Cultivating Your Attention

Lisa Capa, January 2014

To understand:What is your attention?

Why pay attention to your attention?

What are the benefits of cultivating your attention?

What can you do to begin cultivating your attention?

What can you assess for the next 30 days?

Objectives

What is Your Attention?

To tend to; to reach toward –Latin

It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. --William James

It is the focus of awareness on one thing at any particular moment. –Lisa Capa

It is the beam of awareness. –Daniel Goleman

What is Your Attention?

Capa, L. (2014). The role of attention cultivation in  leadership development for sustainable business: A narrative inquiry. California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA. Manuscript in preparation.Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: The hidden driver of excellence. New York, NY: HarperCollins.James, W. (2007). The principles of psychology, Vol.1 (1st ed.). New York: Cosimo Classics.

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

–William James

Why Pay Attention to Your Attention?

James, W. (2007). The principles of psychology, Vol.1 (1st ed.). New York: Cosimo Classics.

What are the Benefits to Cultivating Your Attention?

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment –Jon Kabat-Zinn

Flow is happiness in action –Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Eco-system awareness and action emphasizes the well-being of the whole –Otto Scharmer

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (1st ed.). New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.Kabat-Zinn, J. (2006). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10, 144–156. doi:10.1093/clipsy.bpg016Scharmer, O., & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the emerging future from ego-system to eco-system economies. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

What Can You do to Begin Cultivating Your Attention?

Grounding and Center Exercise

What Can You Assess for the Next 30 Days?

“I feel calmer than before I grounded and centered.”1 = strongly disagree2 = disagree3 = neutral4 = agree5 = strongly disagree

Human attention is our single most powerful tool to bring about change.