Fixation vs Focus

The overuse of a valuable tool

In one of my clients first coaching sessions, we unpacked a tendency they noticed in their mind: fixation on issues in business and life.

Their team would sometimes gently approach them to point out how they are fixating on something. Their spouse would confront them about it. They identified fixation as the “unhealthy extreme of focus."

Focus involves intention. Attention to detail. Care.

Fixation is almost addictive. Frantic energy. Unnecessary intensity.

As the Jewish proverb says: there is a time and place for everything. Fixation is impatient:

Charlie Mackesy, “Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm”

Fixation Hurts

How does fixation hurt your mind or relationships? Especially when it’s NOT necessary or helpful.

This client noticed how fixation drained energy, shortened relational fuses, and ultimately distracted from the big picture.

Part of our coaching journey was finding signs and triggers for fixation, and then generating solutions to snap out of it. This was over a year ago, but if I remember correctly, they put a journal in the car to simply write out all the elements on an issue they were fixating on.

Getting it out of mind and onto paper was a physical device for letting go. Putting words to feelings is actually a neurological strategy for interrupting dysregulation.

In writing it out, they might occasionally find items worth focusing on healthily, but often they found they should just let the issue go entirely.

The curse of High-Performers

All of my clients would be classified as high-performers. High-performers benefit greatly from coaching. One of the curses of high-performers is
our over-functioning is our super power.

Take focus and juice it up to fixation? Incredible sh|t gets done. It’s effective.

Unlearning these patterns takes time, intention, effort, and support—and it’s worth it. We find a healthier tension in our life, more margin for harmonious moments of peace and recharging, so when we show up with focus to address what is before us,

that focus is sharp. Sans fixation.

Appropriate energy that makes our lives better and cares better for those around us.

Maybe you don’t overuse focus and fixate, what is something you tend to overuse? How can you tone it back down to a healthy level as we approach the holiday months?

Today I close with a poem:

Figs from Thistles: First Fig
BY Edna St. Vincent Millay 

My candle burns at both ends; 
   It will not last the night; 
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— 
   It gives a lovely light!