Focus Pocus

“Any success you achieve will be in direct proportion to your focus.”

There are lots of ingredients that go into a recipe for success. Talent, ambition, luck, circumstances, environment - just to name a few. But, like the quote preaches - we should never underestimate focus. In fact, we could come up short on one of the other ingredients, and laser-like focus will carry us through. But if we come up short on focus, no amount of the other ingredients will matter. Focus is that important.

When I think of the word focus, I think of the word centralize (to “draw in toward a center.”) It’s almost as if we create a magnetic field with our thoughts, attracting everything we want in our direction. These powerful thoughts have to be fed daily, then the thoughts have to be followed up with work. Good old roll up your sleeves and “get after it” work. The kind that isn’t sidetracked or distracted by doubt, worries, insecurities, anger, frustration, television, web surfing, talking, etc. Talk about buzz kills.

Think of it this way, the opposite of centralize is, of course, decentralize (to “cause to withdraw or disperse from a center of concentration.”). It’s what happens when we lose focus. Rather than pulling all of the things we want in our direction, we push them away. After a while, it becomes a habit. We get comfortable and we actually just push what we want further and further away.

Tonight, give it a little thought. What do you want from life tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Five years from now? Are you focused on drawing these things into your life? Are your creating a powerful magnetic field to draw them your way? Or are you literally pushing them further and further away with each passing day?

This is yet another post that I’m writing to myself as much as anyone.  I have a real problem with Focusing on one thing at a time.  I honestly believe part of it comes from being an only child.  When I was a kid, I had to “be” all the Barbies, bring all the toys to “life,” etc - so my imagination and brain were in full swing 24/7.  (Did I say were?)  I’m still guilty of getting a billion and one things going on around me. 

I’m the one who watches a movie while baking homemade bread, cleaning out the pantry, and writing a post all at once.  I always sign posts on another of my blogs “Make each moment count double”  - but I’ve been known to carry it to extremes.  Sometimes I go for quintuple, but it requires a lot of coffee.

Something I’d very much like from myself is more focus.  It’ll be tough, after all I’ve literally been unfocused since Barbie got her Malibu tan.  But, I’m feeling pretty cocky today, in spite of a hellacious cold.  Sure I’m sneezing my head off, but in between sneezes, there’s a distinct swagger. I absolutely can cut down from doing 5 things at once to 3.  Tomorrow.  Right now, there are four articles to write, a couple of plugins to manipulate (they aren’t seeing things my way), rice to steam, 6 posts to post,  a Christmas tree to put up and decorate, grocery shopping to do, laundry, about 45 e-mails to respond to, and 2 websites to finish revisions on.

I’m going to need more coffee.

Joi