Focus

Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success Magazine, often tells the story about a company that wanted to hire Richard Branson as a speaker.  They wanted him so badly that they offered some ridiculously large dollar amount for a short speech.  He kept refusing, so they asked Mr. Hardy to intercede on their behalf.  The answer stayed at no; when pressed for a reason, the answer was that public speaking was not what Mr. Branson was focusing on at this time.  I have heard it stated before that high achievers tend to focus on about three things at any one point in time, as was clearly presented in the story just related.  I have heard this story a couple of times over the past four years and I am always inspired by the laser-like focus of highly successful people.  Especially as I find that maintaining a directed focus for long periods hard.

It is funny, because it is always easier to point to other people for examples.  For instance, I observed a friend allowing things out of his control distract him from the goals in front of him, including the comments of other people.  As I sat down to write this morning, I was clear about what I wanted to write about, with the goal of being in front of my computer and letting the thoughts flow.  I was up before anyone in the house, so that there were no distractions.  As I walked downstairs, I realized that I really should have some breakfast.  When I got to my computer, I started checking emails, looking at my Relay for Life (Click here to visit my PERSONAL page.) to see how many people have donated since I checked after midnight before I went to sleep, looked on Facebook…where was MY FOCUS?!?  If I held myself to the standard of focusing on no more than three things at any given time, I would be done for the day before I wrote down the title!

We all have distractions that go on in our lives, and, truth be told, we also have the ability to procrastinate.  Both of these things tend to pull us from our goals and objectives and cause us to take longer to complete what we have set out to do.  Often we know we are in the middle of these diversions, but welcome them because they are easy, or more pleasurable.  We need to be more diligent about having the discipline to remain focused.  Now that I did the things that I allowed to take my attention away, I can get down to the business of writing.  Oh, wait, I hear someone upstairs in the kitchen, I wonder who is up…