Whether it’s at work or in personal life, I can’t focus on or understand information people share with me.
Part of it is I’m so focused on myself formulating questions and answers to respond that I don’t listen – I get that.
But I notice that even when I try to give undivided attention – I still can’t follow the other person.
I’ll understand the first minute or so – but then my mind will trail off. I’ll suddenly think about lunch, that song from that TikTok video, that movie I saw last night, etc. The more I try to focus, the more I think about the distractions. It’s like a “don’t think of the pink elephant” scenario.
Anyone resonate with this and found some tricks to focus on someone and have an intelligent conversation with them?
2 comments
I’m from the acting world, so attention, focus, and listening is our bread and butter. In all honesty, everyone does what you do, just in differing amounts with varying levels of hiding it.
The trick is only to listen, suspend your self-perception (how you look, sound, do I respond in this way vs that) and place your full attention on the other person. When you wander, police your attention and direct it back to the other person. A lot of our media these days is so short form that we aren’t building a strong sense of focus on one thing for an extended period of time – but that’s really harmful and something that’s good to mitigate – so keep trying, and well done. Certainly isn’t easy 🙂
I’m still struggling with this. I have raging ADHD, so I suspect this is why. I approach it like I do meditation – when I feel my mind wandering, I redirect myself back to the conversation (I struggle with meditation too though, LOL).