The Mind: Focus and Consistency

People forget the power of the mind. They forget that to unlock these powers, you need to train yourself. They think that the way their minds work are forever locked into certain patterns, and that no amount of training can bring them out of it.

The two mind powers I use for minimalism are "focus" and "consistency."

Focus

When you are truly thinking about something, and it becomes you, everything else just drops away. This is the very core of minimalism. Your focus, your passion, your desire for this one thing is so strong that the rest of the fluff doesn't even enter the equation. You don't need the fluff. You barely even think about the fluff. So you remove it to get it out of the way.

Even if we're not as strong as the above paragraph would require us to be, we can get closer to this principle. If you love something, focus on it. If it doesn't bear the weight of your attention, then maybe it wasn't worth your time. But if you really do love it, you feel whole. You feel completed.

Focus can be achieved in a manner of ways. It can be practiced in everyday life. Live your life as a series of episodes, where you focus on your task and give everything as much attention as you can. Our society doesn't train us to do this - some aspects actively train you against it - so it may not come easily. Other methods include meditation (which beginners may want to seek professional help with) or a certain passion to unlock the mind (for me these are detailed in the "My Minimalism" blogs).

Consistency

Consistency can be seen as a sustained focus. If you draw your attention into a specific target and are rewarded with good feelings, maintaining that focus is key to keeping your mind at ease.

Focus isn't good enough by itself. We focus and then we lose the focus, and we wander off and forget what made our target so special. By turning our actions into habits, we can make the focus a part of us as opposed to something we do on and off - making the choices we make matter more than just a temporary whim.

If we're serious about making these changes in our lives, it's not enough to make a blog, post five entries to it, and then forget about the whole thing. You need the long-term focus to make any meaningful impact. Five minutes of minimalism now won't make any difference in five years.

Consistency can be achieved through writing, listening, self-examination, and even blogging.