We humans are obsessive creatures that have the need to fixate on things. WHAT we fixate on varies from person to person.
Some people fixate on their surrounding environment. They obsess about cleaning. Decorating. Making things perfect.
Some people fixate on what they look like. They exercise all the time. Plan their outfits. Invest in cosmetic procedures.
Some fixate on relationships.
Some fixate on work, on self-improvement, on helping their community. Others are fixed on creating drama, their social life, or chasing sexual conquests.
Pick your poison really. We all do it.
And our fixations can change over time. We may be fixated on our social status in our teens, then fall in love and fixate on our lover, then fall out of love and fixate on succeeding in our career.
The point is, we all have a tendency to focus too heavily on one aspect of our lives at a time.
Balancing these fixations into the perfect proportions is tricky. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to accomplish this. I’ve never felt I was really free of one fixation or another. Or if I have, it’s only been for tiny, fleeting periods of time. After that, either my monkey brain pulls me back into obsession, or life does. On some level, it seems my mind doesn’t allow me to be free of these obsessions.
When I look around me, I realize other people are much the same. We all struggle with some fixation or another. In spite of our best intentions.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that fixation seems to be natural. It seems to be hard-wired into our systems somehow.
So if our fixation is unavoidable, we can at least try to stack the deck in our favour. We can try to be purposeful in WHAT we fixate on.
If we can train our minds to obsess on things of importance to us, that level of extreme focus can yield very profitable results.
We just have to be mindful that what we are fixating on is in the direction we want to be growing. That way our fixations can work for us, not against us.
Leah Johnston's Blog 