Lets Focus Direct Your Talent

IF you want to succeed in life, you must focus on what you can do, not on what you cannot do.

Focus can bring tremendous power to your work, passion and vocation. Without focus, you will never accomplish much. With focus, you find that your talents quadruple; they gain direction and power. And those qualities produce results.

One, like initiative, focus is cultivated; it does not come naturally to most people. We are glued to a culture with infinite choices. Thus, we find ourselves pulled in scores of directions.

A cultivated, deepened and enlarged talent is worth more than a thousand shallow faculties.

The first law of success is concentration- to bend all your energies in one direction, going to that one point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Two, focus increases your energy. When you aspire to reach a goal, you will first find your target. If you lack focus, you will attempt everything at once. That will sap your energy and rob you of new opportunities.

In contrast, focus energises your passion. Few men, during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.

One reason those wells often go untapped is lack of focus. Something wonderful happens when we narrow our focus on set goals. That is the magic. The mind does not reach towards achievement until it has a clear objective.

Three, focus lifts you; it enables you to eclipse your contemporaries to a degree that it will astonish your relations.

In a sea of mediocrity, just knowing what you want and pursuing it distinguishes you from everyone else.

One great American writer, Henry David Thoreau, asked: “Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?”

Focus always has an impact. Just by striving to be better than you are, you become elevated, even if you don’t accomplish what you desire and even if others don’t step aside for you. You cannot shoot for the stars and remain unaffected by the effort.

Four, focus expands your life. When we focus our attention on the subject at hand, we are able to expand ideas in a way that we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

Thus, what you focus on expands. Narrowing your view widens your perspective.

Five, focus must be intentionally sustained. People do not naturally remain focused; it takes a lot of effort to remain focused. What separates the champion from the mediocre is that he concentrates just a little longer.

Several years ago, I memorised a definition of success to help me in my career. “Success is the progressive realisation of a predetermined goal.”

What I learned from that definition is that success isn’t an event; it is a process. And anytime you engage in a process that takes time, you must remain focused. Only focused people can direct their talent to achieve success.

For you to become a genius, you must make every action count towards a focused goal. You will have removed most of the roadblocks to success when you know the difference between motion and direction.

People who are undecided about what they want cannot tap into their strength of will or talent. As a result, they will only drift into mediocrity.

To succeed in life, effort and courage are not enough; you must have purpose and direction.

Do not allow your yesterday to hijack your today. There has never been a person who focused on his past that had a better future. Instead, they should learn from the past and forget it.

A retentive memory might be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness. Champions know the past is irrevocable.

Life is a race, so you cannot afford to look back. Your eye is on the finish line. If you desire to achieve success, you must make what you are doing now your focus.

Six, focus on the present. If you are always thinking of tomorrow, you will never get anything done today. Your focus must remain where you have control- today. If you focus on today, you get a better tomorrow.

Today’s lessons become tomorrow’s books. Stay focused on results. By focusing on results, you stay positive and encouraged.