Stolen Focus

life begins at the edge of your comfort zone

we all need to have a sense of what he called ‘mastery’ – that we are good at something. It’s a basic human psychological need. When you feel you are good at something, you will find it much easier to focus on it, and if you feel incompetent, your attention will shrivel like a salted snail.

when L.B. was being told what to do constantly – when he was being forced to act on extrinsic motivations – he couldn’t focus, and he was bored all the time. But when he was given the chance, through play, to find out what interested him – to develop an intrinsic motivation – his ability to focus flourished, and he worked for hours and hours without a break,

How do you find meaning when your day is filled from seven in the morning to nine at night when you go to bed, with somebody else’s idea of what is important? … If you don’t have any free time to figure out what [emotionally] turns you on, I’m not sure you’re going to find meaning. You’re not given any time to find meaning.

Genes don’t operate in a vacuum. That’s the main thing we’ve learned from gene studies … Genes are turned on and off in response to environmental input.’ As Joel puts it, ‘our experiences literally get under our skin’ and change how our genes are expressed

The way we work seems fixed and unchangeable – until it changes, and then we realise it didn’t have to be like that in the first place

In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.

If we’re just frantically running around focusing on the external world exclusively, we miss the opportunity to let the brain digest what’s been going on

‘Creativity is not [where you create] some new thing that’s emerged from your brain,’ Nathan told me. ‘It’s a new association between two things that were already there.’ Mind-wandering allows ‘more extended trains of thought to unfold, which allows for more associations to be made.’

the more you let your mind wander, the better you are at having organised personal goals, being creative, and making patient, long-term decisions. You will be able to do these things better if you let your mind drift, and slowly, unconsciously, make sense of your life.