The Power of Attention

There were many things that grabbed my attention when reading chapter 2 of Houston and Sokolow’s Spritual Dimension of Leadership about The Principle of Attention.

·         “If you want something to thrive and grow, pay attention to it. On the other hand, if you want something to wither and diminish, don’t pay attention to it; intentionally ignore it.”

o   I feel as though I preach this, or a version of it, to my students…and myself…on a daily basis! I’m constantly reminding them to focus on what’s important, ignore what’s not. Is it a little problem or a big one? Little? Let it go. I, however, need to be sure to take my own advice. There are so many things that can grab hold, and keep hold, of our attention every minute of every day so I need to decipher what’s important enough to have your attention. What do I want to work on growing? What would be okay to let wither and diminish?

·         “When leaders pay attention to a person, a situation, or an issue, others start to pay attention to the same things, whether you want them to or not-therefore, you need to be mindful about what you pay attention to.”

o   I made a connection to this quote and certain behaviors in my classroom. My first year of teaching I felt the need to give my attention to every little behavior that was happening. I felt that if I let the little things go they’d ALWAYS turn into a major issue or distraction. However, every time I stopped teaching to give my attention to those behaviors, my students stopped thinking and turned their attention to the behavior as well. One thing ENVoY brought to my attention was the concept of addressing a behavior or distraction without giving much attention to it. This notion, a simple palm-faced-down towards the behavior occurring while still continuing to teach, has helped tremendously! I found that if I “ignored” the behavior, many of my students didn’t even realize it was occurring and it simply went away.

·         “Attention is the grounding. It’s a grounding in the now: being in a place and space in a coterminous way so that you are in the moment and therefore getting what each moment has to offer. Otherwise you have all these wonderful thoughts in your head but you’re mentally somewhere else; you’re not grounded.”

o   I need to make a conscious effort to improve on this. I constantly find my thoughts wandering when I should be engaged in a conversation with someone. I don’t do it to be rude but I feel as though I have so much going on it’s hard to curb those thoughts for later. However, the idea that I’m missing out on so many wonderful moments by not grounding myself in that situation is reason enough to push other thoughts aside and focus on the importance of the situation I’m in at that time.

·         “If you get caught up in the rat race, the rats win because you just don’t go anywhere with anything.” and later in the article they state “You don’t want to work harder, you want to work smarter.”

o   I feel these two quotes go hand in hand because I am absolutely one of those people who feels like a little rat on a wheel. I’m always working so hard to better my lessons and meet the needs of every student that I find myself spread way too thin and never really feeling like I’m making a huge impact. If I’m more intentional about a few areas to focus on I feel that I’ll get much further than if I try to better many little things. The concept of working smarter, not harder is one that my last year’s principal constantly reminded us of and, even though she’s not in our building anymore, it’s a concept I must continue to fall back on at work and in my graduate work this summer.

·         “The urgent tends to push out the important…there’s a real pinch between those two things because what’s urgent is not necessarily what’s important.”

o   I’d like to end on this quote as my goal this summer is to refocus on what’s important, not necessarily what’s urgent. Each day teachers are faced with many things that seem urgent and must be dealt with in the here in now. This is what causes some of our students to become “Cliffs or Cliffettes…” the urgent students overpower them. As I’m able to slow down a bit this summer I want to be sure that I’m giving more of my attention to the things that are truly important in my life…my “Cliffs” that have been void of my attention…that urgent stuff can wait.