Distractions - Why are we so distracted?

How often do you look at your phone when you are working, socializing, cooking, in the bathroom, etc.? How easily do you get side tracked when working on a particular project or the smallest of jobs?

You are distracted. We live in a world where distractions are optimized.

On the surface level, we may think/feel distractions are caused by all the stuff that are surrounding us: gadgets, social media, news, chatty co-workers, other dramas life brings about.

But in actuality, the issue is deeper.

Let’s dig in.

Why so distracted?

Can you think of one thing (some may have more than one) in your life that is not in balance? Like something you know you need to deal with it but have been putting it away. It could be anything like issues in your relationship, dealing with a difficult family/friend, long list of to dos you’ve been putting away for later, etc.

Now, what is something that you are doing very often that you know you shouldn’t be? Scrolling social media for hours, binge watching Netflix for hours, watching porn frequently, shopping for something even though you know you don’t need it, eating out a lot especially junk, etc.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Whatever you are dealing with in the first paragraph of this section, you are coping them with something in the second paragraph of this section. In other words, to avoid the pain in paragraph 1, you are looking for the pleasure in paragraph 2.

You are distracting yourself from the pain of having to do something you don’t want to with the momentary pleasure (the instant gratification - cheap dopamine) that you know is not good for the long run.

Gadgets, social media, internet, the digital world are not the culprits. As a matter of fact, humans used to get distracted all the time way before the world was taken over by tech products.

The opposite of distraction is: traction. In simple words, it implies your actions for something you want and need to do that takes you one step closer to your goals. When you have inner imbalances, you tend to be oblivious to your internal triggers. Triggers that put a mental blockade which narrows your vision & you either seek some instant dopamine releasing activities or do something else but working on the task at hand.

So instead of prioritizing your tasks towards working on your goals, you always find something that keeps you away from them, unless you have a medically diagnosed ADHD (for ADHD, you will need to be on medication otherwise it can have other implications). Then you blame everything external for not being able to stay focused.

While there are external triggers that may contribute towards getting distracted, they are only as powerful as you make them. Knowing something isn’t good for you at this very moment but not being able to fight the temptation is giving power to that external trigger.

Here’s an example.

If you are working on a fitness program and your exercise, diet & other habits are going well, then someone at home brings a dozen donuts (or something you love but you know it’s not good for you) and leaves them in front of you, how likely are you going to get tempted to grab one? You will have huge urges and may say screw it to the diet & fitness at this very moment. And this is how you give in. You know you have a fitness goal & you are working towards it (traction) but you couldn’t fight your temptation (cheap dopamine) hence you give up and eat one donut (distraction).

You got the point.

The struggle is real

Whether or not we like to hear it, we all get distracted here and there, some more than the others. However, it starts becoming a problem when it impacts our day to day lives, when we are more distracted everyday than we are not.

I used to get distracted quite a bit. I still do at times but they aren’t as impactful as in the past.

I have been able to get better and am still working on getting better at not getting distracted 1 % everyday.

There are a few internal triggers that I have identified within myself which leads to my distractions:

As I am a private person, oftentimes when I am working on something, I don’t like to tell the world until I have gotten some results.

I fear that my friends/family will find out about it before I would like them to know. Not that I need to keep anything a secret, it’s just the way I do things. I have the attitude of “work in private, let your results speak volumes” because I don’t see a point in talking about it beforehand. 

Studies show that when you tell someone you are going to do something or going to get certain results, you get the same dopamine hit as if you already did it or got the results. You may get motivated with that dopamine hit but soon that motivation wears off & you may not even start the work to begin with.

Feeling of time limit is one the major challenges I have dealt with as an adult. It always felt there was so much to do and so less time to do them all. I used to wish there were more than 24 hours in a day.

There were many reasons for this few being not properly planning my day, not having a task block for each task, no proper schedule other than for my full time job, not reflecting on what I was spending my time on everyday, etc.

Lack of clarity on what I was doing on a daily basis (outside of my 9-5) was the worst of all. Sure , there were days I planned for traveling, social events, talking to friends and family. But other than those, most of the things I was doing were based on what just came in my mind or sparked in my mind. Because of this, for the most part I wasn’t even sure what and why I was doing something. 

My mindset of something may/will go wrong kept me from doing things I wanted to do. Especially the things that had unknown results. Traveling to a totally new place by myself, asking that girl out for a date, overthinking on taking the courses that potentially would improve my life, etc. It  somehow sounds like pessimism but it wasn’t really exactly pessimism. I would still push myself to do these things but after over-analysis and over-cautiousness. Over analyzing and being too cautious can sometimes kill your enthusiasm.

It’s a blessing that I have identified the majority of my triggers which of course came with some work. It has helped me work on them and minimize their impact. Something you should start working on too: identify your triggers (I will give you actionable steps on doing that here in a minute.)

What next?

Once you’re able to identify your internal triggers, you will start getting clarity on areas you need improvement. You don’t have to have all the answers on the triggers but identify 1 of them at a time and work towards resolving it. Then you will identify something else along the way, you solve that and so on. After several practices, you will get a hang of it and then you rinse and repeat.

After sometime, as you sit down to reflect, you will be surprised how far you have come and the amount of progress you have made. Even though at the very moment you didn’t see much significance for the task at hand, over a period of time they compound and so do your efforts and results thereafter.

“Life is like a zoom lens, there are times when you have to zoom in to really focus on 1 thing while other times, you got to zoom out and see the big picture.”

Actionable steps to eliminate distraction

Now, here are the most awaited actionable steps you can implement in your own life.

This is not the ‘holy grail’ but it is rather a guide that will help you get started. Take this as a starting point and then build your own if you’d like.

• Take 30 minutes out of a busy schedule and sit down to brainstorm about what areas in your life you feel you are having issues with (You’d know this even if you haven’t ever talked about it to anyone yet).

• How do you feel about those areas and issues? What type of emotions do they trigger?

• Why do they trigger the emotions they are triggering?

• Are there people involved or is it just your thoughts? Even if you feel like there are people involved, are they REALLY involved or is it just your mind tricking you after an incident or 2? Let me elaborate this a bit further.

  For example, you encountered a situation where someone was rude to you. The rudeness was a bit more profound than on surface level. Even though you didn’t react there and then, your mind coped with it by internalizing it.

  Now what happens is every time you face that person or similar situation with someone else, your mind will react to it at a subconscious level to avoid the pain you went through.

  At this point, you have to look at this objectively. You could ask yourself ‘what did I do to get treated like this?’. You may find a surprising answer that you were oblivious to. However, even after analyzing the situation if you don’t really get an answer, that’s when you communicate with that person about the incident.

  Looking at things from another person’s perspective can help see things you hadn’t even imagined about (We all have our own world view). By communicating with the person involved you are not only dealing with the situation externally and internally but you are also working towards making your relationship better with that person. When you get the answer, if you realize you were oblivious to what you did, you get the opportunity to apologize and move on.

  On the other hand, that person may realize they were oblivious to something and reacted that way, they will apologize to you and it's a perfect opportunity for you to forgive and move on. In any case, by dealing with the situation you get to move on which is what you want.

• Even after you think you have let it go, do you find yourself dwelling on it at times? Pay attention, catch yourself when you are dwelling on it, shake it off and focus on the task at hand, be present.

  You may also want the type of emotion that comes out when you remember certain incidents. Is it making you angry, sad, worried, regretful? And why is it making what it is making you? You will have to work on that emotion: what is the objective usage of feeling this way? What value is it bringing to your life? If your answer is nothing or it is just causing misery, discard it immediately.

This is neither a set stone nor is it going to be linear. That’s what life is all about: you learn about a framework, work on implementing it, while working on it you start discovering new ways of doing things and then you create your own way of doing them. In other words, discovering!

Alright fam, I hope you got some value reading this. Hopefully you’ll be able to start implementing actions that can pinpoint your triggers and be mindful of how they are causing the distractions in your day-to-day life at a deeper level.

Thanks for reading.

I will see you in my next post!