How to Use Strategic Ignorance to Increase Focus and Win in Life

Do you feel discouraged, distracted, or disheartened and can’t seem to get your life back on track? If so, I have a strategy to help you quickly achieve more focus and increased success. It involves ignorance. Not just any ‘ole ignorance, it takes strategic ignorance.

Focus and win

Fools will believe anything, but the wise think about what they do. (Proverbs 14:15, NCV)

2020 has been a tough year, right? The toll of negative news, the vitriolic election, the global pandemic, and the free-falling economy wreak daily havoc on your psyche and focus.

Every day outside forces fight for your attention, attempt to direct your thinking, incite your emotions, and influence your behavior. Like a disruptive enemy, upsetting information shows up in what you read, watch, and listen to. The enemy infiltrates its way into your conversations with friends and family and in water-cooler talk with your co-workers.

If you’re not careful, you’ll spend more time doom scrolling, unable to pursue the life you want.

But here’s the good news — although you can’t control the world’s events, you can manage your focus. Read on, and I’ll tell you how.

Two keys to strategic ignorance

Strategic ignorance — Purposefully ignoring those things that distract you from your future self. (Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D.)

When organizational psychologist Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D., defined strategic ignorance in his book Personality Isn’t Permanent, I shouted out loud, “I’m already doing that!” I just didn’t have a fancy name for it.

You may be asking, what’s so strategic about ignorance?!

Well, strategic ignorance is when you only focus on information or activities that align with (1) what you can influence AND (2) what you want for your life.

Here’s how I successfully applied the two principles of strategic ignorance in 2020.

Focus on what you can influence

If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. (Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts — Becoming the Person You Want to Be)

At the beginning of the pandemic, I strategically decided to reduce my exposure, not only to the virus but to all the negative triggers I couldn’t influence. So, did I spend time reading, watching, listening to, and thinking about Covid case counts rising? No. Toilet paper shortages? No. Anarchists taking cities hostage? No. National monuments destroyed? No. Unemployment skyrocketing? No. Political finger-pointing? No.

Could I influence any of these events? No!

As a result,

• I didn’t discuss these topics
• I didn’t argue about these topics
• I didn’t ruminate over these topics
• I didn’t worry about these topics

Don’t get me wrong, I knew these events were happening; I didn’t shut myself off from the world. But strategic ignorance puts a limiter on the SITUATIONS that eat up your day:

• The people you talk to
• The media you watch
• The podcasts you listen to
• The social media influencers you follow
• The newspapers you skim
• The books you read
• The blogs you enjoy

Everything that seeks to steal your attention. Know this,

You will never achieve what you want if you let the world tell you what to worry and what to think about.

Focus on what you want to achieve

Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal it is hard to score. (Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be)

Starting in March 2020, I focused heavily on what Dr. Benjamin Hardy calls your “future self.” Your future self is the person you WANT to be in the future. It’s the narrative, the identity, the person you want to be in one year, five years, and ten years down the road.

I’m not going to tell you how to create your future self; that’s a topic for another day. But I will tell you why this concept is closely tied to mental focus.

When you have goals, objectives, and a future vision that excites you, then you’ll be motivated to turn your back on everything that’s holding you back! The next step is to courageously cut, prune, and weed out those activities that don’t move you towards your future self.

Cutting yourself out of certain situations is the hard part because it involves making choices, changing behavior, and having uncomfortable interactions with friends, family, and co-workers.

On this point, I’ll offer one suggestion. If someone begins to engage in a time defeating conversation, say, I’ve been so goal-focused lately, and it’s really paying-off; I just don’t have time to direct my energy toward anything that distracts me. And then politely re-direct the conversation. If the person doesn’t get the hint, politely end the conversation and move on.

I can tell you with confidence that strategic ignorance works. I am a living testimony to this strategy because, despite all the terrible things that happened in 2020, I have:

• Earned more money in my business
• Closed several complicated business deals
• Started a new line of business
• Deepened personal relationships with clients and investors
• Increased my charitable giving
• Built upon a healthy marriage
• Solved health crises for family members
• Built relationships with distant family members
• Volunteered more of my time
• Prayed for more people
• Increased my leisure time
• Read more books
• Wrote more blog posts
• Ran more miles
• Swam more laps
• Did more yoga
• Made new friends

I accomplished all this and much more in the first ten months of 2020! I say this not to brag but to reaffirm that my success was only possible because I focused on what I could control and what I wanted to achieve. Strategic ignorance was the key.

Focus on you

You control your future by selectively choosing the situations and environments in which you operate. If you relegate this critical decision to others, you will never be all you want to be. What you let into your mind and what you focus on determines your results.

I am confident that once you employ strategic ignorance, you will put first things first. You’ll stop spending time on low-level experiences that rob you of the future you want.

In closing, remember this:

What gets your attention, gets you.

Be Wise and Successful

1. How do you spend your time? Tomorrow, keep track of how much time you spend in the personal situations I identify above. Multiply this time by 365 to estimate how much of your year is under the influence of others.
2. What riles you up? What situations tend to distract and discourage you? What topics or people push your buttons? Commit to a specific plan for eliminating those situations from your day.
3. How can you change your environment, relationships, and habits to free yourself from distractions and discouragement? Be intentional; write down three or four ideas you can implement to change your behavior.
4. What do you want in life? If you could wave your magic wand and make the next 12 months your best year ever, what precisely would you accomplish and achieve? Imagine the impossible; get yourself fired-up and list two or three exciting goals that inspire you.