Skip to main content

Science Quote by Andrew Huberman

"Focus is a skill, and like any skill it can be trained, especially by practicing sustained attention for set bouts of time"

About this Quote

Huberman’s line is a neat piece of cultural judo: it takes a modern anxiety (our attention feels broken) and flips it into a modern comfort (it’s fixable, with reps). Calling focus a “skill” quietly rejects the fatalistic story that you’re either disciplined or you aren’t. It reframes distraction not as moral failure but as a trainable capacity, which is why the quote lands so well in an era of burnout, ADHD discourse, and algorithmic temptation. Skill talk makes the problem solvable; solvability sells.

The specific intent is behavioral and prescriptive. Huberman isn’t waxing philosophical about mindfulness; he’s giving you a protocol-shaped belief. “Especially” and “set bouts of time” do a lot of work: they smuggle in the gym metaphor (intervals, sets, progression) and promise that you don’t need monk-level willpower, just a plan. That’s accessible, but also strategically modern: it aligns self-improvement with the quantified, timeboxed habits people can fit between meetings.

The subtext is a bargain with the listener. If attention is trainable, you can reclaim agency from your phone, your boss, your brain chemistry. But there’s also an implicit concession to the very forces that erode focus: rather than arguing for structural changes (less digital noise, saner work demands), the solution is individualized and procedural. It’s science-coded self-help, built for a culture that trusts “practice” more than introspection and prefers interventions that can be scheduled, tracked, and optimized.

Quote Details

TopicSelf-Discipline
SourceHuberman Lab Podcast , “Focus Toolkit: Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration” (2022)
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Huberman, Andrew. (2026, January 24). Focus is a skill, and like any skill it can be trained, especially by practicing sustained attention for set bouts of time. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-is-a-skill-and-like-any-skill-it-can-be-184121/

Chicago Style
Huberman, Andrew. "Focus is a skill, and like any skill it can be trained, especially by practicing sustained attention for set bouts of time." FixQuotes. January 24, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-is-a-skill-and-like-any-skill-it-can-be-184121/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Focus is a skill, and like any skill it can be trained, especially by practicing sustained attention for set bouts of time." FixQuotes, 24 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-is-a-skill-and-like-any-skill-it-can-be-184121/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Andrew Add to List
Focus Is a Skill: Andrew Huberman on Training Attention
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

Andrew Huberman

Andrew Huberman (born 1975) is a Scientist from USA.

11 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Thomas J. Leonard, Businessman
Thomas J. Leonard