We often hear in the speeches of successful people that before one can make it, there is a need for hard-work and funds. But wait a minute!
A photographer adjusts his/her
camera to focus on a particular object until satisfied before taking a shot. If
the image is not clear, the photographer strategically positions the part of
the camera called focus to take the image clearly. That is just one aspect of focus.
Focus is the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition. It
is also a condition in which one concentrates attention and energy.
Do you have so many
things on you mind that have made you indecisive, and the indecision resulted in
confusion? Relax! It’s Easy! I will guide you through three steps you can learn
to focus better.
Step One:
PLAN
Before you can stay
focused, you have to PLAN. Make a daily or routine TO-DO-LIST. List out four
things you would want to achieve in a day. Have the first and the rest follow chronologically
in order of significance. Planning with a TO-DO-LIST will help you set your
priorities right and achieve your objectives daily. You can be busy with an activity
without necessarily being productive. Activity and Productivity are not the
same. That is why you need to PLAN.
Step Two:
IGNORE OR GET RID OF DISTRACTIONS.
Perhaps you want to
further your education and there are people who are giving you 1000 and one
reasons why you cannot read the program or be a success. Distractions may come
externally in many forms. You can even be a distraction to yourself. Getting rid
of or ignoring such distractions will be another bold step you need to take in
order to stay focused.
Step Three:
AVOID NEGATIVITY
It is one thing
ignoring people’s negative comments and it is another thing thinking
positively. It may be easy to ignore external distractions but what about the battle
of negativity you fight with yourself? Convince yourself, have a positive self-image,
believe in your abilities, skills and potentials, remind yourself of past
successes and these will help you fight against your internal negativity.
The Lion Tamer – Clyde Beatty
A
story is told of a lion tamer called Clyde Beatty of Bainbridge, Ohio. As a
teenager, he left home to join the circus and landed a job as a cage cleaner.
In the years that followed, Beatty quickly progressed from a lowly cage boy to
a popular entertainer.
Beatty became famous for his “fighting act” in
which he would tame fierce wild animals. At one point, Beatty’s act included a
segment where he brought lions, tigers, cougars, and hyenas into the circus
ring all at once and tamed the entire group.
But here’s the most impressive feat of all…
In
an era when the majority of lion tamers died in the ring, Beatty lived into his
60s. In the end, it was cancer that took his life, not a lion.
How did he manage to survive? Clyde Beatty was
one of the first lion tamers to bring a chair into the circus ring.
We
are told that, when a lion tamer holds a chair in front of the lion’s face, the
lion tries to focus on all four legs of the chair at the same time. With its FOCUS divided, the lion becomes
confused and is unsure about what to do next. When faced with so many options,
the lion chooses to freeze and wait instead of attacking the man holding the
chair.
How
often do you find yourself in the same position as the lion?
How often do you have so many things you want to
achieve at the same time, only to end up confused by all of the options in
front of you and never make progress? Sometimes like the lion, instead of
focusing on its target (the man holding the chair), we allow small things like
the legs of a chair cause us to daze. We often allow smaller opportunities (legs
of a chair) to take our attention rather than focusing on bigger opportunities
(the man holding the chair).
I
ask again, how often do we allow other things to blur our vision?
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Ponder Quotes…
Tony Robins once said, “One reason so few
of us achieve what we truly want is that, we never direct our FOCUS; we never
CONCENTRATE our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never
deciding to master anything in particular.”
Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habbits of Highly Effective
People also made this profound point. He said:
“When you have
too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.”
It was said once that:
“No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed.
No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined.
No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is
tunnelled.
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.”
~ Henry Emerson Fosdick
And the brain behind iphone, Steve Jobs of blessed memory
asserted that:
“People think focus
means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it
means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there
are. You have to pick carefully.”
In conclusion, watch this video
about a runner called John Stephen Akwari. His
story occurred forty years ago, when he attended the Mexico City Olympics at
the age of 30.
Not long after the start of the
marathon at the Mexico Olympics, Akhwari fell down and was badly injured,
because he was not used to the climate of Central America. The other runners
passed him one after another, and his chance of winning a medal became
extremely slim. However, he didn't quit, and insisted on finishing the race.
When Akhwari limped into the stadium on
bloody and bandaged legs an hour after the winner of the race had left, there
were only a few spectators remaining in the stands. They were shocked to see
Akhwari wincing with pain at every step toward the finish line, and they felt
grateful to witness such a touching moment.
When asked why he didn't retire from
the race, Akhwari's answer was calm and simple. "My country did not send me 5,000 miles away
to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles away to finish the race!" (20th October, 1968).
If you were John Stephen Ahwari,
I am pretty sure you would have stopped running because whether you continued
or not, nobody was going to give you a trophy for being the last and certainly,
your country would have still paid you for participating in the race. But not
Stephen Akwari, He had a target, he had a strong will power and he was focused
to make it. Not to START but to FINISH.
Sometimes, we might have planned
and stayed focused in the past but along the course, like Stephen Akwari, we
were wounded by what others said about what we were focusing on, or perhaps the
climate has not been good for us. Perhaps the challenges and the storms of life
have made all the things around us blurred and we cannot even figure things
out. But today, like John Stephen Akwari, make up your mind to finish the
course, even if there is no trophy to be won, just STAY FOCUSED & FINISH
THE RACE.
Finally, I would leave you with
this acronym on FOCUS.
Follow
One
Course
Until
Successful
If you fail to
plan, then you plan to fail, so FOCUS!
