In a post last week, Commitment, on anniversary eve, I had written:

The power of commitment resides in the quality of attention.
What I attend is what I am committed to.
I am committed to what I direct and rest my attention on.

It feels harder and harder to rest in or on anything these days. We have teams and legions of marketing experts vying for our attention and I notice that my attention becomes more and more fragmented no matter how often I “opt out.”

Yet I remain committed to resting, to expanding and resting my attention in a conscious way. What does this mean?

Whether at home or engaged in work, have you ever been interrupted from a focused task, and the interruption is equally or more demanding, but you know you must stop and let go of the work and turn your attention to the next task at hand? This can be very difficult to do – we resist the transition, resent the interruptor. With a stance of resting, we are more at ease in our changeability, we are accessible to new information and agile in our strategies.

Resting our attention is a landing place, it is why a values-based leadership and way of life is so strengthening and relaxing at the same time. The values themselves direct the attention, so we can rest there. We do not have to force a solution or focus in a hard way; attention can rest there, on what matters, on stated priorities, and in that relaxed state we are actually more nimble in whatever changes arise, more flexible and more available, shifting our attention with ease. These are some of the qualities of the twenty-first century leader.