From Inner Focus to Outer Focus

I am extremely self-reflective. You may notice I reflect about myself, society, and even the universe.

However, at certain points, I have created so many problems that self-reflection couldn’t fix them.

When you don’t know what path to go on in life, and you’ve had limited experiences, can just thinking it through truly solve this? Instead, you may need to seek out new experiences to learn more deeply what you truly want to do.

When you have constant troubles with your spouse or significant other and every day is like walking on eggshells, is self-reflection going to resolve these issues that have built up over the years? Instead, you may need to communicate more effectively.

When you are drowning in your own self-created misery, anxiety, depression, guilt, or whatever it may be, is thinking through the thoughts that created that misery going to help? Instead, you may need to find ways to get away from your own toxic thoughts and participate more fully in the real world - get physically active, spend time with friends, or take up a hobby.

The great challenge of helping yourself or even helping others is that there is no one solution that works in all cases. I am a great proponent of self-reflection and learning about ourselves. But sometimes, the solutions to life’s troubles don’t come from within.

Sometimes we have to pay attention to what is happening around us. We have to become more in tune with what is outside of us and beyond our own small corner of the universe.

Many of our self-created problems come from assuming that we are much more important than we are. In such cases, focusing more deeply on ourselves may create more problems rather than helping to resolve them.

There are two primary forms of focus that we can employ in this life. There is Inner Focus and Outer Focus.

Inner Focus

With inner focus, you are aware of your thoughts, problems, how everything affects you, and your feelings. This can be good so that you are aware and conscious of how you are living your life.

But if your inner focus becomes too powerful or extreme, this can become like a gaping black hole that sucks you deep into yourself, to the point that it becomes difficult to escape from yourself. You can reach a point where you are stuck in your own thoughts and feelings, unable to perceive anything beyond your own miseries and problems. This is clearly counterproductive.

The trick is to catch yourself sinking into yourself deeper and deeper like quicksand and to do something about it before you truly get stuck.

Outer Focus

With outer focus, we are attuned to what is going on around us. You can see the nature around you, whether people, birds, squirrels, insects, or even plants and trees. You wake up to the fact that there is so much going on all around you. Birds are feeding their young. Bees are pollinating the flowers. A child that scraped his knees is calling for his mother.

Despite that your mind focuses most of its energy on yourself, you are not the center of the universe.

In seeing deeply into what is happening around you, it helps to diffuse your own personal problems. The more your focus is on what is happening outside of you, the smaller you and your problems seem by comparison.

I used outer focus to overcome a great fear of mine. In graduate school (a decade ago), I needed to deliver presentations regularly. Usually, every month or two, I needed to do this. But I had stage fright. As a child, I sometimes skipped school on days when I was expected to present. As an adult, I realized that skipping out was not a real option. This would not help me or anyone.

In trying to overcome my fear of public speaking, I examined myself more and more closely. What will people think if I mess up? What if I forget what I wanted to say? What if I don’t know the answer to someone’s question? I could easily fail and look stupid, and people could laugh at me. To make matters worse, possibly, I was a fairly shy, quiet individual.

The way to resolve this thinking was so simple that I was surprised when I realized the solution. The solution was to put my focus on others, not on myself. If I’m about to present, and I think, “Don’t mess this up,” then this is setting things up horribly.

Of course, I learned my material and studied it carefully, and I practiced my presentations several times. But what truly made the difference was that I changed my frame of mind.

I stopped thinking about how I was going to look. I developed a mindset where I no longer cared about myself. I focused instead outwardly on helping others. I viewed my presentation as me teaching my classmates something new. I was there to help them understand a new topic. I wasn’t there to scrutinize my every thought and move. The more I focused outwardly, the better I was able to present. I became concerned with them and their learning process, not my own appearance. After a few presentations thinking in this way, I no longer feared it.

Self-reflection is a useful skill to have. We must be cautious because it can become a harmful habit if we reach the point of Self-obsession.

I have heard of some people who were very ill – they suffered daily with fragile health. They took medications or treatments that were so strong it left them feeling weak. Yet some of these people worked intensely and performed at such a high level that people were amazed at what they could accomplish - the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes to mind.

Some of the world’s highest performers have this figured out. It isn’t about themselves - it’s about what greater good they can do for others.

Perhaps we will surprise ourselves when we stop getting sucked into our own daily pains and problems and instead focus outside of ourselves on helping those around us and the solutions we can provide.

Today, open your eyes and truly see what is happening around you. Let go of the pains and problems within, and focus on what is happening outside of yourself, beyond your small corner of the universe.