An Incredibly Valuable Asset

The ability to focus is a superpower. There are two types of focus. One is intensity focus, a honing in on something very very specific, and letting the rest of the world fade into the background. Two is endurance focus, a staying with something for an extended period of time. The first one is a sprint, the second one is a marathon. Your workout needs both and can nurture both. From what I see in myself and from watching clients, focus is just like a muscle. We’ve got to use it or lose it.

While doing just one Pilates rollup – and really doing it well with heels squeezing together, deeply exhaling on the spinal flexion, etc – I recruit intensity focus. It’s a 30second “all in” kind of thing. When I’m on a long 3hour hike in the woods, and I keep putting one foot in front of the other again and again, staying with it to the end, I draw on endurance focus. See how these workouts are opportunities to strengthen both types of focus? 

In our attention deficit culture, the ability to focus has never been as precious as it is right now. It’s an incredibly valuable asset, and we can cultivate more of it, all while getting a myriad of other benefits too, just by working out? It seems to good to be true, but it’s not. Every time you workout, you reap rewards, big and small, obvious and subtle.

I read a quote the other day that said, “The devil is anything that distracts.” That resonates, and another way of putting it is: the angel is anything that fortifies our focus. So ladies and gentleman, for today and forevermore, let’s breathe, let’s move,and let’s focus. Call in the angels. 💕