“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” Gandhi
After a few weeks of vacation, I want to mention the importance of the transition from being outward-oriented to internal-oriented. I believe in, if we are happy, successful or wealthy in our lives, it is not a coincidence. All of these important results are due to our own choices. In my opinion, we are experiencing the consequences of our choices in this life. I sincerely believe in the importance of being internally focused.
Being externally oriented / externally focused can be defined as finding the causes of our lives in external factors. In the hard times, if you are looking for a reason outside of yourself, and if it can be defined as an excuse for your failure you might be an externally focused person. But don’t worry you are not alone, you are just like the majority of people. This attitude may apply to any subject. The fact that we perceive life internally or externally is important for the way we sense of life. If you are blaming traffic jam when you are late for a meeting (although this may be true from time to time for cities such as Istanbul, New York, London which are very intense and unpredictable metropolises), if you blame your boss at the workplace and your lover, your spouse or your parents in your private life, then most probably you are an external-oriented person. If you think that what is going to be disadvantageous when you are external oriented, let me explain;
In the most obvious way, when you are outward-oriented, you depend on other people to live your life as you wish. This attitude creates a dependency on your happiness, successfulness, wellbeing, and frankly, it imposes responsibility on other people in every possible matter and you become dependent on them. If what we want is not realized; it is a process that results in the presentation of other people as an excuse. You might say; “I’m in a tough situation, because of him/her. I’m telling you, this person is keeping me solving it. He’s ruining my life.” Maybe you can feel relaxed by accusing others, but you can’t solve the main problem. Another possible example; you might think “I accepted this job because of Julia’s advise. But everything is going wrong and she does nothing to help. I have begun to think that it was a mistake to believe her”. By thinking that way, it will make you sad and also it won’t help you to solve your problems. The important point we need to know here is once an idea has been accepted, it becomes our idea and it means the decision was made by ourselves! People who do not know this basic rule, continue to keep other people and also some events responsible for what they do or don’t do in their lives.
In today’s world, to exhibit a leading attitude towards events and to be proactive are important skills. In order to do this, it is important that we get our focus inwards. When we encounter a problem, we must stop and think again when we realize that we can list the reasons that can be seen as an excuse. Was it possible for us to intercept this to be the case? What do we need to solve the problem now? What can we infer from this experience and what can we benefit from our future? I believe that it is possible to find personal happiness as an internally focused person and carry it to other people’s lives. Feeling responsible for everything we do with good and bad will give us a great advantage in constitute our life as we want to create. And it will also help us make our relations with the people around us more healthy way. Unfortunately, I have bad news for you, as well as the process of creating a good attitude, changing our focus will also require hard work. You will have to spend a lot of effort in order to make a change in this subject, but believe me, it will be worth. When you find yourself in the outer focus, immediately ask questions to return to your inner self.
I would be grateful if you share your personal experiences with the benefits of being internally focused. Have a great week.