After a ten year hiatus, I’m going back to yoga. Focusing is lot harder this time around, especially since I’m practicing at home, in the middle of my real life.  My child wants a glass of water. My dog licks my face. My wife wants to know where I put the  new towels and did I feed the goldfish? The Blackberry chimes.  I have to remind myself that I’m doing it to make an impact on my health and well being in the long term, and that momentary distractions are an opportunity to refocus.  Just stay on the mat, and get back on the mat again the next day. And the next.

I’m at my best working on long term, high impact HR projects. The thing about being in HR is that interruptions and distractions can eat up your entire day. A typical day in HR: an ex-husbandof an ex-employee gets his back up due to his lack of understanding of COBRA and his role in getting and keeping coverage. Someone else wants to know who’s going to clean up the watermelon on the table in the break room. A new hire didn’t pass his drug test and the manager wants to know if we can just get him tested again in a few weeks. A manager wants to complain about another manager rather than going to someone who can do something about it.   It’s so easy to begin to relate to people as distractions – no one is going to ask about the watermelon or the COBRA ex-husband, but they *are* going to want to know what HR accomplished for the entire company. (And why we can’t just blow off that bad drug test result.)

I dream of a magical day when I won’t have these distractions, but I find even when I do have a relatively interruption-free day, I now get in my own way. I’ve learned too well how to split my concentration. That’s a heavy e-mail day, or I make a lot of phone calls. But I want to get better at reclaiming my thinking, recovering from distractions much more quickly so that I can get back to the more strategic aspects of my work.

Like Amanda Hite over at Talent Revolution says, It’s all about Focus Control. This week that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Control, re-control, bring my focus back to center. Every time. Stay on the mat. And welcome the distractions as opportunities. Will you get back on the mat with me?