“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” Bruce Lee
I do not know about warrior, but I have the average man thing down pat. But I have to say, after a few unique experiences over the past year I have become a huge believer in the power of FOCUS.
My first experience comes on the heels (no pun intended) of completing my first ever marathon. It took months and months of training to get ready for the event. The day of the event, September 17th, 2011 I had my sister bring me to race start location and drop me off. On the way I remember telling her, “I know I will finish. Even if I have to walk, I will finish. I have trained too hard and run too many miles to not complete the marathon! How I will feel at the end and what my finishing time will be…those things I don’t yet know, but I will finish!” Now if that isn’t an undeniable focus on finishing the job I don’t know what is.
My second experience on lessons learned with regards to focus actually comes from a recent experience with ‘mucking the stalls’ (which is farmer talk for shoveling shit) in the family barn where our two horses reside. I have to admit that just this past week I realized I was behind in cleaning up their stalls. This has happened before and I have put myself in the position of having to do some back-breaking work to get them clean again. I decided one day last week that I was going to tackle the task of getting one of the two stalls clean. My phone was vibrating like crazy in my pocket but again my focus was undeniable in my quest. I ignored all outside influences and one wheel barrel load after another I got the job done without letting any distractions get to me.
So what did I learn are the 5 most important rules to follow to make sure you don’t lose focus on something you want?
- Define WHAT it is you want. There are so many things that you can dream about. Find the most important thing…more important than anything for that moment. An example could be that you want to lose weight more than anything.
- Define your WHY. Why is this thing important to you. In my examples above I wanted to run a marathon more than any other health & fitness goal I had. My WHY was to prove to myself that I could endure the mental and physical stress that every human being goes through in their quest to run 26.2 miles. (still WOOHOOing that I did it—but it was not easy!)
- Make a COMMITMENT. Once you make a commitment to do something focus should be easy. But if you are not committed beware, your quest most likely will end in disappointment.
- Seek out help from others. Hire a coach to help you focused on your desired accomplishments, seek out an accountability partner that wants the same things. Find a friend that can help you. You don’t have to do everything alone and to remain focused on something it often helps for them to keep reminding you of what your WHAT & WHY are so that your desire to stay focused remains high.
- Never, never, never quit. It is very easy to lose focus if you decide to quit too early. If what you want is important enough, it is worth going through hardships, overcoming obstacles, and enduring a little bit of pain. But if you quit too early it will only result in disappointment and more self-doubt and reinforcing a poor self-image in the future when you want something again.
So remember this, if your WHAT and your WHY are important enough to you, you will always find a way to succeed. If they are not important you will find yourself making excuses on why you couldn’t accomplish your “marathon’ called life. Stay FOC– USED, learn from your mistakes, celebrate your victories, and above all be grateful for everything around you because it is leading to bigger and better things in all areas of your life!
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