Learning To Lead: Essay #2: Perception, Focus, and Attention
Leadership Step By Step, Unit 1, Chapter 2: Perception, Focus, and Attention (Essay #2)
For Unit 1, Chapter 2: Perception, Focus, and Attention in Josh’s book, we turn our focus inward to ourselves. To begin, Josh recommended trying an exercises called the Three Raisins Exercise. In this exercise designed to help practice mindfulness and becoming self-aware, you basically go through the following steps:
- Get 3 raisins
- Block off an hour (turn off all distractions)
- Eat them as follows:
- Imagine you’ve never seen one before. Observe it with all your senses in turn. Look, feel, smell, taste, hear.
- Only start next raisin after you’ve swallowed all remnants of the first.
- If attention drifts, return your attention to the raisins.
The idea is identical to that of meditation: to focus your attention on one thing, and never letting your attention drift. This does two things: it helps with self-awareness and learning how to be “meta” with yourself, and also strengthens your ability to focus. I’ve done a lot of meditation exercises so this wasn’t too new to me, and I went into it ready to enjoy the exercise.
Eating Raisins. Mindfully.
As I went through each raisin, I tried to be sure I was using all 5 senses to explore the raisins fully. I anticipated that each raisin would be exactly like the one before, but I found that each time I tried the next raisin, my experiences changed slightly. First of all, after the first raisin, I was trying to find more to experience that I hadn’t realized in the previous raisin(s). Was there any flavor I hadn’t detected before? Or a feel? Was there anything physically different from previous ones? Why does that dog always start barking? I remember there was a dog on the walk with my dog today that was really cute…Wait I’ve done it again. Back to the raisins…
This is what happens constantly in meditation. ANd it’s what I’m learning to control: myself and my monkey brain.
The exercises reminded me what I often forget when I’m not meditating regularly: there is so much to experience in every moment of every day that we just tune out. Even right now, if I stop looking at the screen and stop typing and try to focus on everything my 5 senses can pick up, doing it all at once is impossible. Listening to the whoosh of the wind, the sound of neighbors voices in the distance, the look of the fan spinning, the color of the walls, the smell of the room, or the feel of the bed…It’s overwhelming if you really try to fully experience everything. It makes you wonder what you’re missing every day just because your too occupied with other thoughts to really pay attention to where you are and what’s around you. This, to me, is one of the most important aspects of meditation; it’s invaluable, and an extremely important skill to be able to live in the moment. To enjoy where you are and the now.
Going Beyond Raisins – Extending Attention Beyond Yourself
We can extend this past ourselves too. What happens when you start paying more attention to the people around you? What happens if you’re missing the verbal and nonverbal cues they’re sending you? Every verbal and nonverbal cue you get from those around you are a kind of communication…A small signal that is attempting to connect with you. When you’re missing those communications, you’re losing connection. I’ve noticed it can be really easy to start missing those cues, especially with those you’re around the most, like your family or coworkers. You take them for granted. And when you lose connection with people around you, you lose happiness. You start to feel disconnected from people that you know you’re supposed to be most deeply connected with.
In short, your life feels the best when you’re paying real attention to your life. You get the depth of flavor of each interaction with every object, person, animal, food, or drink you interact with.
All you have to do is pay attention.
…Easier said than done, in my experience. But certainly a skill I want to develop more.
For anyone who wants to learn more about Joshua Spodek or Leadership Step By Step, find it on Josh’s homepage.
