Success through Inner Strength - The Gift of Focus
Top 100 Speaker & Karate World Champion Jörg Gantert Inner strength is the ability to concentrate one hundred percent on what is necessary to solve a task, a project, or a challenge of any kind in the best possible way. There is no obstacle that can resist the highest mental power of concentration in the long run. This statement represents the Japanese term: ZEN Focus. ZEN Focus is the ability to concentrate with all your senses on the moment, on the here and now. A typical Japanese statement describes ZEN as follows: "When I sit, I sit, when I walk, I walk, and when I eat, I eat." You might be asking yourself now, what's so special about that? Isn't that obvious? And yet, it is not for most people. In this case, a Japanese master would answer: "When you sit, you are already standing, when you walk, you are already running, and when you eat, you are already finished." Let's be honest, doesn't he have a point? Imagine you are sitting at your desk in your office with a stack of files in front of you. In your email inbox, you see 23 new emails that need to be answered, at the same time the phone rings, a fax comes in, and a colleague enters your office with an urgent request. In such a moment, you might wish nothing more than for it to go "poof" and find yourself outside your office in a beautiful park, seeing the green of the trees, hearing birds sing, and experiencing a relaxing feeling of peace and tranquility. And now imagine it actually goes "poof." You are in the beautiful park, seeing the green..., hearing the birds... - and at the same time you think, "I still need to write that letter urgently and make that phone call." Worries, doubts, and brooding about the past and worries, doubts, and brooding about the future dominate the thoughts of many people. "Why did everything have to happen the way it did? Why didn't I act differently back then? Why did I make this or that decision? What will the future bring? What if I fail? What if everything goes wrong?" We think about everything possible, except for the present moment. How wonderful would it be if we could focus on nature with all its splendor during a walk in the park, immerse ourselves in everything that surrounds us? How relaxing would that be for us?! That's exactly what ZEN Focus means. For example, it describes the ability to focus precisely on what is necessary to feel good and relaxed. To do this, we must necessarily detach ourselves from what restricts us. This does not mean that the negative no longer exists. However, it means that we pay less attention to negative things by letting go and focusing on the positive aspects. To influence your ability to concentrate and specifically steer your thoughts, I would like to introduce you to a practical mental exercise. To perform this exercise, please take a blank sheet of paper and draw a dot in the center of the paper. Now try to concentrate on this dot with all your senses for one minute. Once you notice your thoughts drifting, the minute starts over for you. The goal is to focus your eyes on the dot the whole time and direct your thoughts exclusively to the dot. This mental exercise strengthens your ZEN Focus even more the longer you are able to concentrate on your dot. The more you immerse yourself in this task within a week, the stronger your ability to concentrate will grow. By extending this exercise to five minutes, you gain an enormous amount of inner strength. You gain a sense of security in being able to decide situationally when to allow which thoughts access and which thoughts you want to give your full attention to.
