The Focus Power Program is a self paced, facilitated program that gives you easy-to-follow instructions on how to test, measure, and improve your mental focus and concentration quickly and easily.
TOOLS FOR IMPROVING CONCENTRATION-CLICK HERE



    We all have the ability to focus at least part of the time. Learning to concentrate is simply another skill we can learn. And like any other skill, it takes practice to master it. Make a personal commitment to learn this skill and you will enhance all aspects of your life—relationships, business, career and finances.

“The amount of real learning that takes place is directly proportional to our ability to concentrate or focus our attention on any one thing for a period of time.” - Joel & Michelle Levey

Sample Chapters from the Concentration section of the IQ Mind Brain Library

Chapter One

How Does One Concentrate?


“Concentration is the master key to all success. It is the fundamental law of achievement. The man who does not concentrate will be either a half success, a mediocrity or a complete failure.” - Orison Swett Marden

    Your brain functions at four different wavelengths. Scientists call them:
·    Beta
·    Alpha
·    Theta
·    Delta
    And they measure them in CPS or Cycles per Second.

    At the Beta level, your brain is fully active. You are awake, alert, and fully in the moment—fifteen to forty cycles per second. This occurs when you are busiest, all pistons firing, wide awake and energetic, fully engaged in mental activities.
The Alpha wavelength is much slower at nine to fourteen cycles per second. This is considered a creative, thoughtful level. Sitting down and relaxing after working at a task puts the brain into this level.

    When your brain is at the Theta wavelength, at only four to seven cycles per second, you are in a meditative floating state just before you slip into a deep, deep sleep. How many times have you gotten a great idea or a solution to a problem just before you drifted off? Anytime you are doing small, repetitive actions, such as brushing your teeth, or shaving, your mind can slip into the theta stage. This is considered a highly creative level for your brain. Many creative types such as writers keep a pad and pencil near them at all times, to record these wonderfully creative moments.

    In the Delta state, your brain is only cycling from one point, five to four times per second, indicating an unconscious deep sleep. This is probably the only time your brain is reasonably still and quiet.

    So, while your brain may be in the active, Beta stage during the day, as you get ready for bed, it begins to cycle down to the relaxed, Alpha stage, then to the creative, Theta stage as you fall asleep and finally down to the restful, Delta stage, or a deep sleep.

    When you begin to awaken each morning, your brain will cycle through these stages in reverse, coming from the Delta stage and a deep sleep, up to Theta, into Alpha and finally, by the time your alarm goes off, your brain is back into the Beta stage and ready to be highly active again.

    Everyone needs to learn the ability to concentrate, to focus on a task, but that ability depends on a number of factors. For starters, your commitment to a project has a great influence on how well you concentrate on it. You know that a half-hearted attempt will not bring about a successful completion to that project.

The Focus Power Program is a self paced, facilitated program that gives you easy-to-follow instructions on how to test, measure, and improve your mental focus and concentration quickly and easily.
TOOLS FOR IMPROVING CONCENTRATION-CLICK HERE


If you’re enthusiastic about a project, it makes it so much easier to keep your mind on the task at hand. You’ve probably discovered that if it’s a task you enjoy, it’s easy to motivate yourself to not only start a project, but also follow it through to completion. It’s hard to focus on a job if you do not enjoy it. You have to want to do it, to be willing to start that project and be willing to do what it takes to finish it.
The skills that you bring to a task also influence your ability to concentrate. The more skilled you are, the easier it is to accomplish the task and the quicker you achieve results. Knowing how to do something increases your self-confidence. You may even find that your mind wanders when the task becomes automatic, rather than totally focused as you’re learning the skills.

Your emotional, physical, and psychological state has a huge influence on your ability to focus and concentrate on a particular task. If you find yourself distracted because you’re worried, or feeling ill or even just out of sorts, you’ll find it almost impossible to concentrate. Your mind constantly wanders away in search of the solution for whatever it is that’s bothering you.

Your environment also has so much to do with your ability to concentrate and see a project through to completion. Most people are highly affected by too much noise, or heat or cold, or uncomfortable surroundings; even other people can be distracting and stressful to you and your ability to focus. We’ll cover more of these external and internal distractions in the next chapter.

Four Elements of Concentration

You’ll find, when it comes to concentration, there are four elements that help to define it. These are the:
·    Width
·    Direction
·    Intensity
·    Duration

 The width of your attention has to do with the amount of information coming at you from all sources. That means that it can be a rather wide perspective, with a great deal of information directed at you, or simply a narrow perspective, where it’s just a limited amount, trying to get your attention. Being able to grasp a lot of information at the same time takes practice, and even more so to shift from a large amount to a small amount and back again. Learning to do this however, will help you to avoid the unimportant thoughts that everyone experiences all day every day, and really hone in on what’s important, to focus your thoughts.

The second component of attention is direction. This means how well you are able to filter information and events as they come at you. There are times when it’s just not possible to filter out all events changing around you. This too requires practice.
The third component, intensity, can vary from moment to moment. Concentration can go from very weak to incredibly intense, depending on the situation in which you find yourself. Again, it requires practice to go from weak attention to detail, to an intense, focused concentration.
The last component is the duration of your attention. It can go from brief to long, sustained intervals of time. Keep in mind that it’s not always possible to maintain long periods of intense, focused attention. In fact, the more intense the attention, the shorter the duration you can maintain it.
The length of a person’s attention span is on average between twenty and ninety minutes, depending of course, on the person’s interest in the subject at hand.
As early as 1890, William James had already formed a definition of attention. He said, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects of trains of thought: focalization, concentration of consciousness are its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”

    Since then, students, athletes, business men and women, psychologists, scientists, and researchers have used everything in their arsenals to increase their ability to focus their minds on the task at hand, whatever is relevant at that moment in time, to the exclusion of all else. Athletes, intent upon their sport, have to focus their mind and body, like a laser beam on the appropriate action, pushing everything else from their minds. Only by doing so will they win the game; no time to daydream here.

    In sports, as with other endeavors, the play changes by the second and athletes must be focused on what they are doing, fully aware and ready to spring into action, change course, and win the game. Nothing else is acceptable. There is no room in the sports arena for daydreamers. Athletes call this ability to hone in with laser-like ability being ‘in the zone.’

    Dr. Robert Nideffer, psychologist and founder of Enhanced Performance Systems has classified the two rudimentary categories of attention as internal and external. He describes internal attention as mentally projecting oneself into the proposed action, whatever problems might be encountered.

    External attention is, of course, what is going on around oneself. An example would be a member of a team, being constantly aware of where his/her teammates are at any given moment, as well as those on the opposing team.

    Athletes, probably better than anyone else, learn how to focus on the moment, to the exclusion of all else.

    How are we able to focus on and deal with all the information coming at us at once? Research shows that we deal with this information on two levels. One is simply automatic; we grab onto it without consciously thinking about it. This generally happens when we are performing tasks that we have learned over time and can do almost by rote.

    The second level we work at is called the controlled level. This is limited by the capacity of the brain to deal with all the information available to us. If we go beyond that capacity, our performance automatically declines. It is even possible to work on both levels at the same time, though of course, the automatic level works much faster than the controlled level.

The trick is to bring oneself to a state of awareness and energy, directed towards the desired goal. Some athletes or those involved in other types of contests might find themselves over-excited to the point of distraction. They experience nausea or nervousness, which naturally distracts them from their original focus.

You and Your Memory

“People remember ninety percent of what they do, seventy-five percent of what they see and twenty percent of what they hear.” - D. Ellis

The simple truth is that your learning ability has a huge impact on your quality of life. That means it can determine how you get on in your relationships, your career, your very success in this world. Everyone is constantly seeking any way they can find to improve their mental abilities.

According to scientists, the average person forgets eighty percent of what they learn within a twenty-four hour period. So, since memory is easily the most important of all the cognitive functions, it’s extremely important to do whatever you can to improve your memory, concentration, and ability for logical thinking.
Not being able to concentrate and focus on a project causes many problems, both in your career and in your personal life. Sometimes, it’s downright embarrassing when your mind wanders, preventing you from concentrating on a problem. You know other people are depending on you to focus long enough to come up with the solution, and you hate letting them down. Inability to concentrate can affect your school life, work life, and personal life.

Studying is so much easier when you’ve mastered the ability to focus on your schoolwork. Without the ability to concentrate, you can’t take advantage of the social or business opportunities that are available to you. You need the ability to focus on your goals and dreams.
Some of you may remember a television game show called “Concentration.” A giant game board held matching squares. Contestants would call out two squares, in the hope that they matched. Winners won prizes for remembering each matching pair. There are many games today for children based on this same format.

Visualization is an excellent memory tool. If you can imagine something in your mind, it’s much easier to remember it. Memory and concentration must go hand in hand. When you concentrate, you are mentally directing your thoughts towards a particular problem or activity. Your memory makes it possible to access the information you have accumulated through experiences you’ve had and people you’ve met.
While your brain hangs on to whatever you’ve learned, being able to access it becomes difficult sometimes. This is where the short-term memory and long-term memory come in. When it comes to testing situations, scientists have learned that the short-term memory is of little use, is ineffective, and does not respond well to stress. In stressful situations, the long-term memory is much more reliable, with the added bonus of having an unlimited capacity.

So how do we go about trying to move information from our short-term memory to our long-term memory? This takes time, energy, and a great deal of practice. Repetition may be necessary to build our understanding of the material. And remember that whatever you learned last is what you’ll remember best.
And this is where your conscious and subconscious mind comes in. Your conscious mind, or what constitutes about twelve percent of your mind, is what you use to consider your world and your needs, such as, “I must go to work, or pick up the children.” Your subconscious mind, or eighty-eight percent of your mind, is for storing your memories. This would involve knowing precisely where work is, how to get there, and at what time. The subconscious mind is also responsible for your beliefs and habits you’re not necessarily aware of, and how you feel about yourself.

When your conscious mind is functioning, you are able to think of as many as nine things at once. This is what makes concentration so difficult. Your subconscious is trying to multi-task, while your conscious mind is attempting to concentrate on one single thought or action.
It’s important to remember that using highly focused energy to concentrate on one important event or goal can change your whole world, and bring about anything you desire. The moment you concentrate on a goal, you begin to take steps to accomplish that goal. The more focused you become, the faster you will move towards completion of that goal.

The Focus Power Program is a self paced, facilitated program that gives you easy-to-follow instructions on how to test, measure, and improve your mental focus and concentration quickly and easily.
TOOLS FOR IMPROVING CONCENTRATION-CLICK HERE


Chapter Two

Concentration Inhibitors - What Keeps You From a Laser Like Focus?


“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire, not things we fear.” - Brian Tracy

There are many things that can keep you from being able to focus and concentrate on the matter at hand. These include, but are not limited to:
·    Distractions, both internal and external
·    Stress, worry and anxiety
·    Illness or personal disaster
·    Procrastination
·    Information Overload

Distractions

External distractions happen anywhere and everywhere, and everyone is prone to them. It can be anything from too much noise around you to the temperature being uncomfortable; too hot or too cold. It may sound silly, but physical discomfort has an impact on our ability to concentrate.
Students often find that noisy neighbors in their dormitories make it very difficult to focus on their school work. That all night party down the hall makes it almost impossible to think, let alone concentrate. Sometimes, something as simple as the incessant ringing of a telephone is enough to send you running for some quiet hideaway.

If noise makes you want to run away and hide, it’s time to find some quiet and solitude in order to study. If the dormitory is too noisy, try some study time in the school library. If you’re pulling an all-nighter and the library is not an option, you may have to resort to ear plugs for the silence you crave.
External distractions can be uncomfortable settings or inadequate lighting. It’s necessary to have conducive surroundings such as comfortable chairs, tables of the correct height for working, and good lighting. If you’re trying to study in an uncomfortable setting, with poor lighting, you’re more apt to develop back pain and eye strain, rather than concentrating on your studies.

So, let’s say you’ve found the perfect setting for your studies. It’s quiet and peaceful with no outside noises, the lighting is perfect, the seating is comfortable, and you’re ready to begin studying. What other distractions could possibly keep you from focusing and concentrating on what’s important to you?

That’s when the internal distractions raise their ugly little heads. You may decide that you’re hungry or tired. Or maybe you lack the motivation to stay with it; you’re bored to tears with the subject, or worse, it’s a subject you really have absolutely no interest in to begin with.

You could find yourself doing nothing but daydreaming, or feeling totally disorganized. Maybe you’re thinking, “I really should be cleaning up around here; this place is a mess.” Your job could be on your mind too; maybe you’re worrying you’ll lose your position and not be able to pay your bills. Worrying about what others are thinking is a common distraction too. “What if I can’t do this? What if I make mistakes? What if I’m too nervous?” All these things may be running through your head, totally distracting you from the important job of concentrating and focusing all your energy on the task.

Worse still, you may develop the nasty habit of negative thinking. That little voice in your head that tells you there’s no chance of success. What ever gave you the idea that you could accomplish something of this magnitude? You begin to dwell on your every little mistake, instead of looking forward and learning to correct those mistakes. Internal and external distractions are an inevitable part of life and it becomes a matter of how you’ll handle these annoyances and more importantly, how to stop them.
Sometimes, it’s as easy as that. You just tell yourself to stop right there and get a grip. Force yourself to stop thinking the negative thoughts and get back to the important task at hand. This takes practice of course, but is essential for concentration. If you don’t grab your attention immediately, you’ll find yourself caught up in the ‘mental leapfrog’ once again, your thoughts going round and round and your focus is out the window. Learning to refocus your attention may take some time, but it is well worth the effort.

Stress and Anxiety

In today’s world, stress and anxiety are also inevitable concentration breakers. It happens to everyone, at one point or another; and learning how to handle it can make or break your concentration.

Short-term stress such as a deadline often helps a person to really knuckle down to a task. You know you have a certain amount of time to accomplish something and focusing is both necessary and desirable in order to do so. When you reach that deadline, you can relax a while before the next one.

Long-term stress however, does not aid the concentration effort. The more stress you feel, the less able you are able to concentrate. When you become stressed, your body begins dumping chemicals into your brain to help you focus, and adrenaline into your bloodstream to keep you moving. In the beginning, this can be a good thing. It can keep you going when you need to solve a problem in the here and now. However, long-term stress starts to lessen your ability to concentrate. The brain has fired all the neurons it can, but it cannot continue to replenish the chemicals it requires long term.
The problem is the more stress you’re feeling, the more the need to concentrate to relieve the causes of the stress. It’s a merciless self-defeating cycle and can become damaging both mentally and physically in the long run.
What can you do to avoid this self-defeating cycle? Instead of saying over and over, “ I have to finish this right now, concentrate!” tell yourself it’s time for a little break. Take a walk, watch some television, take a nap, read something, or exercise. It’s important at this stage to clear your mind, get a fresh perspective on things.
If you’re at work and can’t take advantage of these stress relievers, try something simple, right there at your desk. Push yourself away from the work, get up and stretch, take some deep breaths, close your eyes and do some relaxation exercises, anything to take your mind from the problem, even for just a few minutes.
Illness and Personal Disaster

You can’t avoid these distractions forever. Everyone has to deal with illness and/or personal disaster at one point or another in their life. Simple illnesses that last only a few days make it very difficult to focus on what’s important. Serious illness can actually put everything else on hold for an indefinite amount of time. Focusing on studies or work while experiencing a migraine is one thing, but trying to focus while dealing with a life-threatening illness is something else again.
Small or large personal disasters can also make the aim of concentrating on what’s important extremely difficult. A breakup of your relationship can have dire consequences when it comes to being able to focus and concentrate at work or at school. Likewise, a death in the family, marriage, a new baby, changing jobs or locations all can have an impact on your ability to focus on whatever is important in your life at that moment.

Procrastination

R. D. Clyde said, “It’s amazing how long it takes to complete something we’re not working on.”
Unfortunately, this happens to us all. We intend to complete a project, but end up putting it off until tomorrow, or next week, or next month - anything to avoid doing it now. There are many reasons why we procrastinate.

Sometimes it’s because we don’t have a distinct goal in mind. If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, how will you know when you’ve hit it? If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived?
You might be procrastinating over a project because you don’t really enjoy it, or fear you’re not up to it and you won’t do a good job, so you just keep putting it off. This of course, makes it very difficult to concentrate on the project. We’ve already talked about how trying to force yourself to concentrate results in even less focus than ever. Therefore, you find yourself in a vicious cycle. Procrastination prohibits concentration, which produces guilt, causing you to avoid the problem some more. And there you are, procrastinating yet again.

Many times, procrastination is merely resentment against doing something you don’t really want to do. You know you have to do it and eventually you will do it, but in the meantime, you keep pushing it away. But it won’t go away and it will just keep pushing back until you sit down and finish the task.
It’s time for you to get down to the priorities and figure out exactly what you want. Set the goals, set up the plan to accomplish those goals, figure out the steps to achieve what you’ve set up for yourself, and then just go for it. Procrastination is usually the result of not enough planning. Get your plan firmly in your mind and procrastination will fade away.

Along the way, give yourself some motivation to keep going. Picture yourself at the end of the job, it’s finished and you’re proud of yourself. Give yourself a little reward when you do complete the project. The reward could be anything from a day off to read, or a short trip, depending on the size and length of the project. If you’ve been working on something for months, give yourself a nice weekend of rest and relaxation. Been working hard all week? Give yourself a fancy coffee and an hour all to yourself.

Are you procrastinating because the project is so big, so overwhelming, that you can’t even think about it without wanting to run away or faint? Instead of avoiding the problem, and watching it grow larger and larger, try breaking the job into smaller, more easily accomplished chunks. Then do just one section at a time, keeping your mind on that one section and not thinking about the rest until you finish the part you’re doing now. As you accomplish each section, pat yourself on the back, give yourself a little reward, and then get started on the next section, the next chunk of the project.
Another reason many people procrastinate is the desire to be perfect. Maybe you don’t want to start a job if you can’t do it perfectly, so you put it off, and put if off, until there’s no more time. Now you’re off the hook. You could have done a perfect job, but there was simply not enough time. It’s okay to be imperfect; we all are. We are, after all, only human, and that’s okay. Don’t push yourself to be something or do something that’s not possible.