Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / MojoMonday: Your Attentional Heat Map - Shaping Your Brain, Your Emotions and Your Experiences

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MojoMonday: Your Attentional Heat Map - Shaping Your Brain, Your Emotions and Your Experiences · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Carly Talley here for this week's Mojo Monday.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to make this a really practical episode,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: so I'll get straight to the task if you choose
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to accept it. And it's all about an attentional order.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So the beauty of this practice is that what happens
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: is you start to notice how easily your attention can
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: be stolen. And I'm not just talking about digital distractions,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: but how easy it is to fall into also the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: distraction of your thoughts, the distraction of your emotions. We
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: can easily, throughout all these distractions, get into this state
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of reactivity, you know, allowing yourself to be pulled into
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  Speaker 1: mindless distractions that take you away from what's actually important,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: what's meaningful and purposeful in your life. So by doing
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: this order, what happens is you take back control. You
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: become aware of where your attention is in any moments,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and so you live less in reactive mode, less likely
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to give in to impulse, and live more intentionally. And
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: when you do this, you're going to notice the difference.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You will notice the difference in your energy, your emotions,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: your thinking, and how you show up for others. Because
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it doesn't. It's it does. It's positive around productivity, yes,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: but it also has a positive impact on relationships, gaining
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a clearer perspective on your life. And that's not just
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a false promise or an exaggeration. It's simply what happens
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: when you start to direct your attention with intention. So
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: what it is is an attentional ordit so it's a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: quick check in on where your mental energy is actually going.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And you may not have even thought about this before,
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  Speaker 1: so you might have heard the saying where your attention goes,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: your energy flows, and we don't want that energy flowing
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: into distractions. That may help in the short term to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: avoid something, but long term they really drain your energy.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So over the next few days, I want you to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: simply notice where your attention goes, so you can jot
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: it down a notebook or maybe make a quick voice
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  Speaker 1: memo on your phone. So examples, maybe I sat down
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to start my work project and ended up getting distracted
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: by the news and reading the online news. I started
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: worrying about a deadline and ended up procrastinating by doing
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: other things because it was stressing me out so much.
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  Speaker 1: Or I checked social media every time I had a break,
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  Speaker 1: or I spent a lot of time complaining about my
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: back pain, or I was ruminating over this argument that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I had with my sister in law and the whole
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: thing stressing me out. So it's no judgment. Judgment will
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: probably come into it, but just try and push that aside,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: just put it to the side, and just be aware
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of where your attention is. So it's like you're collecting
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: data on your mind. And the next part is it's
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: something that I really love and it comes from Paul's
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: book The Heartiness Effect, which is coming out at the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: end of the month, and he talks about an attentional
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: heat map. So it's a visual picture of where your
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: mind spends its time. So a visual heat map. So
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you've probably seen a heat map before. So red means hot,
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  Speaker 1: blue means cool. So in this context, the red zones
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  Speaker 1: are where your attention is intense or over active, maybe
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: you know work, stress, constant res domination, emotional reactivity. The
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: blue zones are where your attention is barely landing. These
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  Speaker 1: are the things you're neglecting. Maybe it's the relationships that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: matter most to you, time for exercise, your nutrition, creativity,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe it's its rest most of us are walking
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  Speaker 1: around with a mental map that's glowing red, but in
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  Speaker 1: all the wrong areas. So it's the worries, the to
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: do lists, the scrolling on social media, the emails, while
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the things that truly matter to us, the things that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: nourish us, the things that give us energy, are staying cold.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: They're staying in the blue blue zones. The goal isn't
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: to eliminate the red zones, but it's to redistribute your
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: attention towards what matters. So you're reducing the noise and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: increasing the parts of life that actually give you more energy.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So here's what you can try this week. So think
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  Speaker 1: of all the key domains of your life, so work, family, friends' health, learning,
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  Speaker 1: whatever's relevant to you, and then track your attention for
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a couple of days and at the end color code
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  Speaker 1: each area, or you could do this maybe each day,
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  Speaker 1: so red for higher attention, yellow for moderate, and blue
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  Speaker 1: for low. Then ask yourself, does this map, even if
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it's just visually in your head, does this map reflect
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: what is important to me? Am I giving my energy
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to what really matters, like deep in your heart? And
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  Speaker 1: what's glowing red that actually doesn't deserve to be glowing
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  Speaker 1: red and what's cold that needs more warmth. So when
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: we reclaim our attention and take control of our attention,
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  Speaker 1: we reclaim our power to make intentional choices. And as
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I said earlier, it's not just about productivity, it's about
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: our wellbeing. It's about our mental fitness because attention and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: emotion are deeply linked. Where our attention goes, so where
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: you are directing your attention, your emotion follows. So if
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: you are constantly after dopamine hits, avoidance strategies, numbing activities,
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  Speaker 1: your nervous system is going to be affected. But when
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you redirect your attention towards what's meaningful, what matters deep
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  Speaker 1: in your heart, purpose, connection, creativity, your physiology shifts, so
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: you literally change your state. So here's your challenge for
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: this week. Run your attentional audit, notice your patterns, create
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: your heat map, even if it's just a mental picture
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  Speaker 1: of it, and then choose one red zone to cool
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: down and one blue zone to warm up. So maybe
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it's putting your phone on charge in another room at
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: night and spending that time talking to your partner or
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: your kids. Maybe it's saying no to a meeting so
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: you can do some exercise or have a walk in nature,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's taking time for yourself in the morning
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  Speaker 1: before the inputs, before you open your laptop or look
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  Speaker 1: at the phone. Your attention is the most valuable resource
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  Speaker 1: that you have. It literally shapes your reality, so let's
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  Speaker 1: start spending it wisely. So I hope that has I
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  Speaker 1: hope that's value for you. I hope it's an eye
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  Speaker 1: opener if you do choose to do this exercise, because
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  Speaker 1: it's certainly been an eye opener for me. And what
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  Speaker 1: it's done is it's made me more aware, kind of
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  Speaker 1: on a daily basis, where my attention is, which allows
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: me to then shift it to the things that are
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  Speaker 1: important to me. Have a great week, everyone, I'll catch
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you next week. Thea