High Energy vs Low Energy

How do you focus your energies? Do you direct it outwards or in?

For a long time, I worked on focusing my energies outward. I am natually an introvert and, as a result, much of my energy is spent on inner things - thoughts, feelings, and imagination. I hated this part of me for the longest time. I remember back in high school just wanting to be as social and fun as everyone else.

When you focus your energy out correctly, you come across as energetic and full of zest. You see extroverts like this all the time - the fun guys that keep the room laughing, the funny teachers that everyone likes, the great speaker that inspires and motivates. Done too much, it can manifest as manic and harassed, such as when people are under panic or act restless.

Neither one of the two is better than the other. But in every situation, there is one that serves you more effectively. For instance, if you go to a bar to hang out with friends and meet new people, focusing outwardly will allow you to have more fun and experience better interactions. If you are studying, then focusing inwardly towards you own thoughts and patterns will yield you better results than focusing outwardly in your environment and other distractions.

What continues to be unclear to me is how to effectively shift focus outward when your natural inclination is to focus in. And inward when you’ve spent your life focusing out.

When I attempt to shift focus outwards, I have noticed three main situations where it was necessary to exert more effort.

1. Getting started. It’s always hard to get started. Especially after you’ve come from a consuming task that required you to focus inwardly, like work or a personal crisis. I’ve always had to work from the ground up, doing little things that slowly shift my focus to the environment and other things around me.

These little things normally consist of:

- Talking to as many people as possible (vendors, salesclerks, old people, anyone)
- Texting/emailing friends
- Playing a sport like shooting hoops or a quick arcade game like Video Poker
- Cooking
- Shopping

Those things all help to bring me out of my head and shift focus into things outside of me.

2. When you revert inward. This happens a lot to me. I’ll be in a good extroverted state and, suddenly, something will happen that will cause me to revert my focus inwards. It’s usually fast and out of my sudden consciousness, like an off-hand remark that affects me or seeing something that reminds of something personal and emotion-laden. I will usually solve this by changing focus towards something else in the environment.

3. When subjected to stress. When I find myself under stress, my default is always to focus inwards. I found this serves well as I am often very calm in situations where everybody around me can be panicking, such as a few years ago when we were in a tall building during a strong earthquake. I tend to not panic at all. The problem is when I find myself under minor stress and my response defaults to the same turning inwards, such as small fights. My reaction can be a little uncalled for and inappropriate for the shallowness of the situation.

One of my goals is to have the ability to focus outwardly at least 80% of my waking time. I want to do it at least a week and see what kind of changes it brings my life situation. Will it be better? Will my relationships be more fulfilling? Will I be more productive?