Most people are familiar with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) but few are familiar with a condition that I call Attention Intensity Disorder. AID is what happens when you are so focused on an activity that the rest of the world disappears and you become a bit obsessed with completing that task.

As someone who is challenged with it’s opposite, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD,) it wasn’t hard for me to notice the difference between people with AID and myself. I’d work on a task, like writing, for 45 minutes and then I’d have to take a break. After a couple of hours of this effort, it was time to move onto a new project. Whereas the folks I know who have AID are just getting warmed up after 2 hours. They can stay focused on their work for another 3 or 4 hours, sometimes without even taking a break.

In The Resilience Advantage, I borrow a term from two of my teachers, Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, founders of Interplay — “the wisdom of the body.” This term suggests that each of us need to pay attention to how our own unique physical bodies operate. This could include what kinds of foods work best for our digestive system, what kinds of messages our emotional intelligence is conveying to us, or how our energy fuel cells drive our actions and productivity.

Each of us has our own style of how we get things done. We don’t want to allow ourselves to be distracted by what others say we “should do.” The key is to notice and honor what works best for you and find your own road to success.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2016