Focus: How to Eliminate Distractions and Accomplish Your Goals

Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education so that you can create your ultimate destiny. Let's really get down to business today. Have you ever started reading a book and not finished it? Or maybe you've started a workout program and not gotten where you want to be with your workout and your goals? Or maybe, have you ever started a business for it to end in failure and not accomplish the success that you want? Well, welcome to the club. That's where most of us have been. And today I want to talk to you about focus. But before I do, I want to give you the quote of the day. So if you have the Daily Mastermind mobile app downloaded, you can go to the quote tab. But today's quote is by Robert Stubberg, one of my partners and mentors for a long time now. And the quote goes like this, the ultimate power in any endeavor comes from focus. The ultimate power in any endeavor comes from focus. And I truly believe this. You know, yesterday we talked and we started talking about a five-step formula for success and growth in business and life. And step one was to develop an attitude of resolve. And you do that through decision, commitment, and faith towards your goals. But today I want to talk to you about step two. And step two, I really believe, is one of the most important steps, and that is to create focus. Because focus is one of the biggest weaknesses of entrepreneurs. I know it has been for myself, especially if you're someone who has opportunities and things available to you at any given time. It's really difficult to create focus. And I think the reason it's so important is because focus will bring with you a consistent, dedicated effort towards your goal, which is why it's so important. You know, I love the definition I've heard several times of what the acronym focus stands for. And it stands for follow one course until successful. You know, some of us think I'm going to be dedicated and committed to my course, but it's that last part of follow one course until successful that gives you the resolve to be able to commit to finishing your goal. So let's talk a little bit about the elements of effective focus. Now, obviously, your commitment and resolve from step one, you know, being a bit decisive, committed and having faith is a real important element of creating focus. But focus is really created through several other things. And there are some strategies you can use to create more focus. But one of the benefits of focus is that you have clarity of your goals because the more clear you can set your goal or the end in mind beginning with the end in mind the more belief you will have in being able to accomplish your goal The more clear your mind sees it the more your mind allows you to bring things into your life to help you to accomplish your goals And the clearer your goal is the more specific the steps will be and the clearer the steps will be for you to get there. If you have an uncertain goal and you don't have clarity with it, it's hard to create focus because sometimes you don't know exactly where to put your time and your energy. But the more clear and the clarity that you have on your goal, the more specific the steps will be the clearer they will be and clarity will help you to also identify distractions and eliminate them because when you know what your goal is and you're clear on your goal you'll know when something doesn't align with that and it'll make it easier to identify those distractions and eliminate them also you need to besides having clarity for your goal to create focus you need to create barriers to these distractions that you may have in other words, you need to find daily rituals. You need to have patterns. You need to have ways to create barriers to keep you from getting distracted because you must isolate your mind. You know, Napoleon Hill puts it really well when he talks about affirmations and persistence. He talks about creating total clarity and then guarding your mind tightly against outside influences and negative behaviors and negative people. You have to create barriers. And if that means separating yourself from people that are negative or that will distract you, not being open to, you know, opportunities every day of the week. If you have a goal and you have some focus and some clarity, you need to just focus on it and go to work. The other thing that I think will help you to create focus is tracking and accountability. See, tracking your course, it's, you know, without tracking, you really don't have focus because you don't have the ability to determine if you're on track and if you are focused. So tracking your course will give you a degree of total isolated focus. And you know, when you're tracking your goals, and we'll talk about that more in one of the next steps towards creating growth in your life, that progress will bring with it motivation. And the more motivated you are, the more small successes you see, the simpler it'll be and the easier it'll be for you to stay focused. But here's one of the most important elements to being focused. And that is this, you need to learn how to say no. You got to learn how to say no. Let me say that again. I hope you're listening to this. You have to be able to learn how to say no, which is one of the hardest things for most people, let alone entrepreneurs. It's hard because you always want to please other people, your family, your friends. You want to make sure that you're taking care of people. And one of the perspectives I've had to adopt is that your happiness and your prosperity will definitely help take care of people more in the long run than focusing on the short impressing people or taking care of short needs You have to learn to care more about people than what they think You have to let me say that again you have to learn to care more about people than what people think. All right. So this is something that's going to be difficult for you, but I want to give you some perspective. So let me tell you a short story I read the other day that might give you some perspective on how to focus and concentrate a little bit better. See, over a century ago, a lion tamer named Clyde Beatty learned a lesson that's so important that it impacts nearly every area of your life and you can use it in your life today. Clyde Beatty was born in Bainbridge, Ohio in 1903. Now, when he was a teenager, he left home to join the circus and landed a job as a cage cleaner in the circus. In the years that followed, Beatty quickly progressed from sort of a lowly cage boy to a popular entertainer. He became famous for his fighting act in which he would tame fierce wild animals. You know, at one point, Beatty's act included a segment where he brought lions, tigers, cougars, and even hyenas into the circus ring all at once and tamed the entire group. So it really brought some fame for him. But here's the most impressive feat of all. In an era where the majority of lion tamers died in the ring, Beatty lived into his 60s. And in the end, it was cancer that actually took his life, not a lion. So how did he manage to survive? Now, he survived based on a simple idea. Beatty was one of the first lion tamers to bring a chair into the circus ring, which is what most of us think of when we think of a lion tamer. So here's what happened. The classic image of a lion tamer is one of basically an entertainer holding a whip and a chair, right? The whip gets all the attention, but it's mostly for show because in reality, it's the chair that does all the work. So 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. And with its focus divided, the lion becomes confused and it's sort of unsure what to do next. So when it's facing so many options, the lion chooses to just freeze and wait instead of attacking the guy holding the chair. so how often do you find yourself in the same position as let's say the lion how often do you sometimes you know you want to achieve losing weight or gaining muscle or starting a business or travel or whatever but you only end up confused by all of the options that are in front of you and you never make progress I mean that's kind of the story for most of us right this is especially true when you know when you think about your health or your fitness you know where every person and company seems to believe it's their duty to make things more complex nowadays. But, you know, every workout routine you find is the best one may not be. And every diet expert says that their plan is the best one, right? This really frustrates me to no end because all of the experts are busy debating about which option is best And the people who want to actually improve their lives are just frustrated by all the conflicting information So the end result is that we just don focus and we focused on the wrong things or we you know we take less action or make less progress and we stay basically where we are. And it goes on to say, you know, I think it's time we change that. You know, anytime you find the world sort of waving a chair in your face, remember this, all you have to do is commit to one thing. You know, in the beginning, you don't even have to succeed. You just need to get started. That's the part that most of us don't get. Starting before you feel ready is actually a habit of very successful people. Not waiting until you're ready is a key habit. Most of the time, you know, the ability to get started and commit to a task is the only thing you really need to focus on. Most people just don't. They have trouble doing this. They just have trouble focusing. And, you know, if you've ever tried a task that you absolutely had to get done, you know what happened? You got it done. Maybe you procrastinated, but once you committed to doing it, you just, you just got it done. In other words, making progress in your work, your health, your life, it's about learning how to focus and just concentrate on getting one thing done at a time. And, you know, you do have the ability to focus. You just need to choose what, what direction you want to head and make it happen. Bottom line is, you know, life is not a dress rehearsal. Whether you know it or not, you're already in the ring. You know, we're already in the game. You don't, you're not choosing to get in the game. You're already in the game. We're already there. So most of the time we just sit quietly. We kind of look out there at all our decisions and we're debating about what to do, but it doesn't have to be that way. You know, if you, if, you know, if you have somewhere you want to go, something you want to accomplish, someone that you want to, you want to meet, then just make a decision. If you're clear about where you want to go, the rest of the world will either help you get there or get out of the way. You know, both of those things are progress. So you don't have to do it all at once. You just need to commit to doing one thing and focus on one course until successful. I really believe that we are on a track to help you get some things accomplished in your life. If you will start by creating an attitude of resolve and making that decision, that commitment and having faith, and then creating powerful focus and eliminating the distractions and just finding a way to get started, then you will be well on your way. And that's step two towards creating some massive growth in your life. I hope that's helped you. I hope you've gotten some perspective. I really am excited about the next couple of days that we're going to be going through this, but I'd love to get your feedback. If you want to go to the Daily Mastermind Instagram or Facebook, you can get added to our group. And at the same time, I look forward to hearing from you. And I know that you can do and accomplish great things. You have amazing potential inside you. You just need to get started taking it to the next level or getting started from where you're at. Either way, you can do it. I believe in you and I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. My name is George Wright III with The Daily Mastermind and I look forward to talking with you then.