The law of attraction works and perhaps most of those who have read about the science and art of achievement know about it.
However there are a few implications we may not be much aware of. One of those is attention. Attention has its roots in the Latin word attentio, which literally means to apply your mind to some thing. To pay attention towards some thing thus would mean to focus and apply our mental capabilities to notice it, to capture or understand or analyze it.
Have you never heard dialogues like: “Did you hear what she said in the party?” And your friend replies: “No, I wasn’t paying attention to her words”. Paying attention to something also means to merely recognize its existence.
And here begins a journey of mind which can bring a blessing or an affliction. We have a tendency to become what we continuously pay attention to. Here is how the process happens:
1. Search: The process of paying attention to something starts from the search. If we start paying attention to how many people have acne or are dressed improperly, upon entering a lounge full of people, the process of attention would begin with the search of people with acne or improper dressing.
2. Conscious search to unconscious search: This search is initially conscious but with time as we repeat the process the neurological pathways in our brain affirm and reaffirm the electrical channels and thus the implying thought processes and the search becomes unconscious i.e. whether we know it or not, our brain is searching for it. The second step is the conversion of conscious search into unconscious search.
3. Comparison: Upon finding the object of our search, our brain immediately compares with any relevant data already archived into its memory. This may be our own dressing style for example or a particular habit, which we may be searching unconsciously.
4. Evaluation: The comparison process results into evaluation. This evaluation is directed or planned. Our mind evaluates things in a manner that is already chipped into it by a mix of psychological traits like identities, values, frames of reference, metaprograms and belief systems. e.g. the mind of a person with a superiority complex would evaluate things in a way that would almost always conclude that he is better than others. A woman with a deep anger or mistrust residing in her towards someone will evaluate words of a person which would almost always prove her previous experience to be true.
5. Affirmations: Upon evaluations, the results (which are already planned to be evaluated in a certain manner by psychological traits) are conveyed to our conscious mind. These five steps occur in a flash, perhaps in a fraction of a second. The results are transmitted to our conscious mind as affirmations which make us say to ourselves… well yes I was right about her. She is always mean towards me.
6. Responding: The next step is our ability of mind to respond automatically towards unconscious set patterns. To avoid the effort of thinking each time a situation occurs, our mind stores sets of actions as responses to be taken under a specific stimulus. We avoid holding a red hot utensil, if we have burnt our fingers once. This is to save our bodies from harm, but the same ability sometimes tries to save us from psychological harm too. If we have a situation of mistrust with someone, our mind tries to protect us the next time as well. Our mind plays with us. The above 5 steps take place so quickly, we do not even realize they took place and we are handed over the affirmation, to which our mind has already made ready to deliver, a set of ready behavior. This behavior could be a sentence, an action or a negative self-talk, but whatever it is, it affirms an already established mental pattern.
7. Responding behaviorally: This response sooner or later converts into our behavior. It becomes a hard talk with our friend or a negative feeling which we nurture and raise in our deepest selves.
The repetition of above seven steps and our allowing of this repetition makes us follow certain patterns. We habitualize those patterns. With further repetition those habits take over our major portion of mental thoughts and start dominating our thinking. We gradually begin to notice only that, what we have been paying attention to. In a process, if not consciously checked, we kind of become those attentions ourselves.
Paying attention to how people talk is OK but paying too much attention shall let us see only that in others. Paying attention to how unprofessional or untidy, or thoughtless or socially trainable or speech-inadequate others are may help us tell ourselves that we are good, but paying attention to all this a lot risks us becoming all that too.
Start paying attention to the good people have in them. Start appreciating what others have as good in them. We will start becoming those appreciations ourselves.
Start paying attention to what you pay attention to or you might become one.
From the collections of Hassan Bukhari. Read the opening pages of The Happiness Manual — free, or explore the coaching programs.