Principle 11: Controlled Attention Part 2

Introduction

The eleventh principle of Napoleon Hill's 17 principles of success is Controlled Attention. Controlled attention is just like harnessing the power of horses. You might have heard about the carriage pulled by multiple horses during ancient wars. Each horse was full of strength and if all horses move in a different direction then that can harm the carriage but those horses were trained to run in the same direction to pull the carriage in a faster manner. If we focus on our definite major purpose then our life will become more meaningful. In our last article, we understood how controlled attention complements the other 4 success principles. Let’s see how it complements other success principles.

Controlled Attention and the Other Principles of Success

Personal Initiative: Take personal initiative and carve out your plans on paper. Take the help of your mastermind allies and check the soundness of the plans. Here controlled attention and personal initiative will give you fulfilling results as smooth implementation can be done after the soundness test.
Self-Discipline: Self-discipline can help us to divert our attention from negative things. Hence our emotional power is available for concentration on constructive targets. Our mind can be our greatest enemy or best friend. If we have self-discipline then our mind will become our greatest friend and then we can focus on our goals with controlled attention.
Creative Vision: Our imagination can be aligned with our goals after deciding on a definite major purpose. You will observe that wherever you are going, you are taking advantage of creative vision. You are finding different ways of taking the full benefit of the opportunity. This will happen on the back of our controlled attention.
Accurate Thinking: When we make our plan then we analyze the facts and figures. After finding everything fine, we move forward with the plan. As our plan shapes up, accurate thinking becomes extremely critical. Controlled attention sharpens our thinking process. 

Learning from Defeat: Controlled attention helps us to focus on the learning part of the defeat. Many people focus so much on the defeat that they don’t even try a second time. People with controlled attention learn from the defeat and try multiple times before achieving success.
Enthusiasm: Controlled attention to the benefits of the work will bring a wave of enthusiasm. The benefits may not be personal gains but they can be for the benefit of society. People with controlled attention will remain enthusiastic in every situation.
Attractive Personality: By having an attractive personality, you can wipe out the opposition as your enemies will become your friend. Controlled attention helps us to work with full discipline which is required to build a great personality. If we look at any CEO of a great company then we can find that they have a pleasing personality, they do not have frustrated nature. This is the major reason for their success. There might be very intelligent people in the workforce but stakeholders always select a person with an attractive personality for any top position.

Summary

Let’s focus our energy on what we want and not on unnecessary things. This is the best technique to handle any situation and a step towards self-improvement. This focus can be achieved with the help of controlled attention. Let’s devote our controlled attention towards our definite major purpose and achieve all successes of life.