Leveraging Your Cognitive Attention
I recently attended a webinar about your Cognitive Attention Score (CAS).
Ankur Jain at Ceekr has created this framework to measure the relative impact of emotions, physiology, and cognition on choice-making. Once those impacts are measured, they are combined with a biometric evaluation to create your Cognitive Attention Score.
This score can predict the nature of your cognition and its impact on finances, relationships, health, mental wellness, success, performance, leadership, etc.
I encourage you to check out these resources, but here are two key takeaways of this particular webinar:
1. Where your attention goes, your energy flows.
This may seem obvious, but think about how often we are distracted in our work and our lives. We’re being pulled in so many directions. But just because someone or something pulls doesn’t mean you have to pull back. Let go, and choose where to place your attention.
2. Our decision-making is impacted just as deeply by our physiology and emotions as it is our cognition.
We like to think we are reasonable, rational creatures. Cognition, after all, is all about the mental processes taking place in our brain: our thinking, our focus, our learning and memory and perception.
But all of those aspects of cognition are heavily influenced by our bodies and our feelings.
And the tripwire is this: it’s an inverse relationship.
As emotions rise, cognition drops.
Jain offers what he calls a “Game Changer Mindset,” which is a system of thinking and evaluation that minimizes emotional interference in your decision-making.
It’s not that we should try to stop feeling. That’s impossible.
And it’s not about “making better choices.” It’s about eliminating the obstacles to making the good choices we’d make anyway, if we weren’t just so darned distracted.
What are you choosing to put your attention on?
About The Author
Emily Sander is an ICF-certified leadership coach with more than 15 years of experience in the business world and the author of Hacking Executive Leadership. She’s been featured in several print publications, online articles, and podcasts, including CEO Today Magazine, Leading to Fulfillment, and Leadership Powered by Common Sense.
Emily has a passion for helping business leaders reach their full potential. Go here to read her story from seasoned executive to knowledgeable coach. If you want to send Emily a quick message, then visit her contact page here.