The funny thing about this post is that only around 15% of the people reading this post will look through the whole post. Interesting, because the people that will click off this post are the ones that need this advice the most. If I was like most content creators in this niche, I would give you the top five tricks to never scroll again, and I would make this post really entertaining with fast-paced editing. We would leave this post feeling really motivated, but we would most likely not stop scrolling. We would actually leave the post being more addicted and even more drawn to our phone because that post would just further solidify our social media addiction.
The Impact of Scrolling
But this is not that type of post. We already know that scrolling shortens our attention span. It's the main reason why we can't sit down to be productive. The reason we find reading or working boring is probably not because the book you're reading is bad or the work we're doing is boring; it's because we have a short attention span, so we can't focus hard enough on the task at hand. We want to stop scrolling most likely because we have something more important that we want to get done. We want to be more focused when studying or working on our business project. And there's actually only one thing that we need to do to help us become more focused, and that thing is to increase our attention span.Increasing Our Attention Span
So how do we actually increase our attention span? Attention span is like a muscle, and similar to how we train our biceps to become bigger and stronger through repeatedly training it, we can do exactly the same thing with our attention. Every time we meditate, we go to the mental gym and do some bicep curls for our attention span. I've created this post as an exercise; just like meditation helps us increase our attention span, this post will try to do the same thing.Steps to Increase Attention Span:
1. Focus on the Post: After you've read this post, you will have done a few bicep curls for your brain. So don't do something else while reading this post. Don't scroll down to the comments; don't open up another tab. Put the post on full screen and focus all your attention on my words.2. Resist Distractions: Our lizard brain will try to tell us that we need to be somewhere else, that we need to read this other article, or we need to do this other thing. But don't listen to it. You don't need to be anywhere else but right here for the upcoming minutes.
3. Catch and Resist Urges: Have this in mind while reading the rest of the post. If you can catch your lizard brain telling you to click off, but you stay anyway, you will have done a few bicep curls for your attention span, and your focus will have improved.
Why Meditation Helps
You clicked on this post to regain your attention, and this is how. The people that will click off this post to read something more stimulating basically admit that they don't want to train their attention, which is okay. Except it makes them hypocrites because they clicked on a post titled "How to Actually Stop Scrolling" because they wanted to become more focused and clicked off to read something more stimulating. So don't be that type of person.Daily Meditation Practice
There's one thing that we can do every day for just a few minutes after we've woken up that will drastically increase our attention span and will, as a result, make us more focused individuals. That thing is meditation. Sit down comfortably in your room with no distractions and just focus on your breath. This is without a doubt the exercise our generation needs the most.Meditation Exercise:
Let's actually test this. For the next 30 seconds, just focus on your breath. Good job! You've just done a few bicep curls for your brain, which has improved your attention span a little bit further.Personal Experience
I remember when I first tested it around a year ago. I felt kind of weird about it because I thought that this was just something that only monks or yoga moms did. I didn't really get it. Then, when I understood the benefits of it and I saw why it actually would help me make more progress towards my goal of building a successful business, I started doing it daily for just 3 minutes at first, which was really hard. But then, quickly as I did it more and more, I became better at it. I started to increase the time from 3 minutes to 5 minutes, then from 5 minutes to 10 minutes, and now even 20 minutes where I just sit in my room with no stimulation, no music, nothing except just me focusing on my breath. As a result, it has helped me make huge progress towards my goal because now I'm able to actually sit down and work, which before I meditated was completely impossible.Conclusion
So start meditating. I know we may have preconceived ideas of meditation, but those are just doubts making our lizard brain stronger and stronger. Make the conscious decision right now to not listen to those thoughts. I recommend that you do this first thing in the morning, and you only have to do it for like 3 minutes to start seeing a difference in your focus. Don't listen to your brain telling you all the reasons why you can't. It's weird, it's cringe, or any other thoughts that you might be getting now. It's not weird and cringe to focus on improving yourself. It's necessary because this is the step in the right direction that will take you closer towards your goal of getting better grades, making more money, and being more productive.Experiment: Try this experiment today. Just meditate for 3 minutes every morning, and I can guarantee you that you will see a drastic improvement in your focus.
Good job! You've now finished this little meditation. Your mind may have wandered away thinking about something else during the post, but you've stayed. Maybe you think that you haven't done this in the right way or you've done something wrong during the post. You haven't. Trust me, whatever you thought about during this post doesn't matter. What matters is that you've stayed throughout the whole post and you've followed through on your promise, and that's what matters.
That's all I had to say in this post. I'm out.