Your Attention Span

Your Attention Span

I learned a lesson from my little boy that I love to share with you.

My little boy is such a fine 4year old with lots of enthusiasm about almost everything; he wants to write, draw, discover new things, play and watch Nickelodeon all at the same time. On this day, he was trying to reassemble his scattered toy and he was at it for some minutes, trying to connect one part to another. As he was about getting it, another thing caught his attention, a piece of paper and pen, so he left his toy and moved to drawing with his new found writing tools. As I was still wondering why he left a toy he seemed so much interested in few minutes ago, I noticed he wasn’t even drawing again, now he was face fixed on SpongeBob on Nickelodeon. I just smiled and said to myself, “he still has short attention span”. Then it hit me, it might be excusable for my little boy but then some adults still suffer from this, especially with their dreams.

The average human attention span was 12 seconds in 2000 and 8 seconds in 2013. A drop of 33%. The scary part is that the attention span of a goldfish was 9 seconds, almost 13% more than us humans. That’s why it’s getting tougher by the day to get people to turn the page. – Ashwin Sanghi

Having so many talents and energy is a very good thing, in fact I love multitalented people but I have also noticed that most multitalented people are as confused as my little boy. Get this, being able to do so many things or being enthusiastic about different things is not a bad thing in itself, but not being able to see one thing through before jumping to another is dangerous. Going back to my little boy, he attempted about 3 things in less than 15minutes and he still didn’t achieve anything. Does this sound like you?

Short attention span has robbed many of the glory they seek; as they are working on one project, they jump to another and before they can achieve anything meaningful they hump on to another. The truth is, getting something done requires that we give that thing most, if not all of our attention. Most of us, myself inclusive, are guilty of this, once we try once or twice we abandon it and move to another thing, and before the turn of the year we would have tried more things than can be counted with the fingers, while if we had stayed with one idea, try and try and try till it starts working by the same turn of the year we would have gone really far.

Whatever you want to do, whatever is placed in your heart, whatever you are so convinced is your way, do everything within your means to follow it through. – Selahsomeone

Take for instance, today we want to do music, tomorrow we want to do modelling and before that could click we are thinking of going into branding business and so on, and at the end of the day we realize we have achieved nothing but pieces of dreams that can’t be put together. Understand this, having many streams of income presupposes that you establish one stream before moving unto another, not that you do one half way, then you jump to another.

Whatever you want to do, whatever is placed in your heart, whatever you are so convinced is your way, do everything within your means to follow it through. Yes! There will be hitches, hurdles and even mountains to climb but none would be enduring if you are persistent consistently. You will be tempted to quit and try something else but as the saying goes quitters don’t win. If you quit this now for something else, then soon you will quit that something else for another thing the moment you are faced with challenges. Even though we see ourselves doing so much, it is wiser to do things one at a time or at most combining two things that we can work together. Let’s look at people who have made impact, most of them are known for one or two achievements. You see, it is always easier to run faster when your load is light.

Be resolute in your approach, work on your attention span, be as excited as you were at the beginning even at the crises middle up till you start seeing results. Good ideas might get you started but without consistency and daily renewed passion, good ideas won’t translate to success. Focus on what you know you are best at and give it all your attention, don’t quit because the results are taking too long to come and say you want to try something else, be diligent, be persistent and be consistent, and when you become fully established in that thing you are best at, you can now bring in your other talents to support it.