Heart Habits – Attention

Learn to use your personality to build GREAT habits to get along well with others!

Our behavior/personality intertwine with our habits. One can’t exist without the other. Do you have a particular habit that you must do every day? It may be eating dessert after dinner or going outside to shoot hoops before bed. Maybe you are like my daughter who must do 56 cartwheels each day in every room of the house!

No matter your habits, you should stop and examine them from time to time. Here at Focus Life Institute, we enjoy putting together our courses for you to learn about yourself, particularly with your personality. When we hand out the results in group sessions, everyone is eager to read all about themselves to see who they are and if they agree with the outcome. Your personality can explain what habits you do and why. This can also come from your family environment, those who you spend a lot of time with, or even what you see in the media. I remember watching a TV show when I was growing up. The people in the show liked to sit outside on their roof to read, talk, or think. I thought it would be awesome to do that too. I opened up my window and sat out on the front porch roof of my house a few times. It was fun, but truth be told, it wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish and my personality didn’t enjoy all of the effort to spend a few minutes sitting on some shingles each day.

Other habits come from a deeper part of ourselves such as who we spend time with and the ways we express ourselves, or reveal our thinking in our work/projects. Today I would like to examine a great habit to build in your life – the habit of ATTENTION!

Charlotte Mason was an incredibly smart woman who understood teaching and education waaaaaaay back in the late 1800’s, and her knowledge is still worth looking at today. She defined 4 habits of our hearts that we should develop: attention, obedience, respect, and responsibility. These sound a little bit like our CEO Ed Turose’s HEROES principle! These habits and virtues certainly overlap. So if you have read our latest book Be A Hero, then you have a head start! Check it out here!

Now back to the habit of attention. When we use this habit it means that we are giving something our full and complete focus (this is why we focus coaches exist – to help people do this). With the habit of attention, we listen with our eyes by looking at those who are speaking. We listen with our ears to hear what is being said and push away distractions. And we listen with our hearts so we process what is being said to understand what someone else is saying. This is a habit that is difficult in today’s world with many interruptions and distractions. Think back to your conversations with others today. Did you interrupt anyone? Did you listen fully without letting your mind wander? Did you look up from your phone or video game or book to look at them while they were speaking? Did you ask thoughtful questions to show that you were listening to them? True attention is a lost art in today’s world, but we can learn to focus to get it BACK!

Looking over your personality results, you can use these tips for each personality type to help you grow in the habit of attention (or focus) when it comes to listening and talking with others:

D Personality:

• Learn to slow down and listen for the details; this may help you later so you don’t ask for something that was already shared with you.
• Give your attention fully by only listening. Your tendency is to do many things at once. Practice giving your full attention by just listening to someone talk without trying to get something else done.
• Listen and allow for time in between speakers to think over what was said. You don’t have to fill the quiet with words or sounds. Ponder it and ask a thoughtful question to continue the conversation instead of switching topics right away.

I Personality:

• Learn to let the other person steer the conversation. You don’t always have to be the one driving the topic of what you’re talking about.
• Try not to interrupt. Don’t let your mouth do it! This is a hard one because you may want to show understanding and share a relevant thought. But just let the other person finish speaking completely.
• Instead of sharing your own story that you think is related to what you’re discussing, show your attention to someone by nodding or saying short responses like yes, or oh, wow. Share your own story if they ask or they want to know what you think about something. It’s easy for the I’s to head down a rabbit trail that is completely off the path where the other person was. It puts the attention off of them and onto you.

S Personality:

• Be willing to listen to someone who you don’t know very well and give them your attention even if you don’t have a strong relationship with them yet. You find it difficult to trust people right away, so learn to listen and then decide later for yourself what information was useful and what wasn’t.
• Don’t shy away from participating in the conversation. The S’s are laid back and don’t always jump into a discussion. While you may be attentive to what a speaker says, they could think you could care less and write you off. Show your interest with your body language by nodding, leaning forward, and answering questions or giving comments.
• Be open to change. When you are hearing new information, you tend to resist it. Listen with your heart to process what you hear so you can evaluate it correctly instead of just ignoring what could be helpful to you even if it comes from someone with a more aggressive personality.

C Personality:

• You are capable of giving great attention to the details! Be careful not to get lost in them or in someone’s mistake they make while talking with you. It is very easy to become distracted by wrong or inaccurate information that you can easily lose attention. Stick with them and uncover the truth in what they are sharing with you.
• Don’t tune someone out just because you are hearing information you already know. Learn to give attention to details you may have already heard. Gently tell them that they mentioned this before and try to ask a thoughtful question to learn more information that you don’t know yet.
• Listen with a heart that is open. C’s tend to figure out a lot ahead of time and think that other people’s ideas/opinions don’t matter. Ask for other’s thoughts to include them in final decisions and give their ideas your attention. They could be looking at things in a way you haven’t yet.

These tools for developing the habit of attention in your life will help you learn to harness your focus for a more meaningful experience with others whether it’s family, friends, teachers or coaches. Train your heart to adopt the habit of attention and watch the benefits of focusing your eyes, ears, and hearts to learn and grow! And remember, your focus determines your future!

Want to know more?

To discover more about your personality, check out our online courses for ages K-college and up!