Focus and self control

Focus and self control is always deemed as the most important attribute a person can have, yet most people fail to explain how to achieve it and more importantly what it means.

When most people talk about focus, they speak in a sense of achieving a goal, and when talking about self control it's about keeping an arms distance from bad addictions and keeping their emotions in check. In my experience focus and self control play a much deeper role than that.

When I was younger, I used to lack focus and self control and always wanted to spend more time with my friends rather than at school or spending time at home studying. This majorly affected my performance in school. I could never complete a task when I started it as I would easily get distracted, lose my motivation and would often end up frustrated, flustered, over whelmed and stressed. My relatives always gave some advice to try help me focus such as, making a timetable or taking some medications to boost focus.

The most important advice I got was to try and make studying interesting and not only my academics but any task I wanted to complete, because I didn't inherently lack focus but rather I did not want to focus on something that I did not like doing. Once I started taking active interest in the subjects I was learning or the activity at hand I found that I could focus on them easily and this is where self control comes in, if focus lets us see a task through to the end, self control helps us start that task in the first place, helps us stick to our plan of action, remain calm when faced with difficulties during the completion and path to achievement of our goal, this can be the hardest step to take in doing anything whether it is something important or something very trivial. But once we are able to motivate ourselves into taking that step on our own it is a lot easier to focus on the task till the end.

Ways to boost focus:

• Take an active interest: Once you start taking actual interest in whatever task is at hand you will really see how easy it becomes to focus.
  
• Maintain a proper schedule: Having a proper schedule for our daily tasks can help our brain get in the proper flow to focus on certain tasks at given times.
• Taking breaks: Breaks are an important part of maintaining focus, even what we do in those breaks matters, the breaks in between tasks should be short and contain activities that don't pull our focus completely away from the task at hand. Break activities like watching tv and playing video games can be really counter productive to increasing focus.
• Exercise: Increased concentration is among the many benefits of regular exercise.Even a mere 10 minutes goes a long way.   
  

Ways to improve self control:

• Manage stress: Stress can cause a hindrance when trying to improve self control, too much stress can also lead to loss of focus and can cause mental strain leading to loss of motivation.
  
• Avoid temptation: We as humans can't always resist temptation, so the best way to improve self control is to avoid it completely, this leads to effortless self-control.
• Prioritizing: Having a list of priorities really helps, as it allows us to track our progress, and helps us feel more in control.  

Believe: Give yourself credit and believe that you can have control over your own emotions, body and mind.

Quick Tips:

• Meditation and exercise.
  
• Five minute walk.
• Yoga or short breathing exercise.
  
• Venting to friends, family and close ones.
• Creating to-do or goals list.
• Organization and  planning.
• Listening to soothing music (personal preferences).
• Journaling feelings.

In conclusion focus and self control play an important role and both go very hand in hand, self control allows us to start a task, stay motivated, remain calm and focus helps us finish the started task and achieve our end goal with perfection to the T.