The Incredible Power of Focus and Affirmations

A powerful question to ask is why have I been on earth in this year
and what did I plan to achieve? As we are marching towards the end of
yet another year, we are reminded that our goals and activities need to
be in line with what we want to achieve to be high performing.
Invariably in the evaluation of such a question, we have to consider
that the goals that we did not achieve have been due to a lack of focus
on these specific activities. So how do we get better at being focused
and what is this illusive force?

It may be good to start with asking, what is focus? Focus is choosing
to selectively concentrate on one aspect of an environment or situation.
By focusing your energy and resources you apply yourself to one area or
dimension of a problem and progressively start to realise that goal or
area over time. So focus has ideas in it that includes selecting the
right aspects for focus and to progressively realise that.

The idea of focus areas has been effectively used in business and
strategic planning to highlight the specific areas of achievement
required in a business and to direct the myriad of goals in the modern
complex organisation.

Bredin (2012) showed that people that are externally focused
vs. internally focused tend to achieve more. Similar studies have shown
that external focus of attention creates more expressive behaviours and
is as least as important if not more important than the skills one
possesses in a specific field of study. Businesses that are externally
focused through a higher emphasis on sales and customer driven
performance and societal role, have been shown to achieve higher results
that organisations with focus on internal structuring.

So while it is important to know who you are – it is also very
important to look outside to what you want to do with that. It seems
that we are hard wired to need to look at the world from the outside and
bring that inside and then our subconscious takes over and finds ways in
which to respond to the situation. In a corporate context we do more if
we can see what effect if has on the world around us. This idea can be
applied practically by asking yourself what change you want to make in
the world and to start moving towards making this change. For a business
there needs to be a good understanding and frequent reminders of why we
are here.

We often tend to be more internally focused through asking for
example “what is wrong with me” and “why is this happening to me”. These
types of behaviours have been shown to physically and emotionally stifle
performance. Internal power struggles and politics also consume
companies. This is arguably because of a lack of purpose, or at least
understanding of that purpose in a societal context. By focusing on a
purpose it starts to move people towards a common goal and creates a
powerful change both internally and externally to an organisation.

One of the ways of reminding ourselves of our focus areas and goals
is through affirmations. An affirmation is declaration of something that
is true. This process has been used since time immemorial to remind
ourselves of our goals. The research around how this affects us on a
physical and psychological level is fascinating and shows that our
bodies respond to these affirmations in subtle yet profound ways
including changing our body chemistry and psychological outlook.

Literature tends to differentiate between self-affirmation, values
affirmation and goal affirmation.

Examples of these

• Self-affirmation would be saying something like “I am a strong
  and powerful person”.

• Values affirmation would start with expressing your belief such
  as “I believe in …”

• Goal affirmation will be stating a goal such as “I will achieve
  X…”

Each of these has different effects and you need to spend time on
selecting the correct aspects of yourself to improve over time.

We also have negative affirmations. Every time we say that we cannot
do something, or we comment about our own lacks or limitations – we
negatively affirm ourselves. Often we say things such as “I am not good
with numbers” or “I do not think that I will get that promotion”. Your
body makes this true.

By creating an affirmation – it is a powerful statement of who you
are and what you believe in. By repeating these as often as daily or
even multiple times a day – these become part of your being and define
your actions and approaches.

We see this in organisations through the use of internal
communications that highlights organisational values, approaches and
achievements. These elements are powerful forces in shaping organisation
culture and achievements.

Recent studies have shown that affirmations that are more internally
focused tend to have different effects on physiology than affirmations
that are focused on external entities. Internally focused affirmations
tend to create a more defensive approach and increases problem solving
abilities in the areas that have been affirmed. It seems that our values
and what we hold dear to ourselves, triggers our defensive and problem
solving responses. Affirmations are thus a way to program our defences
and to tell our bodies that we should solve problems to get or maintain
a specific state of being. Affirmations represent a choice and an
approach to getting to that choice. By creating a list of what you
believe in and where you want to be – it creates a reference framework
that can define how you will approach different aspects. In
organisations this tends to happen through the values framework and high
purpose and strong value organisations tend to attract and equally eject
people that do not conform to their value sets.

Group affirmation has also been shown to be a determining force in
team performance. So to make a team more focused and effective it is
important to create an environment where achievement and self worth of
individuals can be affirmed and recognised.

A good place to start, with your focus areas and affirmations, is to
spend time thinking about them and to write them down. Start with one
and work on more over time. Go further and stick them up somewhere where
you can see it regularly and remind yourself to think about them.

Conclusion

Focus and affirmation are two very powerful tools to shape your own
and your organisation’s achievement. We have to focus a lot of what we
say, think and believe in order to achieve more. There is still time to
make it work for you this year.

References:

Bredin, Shannon S.d.; Dickson, Danika B.; Warburton, Darren E.r.
Applied Physiology, Nutrition & Metabolism. Feb2013, Vol. 38 Issue
2, p161-168. 8p. 7 Black and White Photographs. DOI:
10.1139/apnm-2012-0182

Legault, L, Al-Khindi, T, & Inzlicht, M 2012, ‘Preserving
Integrity in the Face of Performance Threat: Self-Affirmation Enhances
Neurophysiological Responsiveness to Errors’, Psychological Science
(Sage Publications Inc.), 23, 12, pp. 1455-1460.