What we feed our minds could have more impact on focus than we realise.
Could you stare at a blank wall for ten minutes without going crazy?
Champion copywriter Sean Ferres reckons most of us couldn’t, which I was reminded of while spending a week in hospital recently, involving a fair bit of wall-staring.
“Your subconscious is always on the job.”
Ferres says creative ideas and success in any field depend on cultivating our subconscious, measured by what writer Alex Becker calls “the shower test.”
In the shower, with no podcast or phone, what shows up? Your subconscious thoughts.
Feed your conscious mind useful things and your subconscious keeps working on them. Spend hours scrolling social media or watching reality TV and it works on that instead.
Ferres says the biggest difference between students who succeed and those who don’t is focus: “Your level of focus largely comes down to how much bullshit you do or don’t consume.”
Marcus Aurelius put it differently: “Your mind takes the shape of what you frequently hold in it.”
Focus is also influenced by health, medication and age. But enough sleep, nutritious food, meditation and exercise can help. Harvard Health recommends 150 minutes of aerobic exercise weekly.
So, perhaps it’s time to put the phone down.
Happy wall-staring.
Written by David Hughes