The secret to focus & attention.
The mind can only process 50 bits of information per second and up to 125 billion bits of information in your lifetime.
You don’t create the life you want if you are consuming information outside of the vision you have for your life.
This diverts your focus.
Most people spend time on the fires, drama and things that overwhelm them.
Losing the ability to process the right information.
Focusing on the information that drains you is a waste of your life.
125 billion bits of information may sound like a lot but most of this information is garbage.
It is the life stressors and negative biases that are hardwired to shoot to the top of our mental load.
Worse still we learn how to process this information with the programming of others around us.
Our minds function in two ways:
Conscious Awareness – Focused aspect of the programs running.
These are your open tabs.
Subconscious Mind – The software running in the background.
This is your operating system.
Opening the wrong tabs.
Don’t waste life working in the wrong programs.
You don’t pick up on things that the subconscious mind is deleting from the picture.
It runs in the background it is what keeps you ‘safe’.
It is the reminders of the time you felt the pain of embarrassment, betrayal and so on.
It runs the data for survival, memory and imagination.
What we filter within our minds has a lot to do with what we intentionally bring in focus.
Use a better filter, create better results.
In life things can feel intuitive. Where all is connected.
This has everything to do with the information we have become aware of.
For example, if you are learning about AI and automations. It will seem like it is all people are talking about.
If you are a business owner…
You will be seeing it 10 x as much.
Why?
Because your attention is being drawn to this because it is ‘top of mind’.
What does this mean?
Your executive function part of the brain is alert and filtering from the billions of possible parts of information that could be entering your mind.
Our subconscious minds have pre-installed programs
The school system, cultural backgrounds and society have all played a part in the information we have downloaded into the software of our minds (subconscious programming).
It is like receiving a new phone.
They are the ones that have been sold to us.
The reality of all this
We can’t filter every bit of information that we encounter.
There are times where others around us bombard us with their view of the world.
We end up letting things divert our focus.
We can’t be happy 100% of the time. That is the reality, and this has a lot to do with the neurochemicals within our minds.
Like any fluid, electricity or code it has an ON or OFF.
Your attention is the key here.
Choosing the right information and filtering it through what you want to process.
In other words narrowing your focus of attention is how you sharpen your ability to see the connections and where you want to see them towards your goals and vision.
Goals vs. Visions:
Narrow Focus vs. Big Picture Processing
“Goal-setting is powerful because it provides focus. It shapes our dreams. It gives us the ability to hone in on the exact actions we need to perform to achieve everything we desire in life.” – Jim Rohn
Pursuing a goal requires holding relevant information and filtering out distractions.
Goals are specific, short-term targets that engage the brain’s executive functions and demand focused attention.
Brain imaging shows that during goal-directed tasks, the brain actually suppresses its background activity in the default mode network.
This default mode network (DMN) is an organised, baseline brain system that is suspended during specific goal-directed behaviours.
The DMN is a bridge between conscious and subconscious processing.
When the DMN is ON, it involves internal, self-reflective thoughts like daydreaming, reflecting on memories, or planning for the future.
These are thought processes that aren’t happening in the moment and are in response to your thinking.
While these thoughts feel “conscious,” they often draw on subconscious memories, emotions, and patterns. Our brain naturally taps into this deeper, subconscious information to make sense of our world, think about the past, or imagine future possibilities.
When we’re not focusing on something specific our DMN is ON.
When we are focusing our attention the DMN is OFF.
“If You Are Working On Something That You Really Care About, You Don’t Have To Be Pushed. The Vision Pulls You.” – Steve Jobs
Vision is where we use our DMN in its ON capabilities.
Your long-term aspiration or imaginative outlook.
The brain’s big-picture processing.
When we contemplate our future or dream up an ambitious vision, we activate the DMN, which supports internal information: thinking about oneself, envisioning scenarios, and integrating emotional and memory-based information.
A compelling vision draws on a wider bandwidth of the mind, scattered ideas, memories, and feelings that lie outside the narrow focus and are open to the bigger picture.
The Difference
While a goal is like a laser – precise but limited in scope – a vision is more panoramic.
Maintaining a vision involves distributed processing across many brain regions (including those for imagery, personal values, and self-reflection), far beyond the few bits per second our conscious mind can handle.
Both modes are important: the executive focus on goals provides concrete steps, while the big-picture processing of vision provides meaning and direction.
The brain toggles between these modes to balance focus and creativity.
This dynamic explains why we sometimes need to “step back and see the big picture”.
Engaging the vision of the DMN after grinding on details is why you will hear many creators emphasise the importance of walking away from the work to see the bigger picture.
The secret to all this
Building Your Framework: The Flow Process
1. Define Clear Goals within your Vision Framework
Decide on the concrete steps that require your focused, conscious attention to reach your long-term direction and purpose (vision) that acts as your guiding framework.
2. Use a Filtering Process
Your subconscious mind filters out irrelevant information. The key is to program your subconscious mind to see the opportunities that align you with your goals and broader vision.
We can’t filter every bit of information but we can be more mindful of what we let into our conscious mind. Information overload, especially with modern distractions (social media, news), can derail progress.
Understand the Power of Your Attention.
When you narrow your focus to your goals and vision, you start seeing the connections that others might miss. This is where alignment of vision and conscious action occurs.
Reinforce in Real-Life – Recalibrate Focus.
The creative process requires stepping away to reflect. Use this time to recalibrate your focus.
Take breaks and revisit your vision when stuck to evaluate your progress, and adjust your goals and vision accordingly.