Focus is one of the most important day-to-day tasks that top performers, or those that want to be top performers, have to understand to reach their goals.

What is Focus?

I have personally heard many stories and application of focus and will share of few examples with you.

Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, is one of the foremost experts on the concepts of goal setting. He says that the word FOCUS stands for:

Follow
One
Course
Until
Successful

One of my colleagues, Jeffrey Czajka, uses the following acronym for FOCUS:

Factor
Out
Causes
Undermining
Success

What I would like you to focus on (pun intended), is what you are focusing on and the implications of that in your life.

What you focus on is attracted into your life – whether it is other people’s drama, your health, success or failure. Focus on drama and you will get drama. Focus on healthy food and suddenly that bag of late night chips isn’t so attractive. And so on.

When you change your focus, you change the direction of your energy and your attention. This will automatically change your:

- results
- state of mind
- energy levels
- enthusiasm levels
- thoughts
- feelings about what you are doing

A simple change of focus can have a profound impact on, not only your life, but also on your everyday attitude.

Here is one of my favorite stories that illustrates the impact of focus:

One of the great renaissance philosophers was walking in Florence, Italy and noticed two men working side-by-side, performing exactly the same task. They were building a brick wall and it was a very, very hot day.

One of the men was obviously upset about what he was doing. He was very grumpy, cursing under his breath, and it was obvious that he was not having a good time.

The man right next to him looked like he was having a wonderful time. He was singing, smiling and sending positive energy. Coincidentally, this gentleman was working twice as fast.

The philosopher was intrigued by this situation, and asked the first man that had a scowl on his face, “Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me what is it that you are doing?”

The man was annoyed with this question and said, “Well, I think it is pretty obvious, is it not? I am laying bricks in the hot sun. I have spent my entire adult life laying bricks in the hot sun. I am probably going to spend the rest of my adult life laying bricks here in the hot sun.”

The Philosopher had never met anybody who was so enthusiastically negative in his life, but he very wisely went to the next gentleman who appeared to be having a better time performing the exact same task and asked, “Excuse me, could you tell me what you are doing?”

This gentleman looks up at him with a big smile, brushes the hair aside from his face and says, “Sir, I am building a cathedral.”

Do you see the difference there?

It is a matter of focus. One gentleman is focusing on how he is laying bricks; the other one is focusing on the end result.

When you have clear goals, when you have clear objectives and they are meaningful to you, it gives you the kind of focus that you need to achieve grand results.

I encourage you to be mindful of your focus. Give yourself positive things to focus on as you go forward and I promise you, you will not only feel better, but you will perform at much higher levels.

Be Free!

Roger Seip
Instructor