Illustration by ~darthaardvark
The pitcher’s readying to throw a pitch toward you so ferocious it might as well be shot from a canon. You’re standing there, bat in hand, awaiting his release.
Could you imagine, at this critical time, reflecting on your fears and worries? If you were to do so instead of putting all your attention on the ball’s trajectory, the best case scenario, you’d strike out. The worst case scenario, you’d be the recipient of severely bruised ribs because the pitcher’s aim wasn’t quite right.
Focus. It’s what you must do to rise to any challenge.
I’ve at times had trouble getting myself to bed. When surrounded by a sea of fun things to do in the matrix, otherwise known as the interweb — it’s hard to get under the sheets. After all, you’re seduced by the carnival that’s open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The real solution to this is focus. The very element that allows us to be effective athletes, business people and public speakers is the same element that propels us to go to sleep at the designated time.
Focus is the difference between being on auto-pilot, and instead what we should be doing — scrambling to get behind the wheel to navigate the ship. When your mind’s ready and clear, the ship travels in just the direction you want, reaching just the destination you planned.
If you’ve long blazed a path that’s not ideal and want to begin treading a new one, it’s really quite simple to do. It’s no easy task, but simple it is. And it all comes down to focus.
The great thing about focus is it deflates your excuses like a whoopie cushion that was plump and round but is now flat and noiseless.
Focus is your ultimate calling. If you’re thinking negatively, if you’re not using your time wisely, or if you’re giving into your demons — you lack focus. And focus is at your disposal 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can turn it on anywhere, anytime, like flipping on a light switch and illuminating a room that was pitch black moments ago.
“Everything you need to break unhealthy cycles of behavior is within you”~Taro Gold
And if you’re thinking that my admonition to be focused is a pat answer to life’s myriad complexities, you’re wrong. Because the only thing that will ever get us going in the direction we need to go is our minds. So positive focus is really the directing of our minds in ways that are life enhancing. It’s what we gotta do.
People who change themselves. Who beat addictions. Who find the girl or guy of their dreams. Who start making more money and thinking more positively, they have chosen to focus their minds. And you can too.
If you were the conductor of a train asleep at the wheel, you’d still move, but you’d be on a one way track to wherever you’re headed. On the other hand, if your mind is awake and clear, you can — through your own will — change tracks and embark on a new, more enlightened path. The choice, of course, is yours.
Focus is also the means for which you can leave everything behind. We often view ourselves in relationship to who we’ve been. This is, however, nothing more than clinging to a self-created construct.
Tell me, friends, is our identity closer related to who we’ve been or to who we commit ourselves to being right now? This is largely a question of belief systems. If you tell yourself that who you are is completely a result of who you’ve been, you’re probably right. Alternatively, if you tell yourself who you are is more closely related to what you commit yourself to be right now, you’re also probably right.
“Avoid allowing your sense of self to be defined by the sum of your experiences. Re-create yourself every day.”~Taro Gold
Many of us have all kinds of problems, issues and demons. But we also got focus.
Good post.
Focus really is the key to any significant accomplishment.
That means, less time Twittering and Facebooking, less time surfing the Net and reading blogs, and more time creating our own stuff, doing what we know have to do if we want to achieve our goals.
It’s not easy, but as you point out, it’s the key.
I like the method Tim Ferriss and Leo Babauta suggest: doing your most important task, from beginning to end, without interruption, each day before you do anything else, such as check email or login to Twitter.
By the way, which one of you wrote this post? I don’t see an author’s name attached to this post.
Focus!
So easy to see and understand yet so difficult to grab.
Always easier to move with the flow in its direction than making the effort of controlling the destination.
We know, we just don’t go.
A post to be enlighten; thank you!
Raul
@ Jesse Hines: That is a good tip that Leo and Tim advise. I need to put it into practice more often. In fact, I need to put this post’s instructions into practice more often.
I wrote this post. This is the post I recited at open mic night that I spoke of a few posts back. Yeah, the name thing… Our web designer hasn’t gotten there yet. But we do definitely plan fixing that so that with each post — everyone knows exactly who wrote it. In the reader it does mention the author, however. But yeah… that’s a huge thing we really gotta fix.
Thanks for the nice words.
@ Alien Ghost: Glad you enjoyed it. Easier said than done, true. But it’s relatively simple, too. Simple, but hard, eh?
This is a powerful post. Sometimes I’ve been shaken back into focus by a big upset or impending doom. It’s my goal, however, to get myself back in focus without having to be hit by a truck.
@ Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.: Thanks for the nice words. Well said. Outside circumstances can push us into focus. But, as you said, best to do it without getting hit by a truck.
There are lots of distractions in our present time. This is the main reason we lose focus. I believe that if we chose to focus on the things that will benefit us the most, so shall we achieve. Unfortunately, few are willing to take this path; they always want the easy way.
@ Watler: What you say I believe has lots of truth. And I’m beginning to learn how to focus myself.
This post has inspired me. I’m going to finally live out my dreams. I’m going to become the greatest synchronized swimmer to ever walk this earth.