I read an interesting note from Edward Hallowell in the August 2014 issue of HBR titled, “Will Focus Make You Happier?”. Edward is a psychiatrist and Director of the Hallowell centres at New York city.
His key point took off from a study of around 250000 responses from 2200 individuals on their feeling and activity in the moment. According to this research, having sex or being focused were the top 2 contributors to overall higher levels of happiness reported by the respondents.
Lack of focus (or attention deficit disorder) is a common place phenomenon these days. Nature also supports disorder whilst focus brings order. So obviously people are not drawn to being focused.
He provides 2 key suggestions to deal with this:
1. Re-create some space for yourself that the advent of technology seems to have taken away. We run to our laptop or smartphone and start facebooking or texting or surfing or emailing the moment we feel a little stress Or difficulty because of the focus. His recommendation is to grapple with the problem and persist instead of simply running away.
2. Spend as much time as possible at the intersection of 3 areas: what you are good at (what I often call your skill or your core proficiency), what you like to do (what I call your thrill or your passion) and what adds value to the world and what someone is willing to pay you to do (what I call a drill or a viable choice of profession). At this point of intersection, you have a sense of joy and productivity that can help overcome the inertia or forces of entropy.
I am delighted to see this connection between Tresonance and joy validated through research. For Tresonance is nothing but the alignment of our thrill and skill into a meaningful drill.
Vinit Taneja
Founder – Tresonance Consulting & Tresonance Foundation
vinit.taneja@tresonance.com
My purpose – Enable individuals and organizations to discover and manifest their deeper calling
Transformational Resonance 