Many of us are familiar with the idea of the Law of Attraction. But to ask a famous question, 'Why is it so?' Dr Peter Dingle suggests it's all about where we choose to put our focus and how we go about doing it.

Many people focus on the minutiae of life and as a result get the minutiae of life. Learn to focus on the important things in your life based on your values and then your big picture and everything else, including happiness, will come.

The busyness in our lives has created a sense of distraction and difficulty maintaining focus and attention. Society now demands that we have multiple tasks often with competing and conflicting interests and we take pride in our ability to multi-task and wear it as our badge of courage. As a result of these demands, our brains attempt to adapt by rapidly shifting attention from one activity to another, creating an almost pathologically short attention span.
When we do work we create energy, like a fire. A log burning on the ground sends heat and energy off in all directions depending upon the various winds and eddies. It is a bit like most people's lives, going off in many directions at once and not warming anyone. When you put it in an efficient structure, like a fireplace, it not only gets the smoke out of your eyes, but it focuses the heat and warms you.

The brain of modern Homo sapiens reached its capacity around 200,000 years ago and has changed very little since, and certainly not in the past 20 years. Research shows that speed and accuracy are often at cross purposes in the human brain. Beyond a certain speed of visual or auditory information input, memory becomes increasingly poorer compared to straightforward presentations of the same information. Our brain is being forced to manage increasing amounts of information in shorter and shorter time intervals. To cope with this, the brain must restructure itself causing changes in its functioning. As a result, we often cannot exert control over our brain states, as experienced by people trying to quiet their minds during sleep or meditation. In the age of the four second media bite, instant gratification and busyness help create the adult version of social ADHD.

Multi-tasking experiments have shown that not only do people perform worse on all the projects on which they multi-task, but also it also wastes valuable mental time and energy (Restak 2002). Despite all the myths, humans (including the female of the species) can only focus on one thing at a time. Doing two or more tasks splits that focus along with decreasing efficiency and effectiveness. With each shift in attention, our frontal lobes shift goals and activate new rules of operation. The amount of time lost during the brain's switching between tasks is dependent upon the complexity and number of tasks. With more complex tasks comes slower switching time. Hence the increase in road accidents through using mobile phones while driving. Research on mobile phones has found that even hands-free phones significantly reduce the reaction time in simulation exercises.

As an example of the complexity of multi-tasking, sit on a chair and rotate your feet in a clockwise motion. Then take your right hand and draw a big figure 6 in the air. You cannot do both things at the same time. Automatically, your right leg stops circling or rotates the other way, in the same direction as the number six you just made (interesting eh).

In a series of tests carried out at the University of London, an average worker's functioning IQ fell 10 points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming emails. This drop in IQ is more than double the four point drop seen following studies on the impact of smoking marijuana. In one experiment, a 29 per cent reduction in brain activity occurred in subjects who were mentally rotating tasks. In another experiment, volunteers took longer to do the same tasks if they mentally rotated between them compared to when they focused on each task individually until it was complete. In experiments when animals are taught to focus on one thing, a particular circuitry fires. When they are distracted by something else, the level of firing on the original circuitry is diminished. Just like humans, they lose focus. The more interested you are and the more your attention is captured on a particular task, the more activated is the related mental circuitry.

These and many other experiments have led us to believe that despite what we want to think, our brain can only focus on one task at a time. Multi-tasking is inefficient. The only exceptions to this are tasks that appear to use totally different parts of the brain, such as doodling while listening to someone, and unless it is on the phone this is just pure rudeness.

The fact remains that our mind has not caught up with our technology. We now live in a world very different from the one our mind was designed to inhabit and the conflict is confusing our mind and slowly killing us. Not only can we not focus, but even when we can, we are not focusing on what we should be. Focus does not happen without our intention and motivation - it takes effort and it also takes know how.

The most important first step is to focus on the right thing. Focus on what you want - not what you don't want. You will get what you focus on, so if you focus on the negative aspects of your life you will get them. The more you talk about lack, the more you attract it. Shift to having, not missing. When you focus on the positive - on real solutions - you get things done; you do things differently. This is called the Law of Attraction.

Many years ago I took a few friends of mine skiing. They were all novices so after a few hours getting used to the skis we went up the first "kiddies' slope" at the top. The first person looked down this very mild slope and saw one lonely tree in the middle. There were at least 50 metres of open space on either side. But this friend said, "I don't want to hit that tree" and despite all her best efforts, she managed to miss all the open space and hit the tree. Fortunately, she was going very slowly and she was already on her backside 20 meters before the collision. I have no doubt that she hit the tree because she focused on it. You literally attract what you focus on.

Another example of this you can see for yourself and that has immediate results is your mood. If you focus on negative thoughts, you instantly change your mood. When you focus on being depressed, you not only begin to feel depressed but you also notice more depression around you. If you focus on happiness, you not only feel happier but you also notice more happiness around you. In one study, people were asked to focus on some sad childhood memories and when asked to identify situations in a group of photos they selected negative aspects of the photos compared to a control group. Similarly, another group shown negative videos reported more negative childhood memories than a control group. This is called mood congruence and you literally feel the way you are focusing. On the other hand, if you want to feel happy focus on some happy events and immediately your mood will begin to change.
Einstein's laws of relativity were not discovered by focusing on still objects. Instead, he imagined travelling at the speed of light. Flight was not found by focusing on objects on the ground. How to be healthy will not be discovered by focusing on illness like most of modern medicine- but focusing on being healthy and acquiring the tools to get there will succeed.

This is why the past 50 years of psychotherapy, where many practitioners made the clients focus on their negative states, has done so much harm to so many people. I know too many people who have been crushed by psychotherapists continually encouraging them to relive the nightmares of the past. The science shows that these techniques do not work. Focus on the positive; focus on the present. This is also not to advise that you live in a dreamy world where you try to make everything positive; just don't put all your attention on the negative.
A number of motivational or health programs fail because they create negative goals, for example, in the process of weight loss. To lose weight implies that there is something that you have to stop doing, something you have to give up. Similarly, with the Quit campaign where you have to give up smoking, the focus is on the negative. Both of these programs could quite as easily be called the "Gain Life" program or "Get Health" program or "Live Longer" program, focusing on positive rather than negative choices. This approach would also build positive steps into the programs such as short exercise, relationship building, social events and then taking the negative things out - that is, moving away from the negative. Without having the right focus it is likely that the programs will ultimately fail.
We are what we ask

One of the most effective ways of focusing thoughts is by using questions. Humans evolved with questions; in fact, it is our questioning minds that have taken us so far so fast. Questions tap into the sub-conscious and super-conscious minds. Our mind is continually asking questions (but not necessarily the right type of questions) in an attempt to further our survival. A two year old just asks questions: "Why, Mummy?" and "Why, Daddy?" This is their way of coming to grips with the world, finding out how it works and where they fit into it. At home, school and university, as well as in the workplace, we often condition people to stop asking questions. Once we stop asking questions, we stop growing. Change this because the only way to learn is by asking questions. Einstein knew this, and so should you.

Questions not only help us make sense of the world around us but also provide direction to our mind. The part of the mind that frames the questions is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is like the orchestra conductor - it literally tries to direct the rest of the mind. One way it does this is by framing questions. An example of this is when you meet someone you know but can't recall her name, and you repeatedly ask yourself, "What's her name?" Usually, somewhere from five seconds to five hours later, you recall her name. The prefrontal cortex created the question and directed it to the rest of the mind. It then went about answering the question behind the scenes but always working until the answer was found.

Your mind is a little like an iceberg. At the top and above the surface is your conscious mind, directed and often dominated by your prefrontal cortex. Below it is the majority of your brain capacity, the sub-conscious and super-conscious that are always working behind the scenes. Yet at school and university we often teach people to focus only on the tip of the iceberg - the conscious thinking mind, the modern busy mind.

We also often learn early on in life to use the wrong types of questions like, "Why me?" and "What's wrong with me?" or "How come this always happens to me?" and so on. Your mind then goes on answering these and comes up with as many reasons as possible. If you want to be more negative ask these questions. If you want to keep procrastinating ask, "Why do I procrastinate so much?" If you want to keep a sloppy desk ask, "Why do I keep such a sloppy desk?" Whatever questions you ask, your mind will try to answer. Poor questions focus on the problem, not the solution, and don't help. Get the picture? You get what you focus on.

To tap into this ability you can learn to ask the right questions and to bring them into your control as questions that focus on solutions. Geniuses constantly ask questions. Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the greatest genius of all time, asked questions like "What would it be like to fly or to travel under the water?" Einstein asked great questions like "What would it be like to travel on a lightning bolt and what would I experience when I did?" All the great discoveries have come out of the minds of people asking questions and then, when they got their answers, they asked more questions to keep building on their mental scaffolding. The right questions create new possibilities and new futures.
All the top sports or business people have asked the right success questions. "How can I do better?" "How can I use that idea?" "How do I become more productive?" Ask questions on how to improve your life, relationships and work - how you can continually improve yourself. Ask questions to focus on the solutions, not problems.

Peter Dingle is Associate Professor in Health and the Environment at Murdoch University, Perth Western Australia