“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” — Mark Twain.
What separates good from great in life, whether in our organizations, a sports team, or in growing in our favorite hobbies, is our ability to focus. The ones who are the most disciplined and focused will achieve more than someone who suffers from always worrying and doubt about what is going on all around them, or chasing the next shiny thing. Once you make up your mind on something go after it with all your effort.
We train our brain by the things we do. For example, experienced taxicab drivers have an abnormally large hippocampus, the portion of the brain responsible for navigation. Veteran violinists or keyboardists have an expanded motor cortex, the area of the brain associated with fine motor skills. Our brain is literally shaped by what we repeatedly do.
The same lessons of neuroscience hold true for leadership and personal growth. Fixing our attention on what’s truly valuable noticeably improves our capacity to function — leading to ever-increasing influence. Meanwhile, not knowing how to stay focused causes our talents and abilities to be waisted. So imagine if you applied focus on is what you want to be an expert at in this life?
The average person has between 35-40 hours of “secondary” time per week. What I mean by secondary is this is the time when they’re not working, sleeping, eating, cleaning, or running to-do errands. That equates to almost 2,000 hours per year. Whether we spend that time fruitfully or frivolously has tremendous bearing on our success. Focusing allows us to get the the most ROE (Return on Energy).
When we’re unfocused, we allocate our resources poorly. We invest what we have into pursuits that offer little return. Worst of all, we misspend our energy, squandering our strength and vitality on unproductive and/or insignificant ventures. Do you find yourself constantly scrolling social media, binge watching TikTok videos, YouTube Vids, or shows on TV for hours on end? Or getting caught up in useless conversations where you’re adding little value to the other person or they are adding no value to you? Think of this time compounded and what it is doing to hinder your growth. Don’t even get me started on the video game addicts of the world!
If you’re struggling from keeping focus in a world FULL of noise and distraction, the remedy for lack of focus comes from asking three simple questions over and over and over again, until they are a habit of asking.
1. What are my interests, hobbies, and things I enjoy stewarding my time to?
2. What are my gifts that I can utilize to grow myself and add value to those around me?
3. Where are my opportunities?
Remember this focus-hack my amigos… The key is to discover the things you enjoy doing and at which you naturally excel at. These are your best strengths and gifts from God. Then, you can search for the people to help you develop your strengths and for places in which to contribute your strengths in a meaningful way to help others grow. Our interests will evolve over time, we become more fully aware of our gifts with life experience, and the opportunities around us are always ever-changing. Especially for those of us that seek to grow daily! For these reasons, we constantly need to refocus. Asking the questions above is a simple exercise to assist you in fastening your attention on what matters most.
I would love your feedback on what you do to help you keep focused, especially during these last two years, with so much noise and distraction all around us. How have you been able to focus on your strengths?