Where You Place Your Attention Matters

I keep returning to this idea, not because it feels finished, but because it keeps proving itself.

Where you place your attention matters.

Not as a slogan or a belief, but as a lived reality. Attention shapes what we notice, how we respond, and ultimately how we experience being alive. Most of the time, attention isn’t something we place deliberately — it’s pulled. By urgency. By habit. By noise. By the constant suggestion that something else deserves our focus more than what’s right in front of us.

Over time, that pulling becomes normal. We learn to live in a low-level state of readiness — not because danger is always present, but because our attention never truly settles. Life starts to feel like something to manage rather than something to experience.

This is where practice begins for me.

Practice isn’t about becoming calm all the time or withdrawing from the world. It’s about learning how to meet it. It’s about training where attention rests so that response is possible instead of reaction being automatic. That’s not philosophical to me — it’s practical. You either have access to choice in the moment, or you don’t.

There’s an irony in how this work shows up now.

I use the same platforms that fragment attention to invite people toward practices that rebuild it. I’m on my phone encouraging people to get out of their heads and back into their bodies. I don’t see this as a contradiction that needs resolving. I see it as the environment we’re in — and practice has always been about working with the conditions that exist, not the ones we wish for.

Because practice isn’t about being right. It’s about being honest.

Attention directs energy. Energy follows focus. What we consistently place our attention on becomes what we’re good at — whether we intend that or not. We practice impatience. We practice distraction. We practice bracing for what’s next. And then we wonder why life feels rushed, tense, or disconnected.

Practice gives us a way to notice that — and a way to change it.

The body is where this becomes real for me. Not as an object to perfect, but as a reference point that doesn’t lie. Breath, movement, posture, rest — these are immediate. They tell you how you’re actually doing, not how you think you should be doing. When attention returns there, thinking changes. Perspective widens. What some people call spirit, I experience as meaning — the sense of being here rather than constantly leaning into the future.

I don’t write this as someone who’s figured it out.

I lose my attention like anyone else. I place focus on things that don’t matter as much as I think they do. Sometimes what I’m practicing isn’t very good — at least not in the direction I want my life to go. Practice doesn’t prevent that. It requires me to see it. And to be willing to admit that what I’m doing might not be the best way — for me, right now.

That willingness matters.

You don’t get better at anything without practice. But you also don’t get better without questioning what “better” actually means to you — and being open to adjusting when your actions don’t match your intention. That’s not failure. That’s refinement.

This is why I say everything is practice.

How you breathe. 

How you move. 

How you think. 

How you rest. 

How you respond under pressure. 

How you treat yourself when you notice you’re off course.

All of it counts.

The best practice is the one you actually do. And sometimes the most important shift isn’t doing more — it’s doing something differently. Paying attention in a new place. Listening instead of forcing. Allowing change instead of resisting it.

This isn’t about rejecting the world as it is. Life doesn’t need to be slower or simpler to be meaningful. It needs to be met honestly. And where you place your attention determines whether you’re reacting out of habit or responding with care.

That’s the work I keep returning to. Not because it’s easy to explain, but because it’s useful. Because it helps people develop agency over their experience. Because it creates the conditions to show up more fully — in training, in conflict, in rest, and in everyday life.

Where you place your attention matters. And choosing to practice that — again and again — is how anything actually changes.