Focus

Wow - I can't believe it has been over a month since I posted. My apologies to everyone.

This post is about a topic I have sort of known the importance of for a long time, but I am just recently realizing how important FOCUS is to achieving success (and in a timely fashion).

Successful People

Successful people have focus. They have a drive that keeps them focused on a specific business or dream, and many of them keep pushing that business long after they are successful.

Look at people like Michael Dell and Warren Buffett. I often wondered why you would not "cash out" once you were already a billionaire - why keep working when you have that much money? Because they are focused - the have drive and passion for the business and it is not just about money.

Buffett turned over about $30 billion to the Gates Foundation to distribute because he wanted to stay focused on running Berkshire Hathaway. That's what I call focus - turning over almost all of your wealth to someone else for charitable distribution while you continue to do what made you the money in the first place.

How to Use Focus in Your Life

I don't know where you are in your life, but focus is extremely important. As I began to undertake ventures outside of my regular job, I began focused, but then saw more and more opportunities and therefore lost focus.

In retrospect, I know exactly what I should have done: put all of my energy outside my job into only ONE venture - both physical energy as well as the focused thought to really make my physical energy produce great results.

Put energy into one venture until it is self-sustaining then decide whether to continue to focus on its growth or make it a passive business (or sell it off). Then you can start a new venture once you have been successful with one.

People with several successful businesses did not grow them all at the same time. They focused on one at a time, then moved on to the next.

How Focus Helps

I have only recently begun to realize the power of focus - ironically it is at a time when I am not focused on anything.

From simple-ology (see a future post - I promise less than a month :) ) we know that the quickest way to get what you want is a straight line (i.e. go straight to your goal).

If you have multiple goals at once, you cannot go in a straight line to all of them at the same time, so you end up wandering around, hopefully eventually hitting one or more of your goals.

But if you have multiple goals at once, in addition to all of the basic things of life that have to get done, your "to do list" can quickly become overwhelming. Your brain gets overwhelmed and either gives up or makes you extremely stressed out, both of which provide serious barriers to progress.

Enter FOCUS: by focusing on one goal at a time, you put all of your energy into one activity. Not only does your brain like focused activity much better, but you also feel much more rewarded as you are always making progress towards an identified goal.

My Focus

So right now I am focused on figuring out God's purpose for my life to ensure that my focus is consistent with His purpose.

See I believe that God has given us certain abilities and passions in order to accomplish certain things in this world. Each of us has different gifts, and I believe that we were meant to use those gifts for His purposes and enjoy our "work" using those gifts.

I do not believe that we were meant to do work we don't like or be content with dead-end jobs. We are to use our gifts to accomplish things we are passionate about. "Work" is intended to be satifsfying, not meaningless.

I know that I have been blessed with some wonderful innate abilities (as have you), and I want to maximize my use of those to God's purpose in the world.

P.S. I will let you know when I have it all figured out :)