus and flex attention is trainable and that almost anyone can improve with practice. Making a conscious choice about your focus and attention indicates that the object of your attention is essential. For example, making a choice to stay focused in a conversation instead of being drawn to your own internal dialogue says, "This person and this conversation are important.”

Scientists don't know how the mind influences the brain, but significant evidence shows that it involves paying attention. Because a conscious, awake mind is bombarded by countless bits of information, it only registers the information you are paying attention to. Your experiences may not even be stored in your memory without your focused awareness. What is recorded by your brain is determined by what you pay attention to.

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How the brain manages what is registered and what is not only became apparent in the first few years of the 21st century. The best way to think about this is that neurons compete. What is registered by the brain is determined by the strength of the signal. The strength of the signal is determined by setting a purpose or "intention for our attention." Here is how our attention works.

Intentional Attention

The first step is to focus on the situation, a thought, a new behavior, or a memory you want to repeat or remember. However, merely focusing your attention doesn't ensure your brain is rewired. It requires effort.

Effort

Effort moves intentional attention from merely a perception to creating new neural pathways. When you do something for the first time, it takes a lot of effort. By using PET scans, neuroscientists can see the effort the brain makes when learning something new. And with practice, new tasks become effortless.

Effortless

After a new neural pathway has been initiated, the new behavior, thought, or feeling takes less energy to keep it going. In the beginning, learning anything new, like a new language or golf swing, takes focus and energy.

Practice

After enough practice, it becomes relatively automatic, and your brain will remain wired to perform this task. However, if you do not continue to practice, you will lose this ability to maintain this effortless level.

Where is Your Attention?

Much like a camera, our attention can zoom out to bring a broader view into focus and zoom in to narrow the focus on something specific. However, unlike a camera, we can zoom in or out with all our senses. For example, we can turn our attention to our surroundings, including our sight and the other four senses of sound, touch, taste, and smell.

You can zoom out to see all the colors surrounding you, hear all the sounds, detect smells and aromas, notice the temperature, and take a sip of water. Or you can zoom in and take in the colors of an individual leaf, detect its subtle smell, tune in to how it sounds as you snap it off the branch, and even how it feels between your fingers. It’s truly unique, this extraordinary flexibility of our attention. Why not give this a try right now? I think you will be amazed at what you have missed right where you are.