Invest | Growth | Commitment

Last week, I shared the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a lightbulb moment: something we can all do and that is bigger than us. This week, I will talk about paying attention.

It amazes me that we can increase whatever we want in our life if we only remember to pay attention. I "pay" attention because I invest it into something.

This weekend, I was telling a very close friend that I went meatless for environmental reasons. He told me that he could not live without meat but loved the idea of contribution. He contributes but in a different way. He is now considering very carefully how he and his family of 3 consume. So much so that he uses very local fruit growers whom he knows, choosing seasonal and local fruit/veg. For example, he doesn’t eat avocado anymore as it comes from the other side of the world. Also, when he goes to the butcher, he brings his own box. All this attention on how he consumes results in his family of 4 having only 1 garbage bag every other week! As Greta said, last week, my friend changed the rules!

Anything you pay attention to expands. It grows (or decreases as above 😊) Pay attention to your house plants and they grow. Pay attention to your favourite sport, and your passion for that sport grows. Attention is like that. Anywhere you point it, the object of that attention grows, good or bad. Pay attention to your anxious thoughts and the anxiety will grow. Pay attention to your wealth or health and they will grow… Sounds magical right?

How much attention are you giving to your client/boss/work/ health cultivation? Really? Seriously? If you are being honest, how many conversations are you inviting people into if you want to grow your business? 

It started to really dawn on me that no business or practices are more complicated than my now-deceased house plant as far as attention and growth were concerned.

Question:

What can "paying more attention" or "invest your time/effort" do for you?