BLOG: FOCUS—Key to Achievement. Part 1

Ok, we’re half way through 2012. So, how are things going for you? Are you achieving what you hoped to achieve? Have you made some adjustments to your plans to keep things moving in the right direction? Or are you stuck? Do you need a nudge to stay on the right path, a lift to get back in the race, a shot of energy to keep going, or a raise from the seat of your pants? You know, a swift kick kind of raise.  We all need that occasionally. I know I have at times. I think we all do occasionally.

Well, doing a mid-year review on our progress can reveal whether we are still focused on the important things we wanted to accomplish with our lives. The key to successful achievement in anything is staying focused on your goal and making whatever adjustments you need to make so you can keep moving toward it.

Focus does three things for you:

(1) It keeps you on target. We often find ourselves pulled in a dozen different directions, spending much of our time and energy on things we don’t really care about. Author Don Marquis put it this way: “Ours is a world where people don’t know what they want, and are willing to go through hell to get.”  Proverbs 4:25-27 NIV offers some advice for that, “Let your eyes look straight ahead…Do not swerve to the right or the left”.

(2) It increases your energy. Attempting everything, like attempting nothing, will suck the life right out of you. Focus gives you energy. Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer, said, “Few men come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.” One of the reasons theose wells go untapped is lack of focus. The mind doesn’t reach toward achievement until it has clear objectives.

(3) It lifts you. It’s been said that , “the world stands aside to let anyone pass, who know where he or she is going.” In a sea of mediocrity, just knowing what you want to do and making an effort to pursue it distinguishes you from almost everybody else. Henry David Thoreau asked, “Do you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?”

Just by striving to become 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. By focusing your life, and aiming higher, you move to a higher level.