Yes, I bought a motorbike.

Cliché? Maybe a little.

So, as this was completely new for me, I acquired safety gear and began taking classes. I studied the biker’s rules of the road. I learned all about the importance of situational awareness and anticipation, always expecting the unexpected - something I was already very familiar with, given my background in aviation. By the time I got out onto the road, I thought I knew what to expect from this experience.

But, as it so often turns out, I had more lessons to learn.

The first thing I was told, and that I saw confirmed every time I rode my motorbike, was something I would call The Golden Rule of Riding:

Where focus goes, energy flows.

Whenever I’d allow my eyes to drift in a certain direction, my bike would follow, especially at low speed. It was an amazing sense of biofeedback, experiencing the effects of my focused attention, or lack thereof, in real-time. The consequences were so immediate, I couldn’t help but keep my sense attuned straight to the road ahead.

This got me thinking about the importance of focus and guided attention in other areas of life. About the consequences of distraction and drift, both in work and private life.

Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, Daniel Kahneman, has a profound saying that he repeats in his bestselling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:

“What I see is all there is.”

Dr. Kahneman goes on to say that our lives tend to be determined by what we keep in front of us. In today’s incredibly frenetic world, it is hard to keep focused on anything. If we do not ‘keep it in front of us’, it just gets lost in all the noise!

Many books and coaches talk about time management, resource management, stress management. But I’ve grown to understand that managing your attention, consciously directing your focus, is the key to both happiness and productivity.

If you don’t manage your attention, it will be managed for you.

Everyone and everything is demanding for your attention. The media, your bosses and co-workers, your family and friends, your government, your social media, every advertisement you hear or see. The demands are endless.

If these influences are allowed to grab and hold your attention, they’ll eventually dictate what you ‘keep in front of you’. By consciously choosing where and how to place your focus, you maintain control over who and what you value - and where you will go. And by making that choice, you also choose to ignore all the other noise being made by this attention-seeking world.

One falling tree makes more noise than a whole growing forest.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. The human brain has what is often called a Negative Bias. This bias makes sure that our attention is directed towards the more potentially harmful or threatening things going on around us. In a very real way, it’s a function of our survival instincts. For most of human history, this negative bias has kept us alive.

Negative bias allowed our ancestors to survive wars and hunts and great hunger. Negative bias allows me to react immediately when a car swerves into my lane, or a slick patch of oil on the pavement tests my balance.

But there is much more to life than mere survival. We are fortunate to live in a time when the joy of living can be experienced and explored. So, how do we better “see the forest for the trees”?

A good word to express the conscious direction of focus is concentration. It is a skill that can be practiced, an edge that can be sharpened and honed, especially in these times of continuous partial attention.

When you get ready for bed, what are you thinking about? What most often runs through your head? Is it the 27 things you accomplished today? The 18 things that went right for you? Likely, it’s the one or two things that went astray. That one task you just couldn’t get done. The one falling tree.

To combat this negative bias, take 10 minutes and make a conscious effort to focus your attention on what went well that day. What are you happy about? What did you do well and get done? And any time your mind tries to give these thoughts a negative slant, concentrate and bring your mind back to a positive consideration.

It’s like that old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

Practice, practice, practice.

Concentrate on what you can control.

Another way to combat negative bias is to consider your Circle of Influence. It’s a very simple standard that many are not even aware of. You’ve certainly heard something like it before. It’s even become a common prayer:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

A human tendency is to often give too much attention, time, and energy to things that are completely outside our control, getting stuck in resistance against them. This can be exhausting and draining … while at the same time feeling strangely comforting: If our focus is on everything we cannot change, we are relieved from the burden of having to do anything about it. Suddenly, we are victims of circumstance. Sympathy for our ‘situation’ comes from both within and without. The ego is nurtured by the attention it receives.

It’s a dark turn, isn’t it?

The solution simple, yet often not so easy: Choose to radically accept and let go of what you cannot change or control, and direct all of your attention and energy towards that which you can. And what, exactly, can you influence and control?

1. What you focus on
2. The meaning you give to the situation
3. How you will respond to it

Always forward.

As I ride, I continue to discover and connect to so many profound insights that relate to life in general. About how balance and stability are a function of momentum and forward motion. About how, if you focus on the obstacle you will almost certainly hit the obstacle (don’t worry, this is not a lesson I have experienced firsthand).

Every day I get out on the road, my concentration is just a little sharper, my focus is just a little more disciplined, my attention turned gently but firmly towards only that which keeps me moving in the right direction, towards where I want to go

As the seasons change and I prepare to stow my bike away for the winter, I know that these lessons will stay with me. And when spring comes around, I trust that my attention and focus will be just as strong as it is today.

After all, as the saying goes, it’s just like riding a bike.