Welcome to Focus-Zone Strategies for Work, Home, and School
Spring, 2007

If you’re receiving this newsletter, it’s because you signed up at Fearless Focus (my website since 1999), probably after reading my first book, Dreamers, Discoverers, & Dynamos (formerly titled The Edison Trait).
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Your Focus Zone

Recently, I moved to YourFocusZone.com, where you'll find new, free articles and helpful resources.
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One Good Idea

We live in a fast-paced world full of new information and opportunities to learn. My goal is to send you a concise, relevant newsletter, focused on a single new strategy you can use right away. To ask a question, present a problem, or request a topic for a future issue, send me an email. Today, let’s look at one small change that can make a big difference: how to counter critical self-talk.
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The 80/20 Rule

In Dreamers, Discoverers, & Dynamos (formerly titled The Edison Trait), I asked parents and teachers to watch what they say to children, and to aim for an 80:20 ratio of encouraging remarks to criticisms. I offered this suggestion, which many readers found particularly helpful:

Listen to yourself talk. Every time you correct or nag your child, turn your ring around one-half turn on your finger. Keep it turned around until you've made four positive comments. Or slip your watch off one wrist and onto the other. Keep it there until you've observed four good things.
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Not Just for Kids

Appreciative words help adults to be more successful too. If you're too hard on yourself, you disrupt your ability to stay focused and move forward. You kill your motivation when the voice inside your head hammers you with a list of “shoulds”:

• I should have started sooner
• I should work faster than this.
• I should have known better.

A nagging inner-critic pushes you away from your goals.

Apply the 80/20 rule to self-talk. When you’re down on yourself, turn your ring around until you create four positive self-statements. Put your watch on your other wrist, until you counter the “what’s-wrong-with-me” voice with four facts about what’s right with you.
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Choose: Self-Criticism or Self-Coaching?

When you feel pummeled by the shoulds, fight back! Create encouraging self-talk and stand up for your hard-working self:

• Good for me. I’m getting this done now.
• Speed is good, but so is accuracy. i like the fact that I keep both in mind.
• I’m a good learner and I'll make the most of what I just realized.
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Self-Talk Works!

In the words of the poet, Kahil Gibran, "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution." Be kind to yourself, especially when you're frustrated or caught in self-blame.

Specific, constructive self-talk is one of many cognitive strategies to help you sharpen your focus. I've compiled more cognitive strategies in Find Your Focus Zone. I wrote this book to share with you the methods that have resulted in success for the people I've seen in my thirty years of practice.
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Announcing: Find Your Focus Zone

I’m pleased and excited to announce that on June 26, Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload (published by New Press / Simon & Schuster) will be in bookstores everywhere. Would you like a sneak preview? Read its table of contents and chapter one at www.yourfocuszone.com.
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Until Next Time

Thanks for your attention!
Dr. Lucy Jo Palladino

www.yourfocuszone.com