To “ignore the noise” means to disregard distractions, irrelevant opinions, and negativity to stay focused on your true goals and what should truly matter. Identifying what is important (the signal) and actively tuning out things that derail you, whether it’s the thoughts of others, the constant barrage of information from social media, or the inevitable setbacks in any plan.

It is a mindset essential for progress, requiring the ability to filter out distractions and channel energy toward productive action and achieving desired outcomes. Thus, staying focused, and creating a distraction-free environment.   

Interruptions, both external and self-inflicted, are no longer the exception; they’ve become our default mode, says Zelana Montminy, a positive psychologist and the author of Finding Focus: Own Your Attention in an Age of Distraction. “We’ve trained our brain to need and want interruptions,” she says. “It’s almost like we’re addicted to distractedness.”

It isn’t accidental. Our devices are engineered to exploit this vulnerability. I have watched parents allow their children to spend hours on tablets, until they passed out. I have also seen adults pushing a stroller with one hand and the other one on their smart phone. No interaction at all with the child.

Many of us believe we’re adept at juggling interruptions, but research tells a different story, according to Gloria Mark, Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity.

“Think of your mind as a whiteboard,” she says. “Each task or topic you focus on is like writing on that whiteboard. When you multitask, you’re constantly erasing and rewriting different information.”

All of that switching comes at a cost. Studies show that multitasking leads to longer completion times, more errors, and increased stress. “Your executive function, your brain’s CEO, gets fatigued,” says Mark. “And it struggles to filter out distractions or make decisions, leaving you even more susceptible to interruptions.”

The story in Luke 10:1-23 describes what should be central to our identity. When the seventy-two people Jesus sent out to tell others about the kingdom of God returned from their journeys, they reported to Him that “even the demons submit to us in your name” (v17).

While Jesus acknowledged that He’d equipped them with tremendous power and protection, He said that they were focused on the wrong thing. He insisted that their cause for rejoicing should be because their “names are written in heaven” (v20).

Not how much power and influence they swayed.